*NO* Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 'JT Club Mix'

[Liontamer]

Name: JT

Real Name: Jeff Barnes

E-mail:

Website: http://soundcloud.com/user4393066

Forum User ID: 48201

Name of Game: Zelda Ocarina Of Time

Name of Arrangement: JT Club Mix

Name of Song: Lost In The Woods

Source for the track and remix was my brain.

Remix was inspired by loved ones, friends, and my general love for music.

Edited April 4, 2013 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Liontamer]

Pretty stock trance opening with some very scant references to the source. Practically nothing from the source until 1:49. Nothing wrong with that approach as long as most of the arrangement uses the source tune, which it comes close to doing (but doesn't because of the long open & close and the gap of original material from 3:24-3:51). You're going to need to incorporate some more Zelda in the intro or outro, though drastically cutting those down would also ensure more than 50% of the arrangement refers to the source tune.

The arrangement ended up being a somewhat by-the-numbers club trance adaptation. Doing anything else melodically with it would have been welcome. Mixing-wise, when the source melody was in play, it didn't standout in the foreground, instead competing among the other synths and muddy effects going on from 2:10-3:07. 2:40-3:07 was the most poorly mixed area, with a lot of parts occupying the same frequency range, and thus stepping over each other. The plucked strings from 3:07-3:19 were extremely fake, but couched well enough behing other parts to not expose them too much and contribute a good sound to things. 3:24 had some decent original writing ideas, before going back to the source at 3:51. I liked the original writing added in from 4:04-4:18.

The big thumping beat is cool in principle, but got tired over the long haul. Most of the time, it's either THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP at one volume or nothing at all. The others beats are quiet enough that they don't really contribute much. Creatively employ some variation with the intensity of layered, supporting beats or at least something to spice it up.

After the wind-down at 4:52, the song really needed to have ended ay 5:19, and the wind-down took way too long. I get the purpose of it, and I'm fine with it within reason for a standalone track. FFmusic Dj employed the same kind of build and finish, though his were shorter and more substantive than this.

IMO, the melodic arrangement needs to be more creative and less plain, you need to re-EQ some of the middle sections for clarity, and you have to cut down the intro and outro before this would have a shot. It's not a horrible track or anything, but it lacks mixing polish and the arrangement is too basic, even though it's going in the right direction.

NO

[Vig]

Nothing here is very bad at all, but this track is rather cookie-cutter. You got the default trance instrumentation doing the default groove. There's no rhythmic variation or harmonic interpretation. You could have thrown any melody over this groove. Nice start, but you need to make the music your own.

NO

[DarkeSword]

IMO, the melodic arrangement needs to be more creative and less plain, you need to re-EQ some of the middle sections for clarity, and you have to cut down the intro and outro before this would have a shot. It's not a horrible track or anything, but it lacks mixing polish and the arrangement is too basic, even though it's going in the right direction.

That just about sums it up for me. Personally I really like a lot of the ideas here but like Larry says, some of the mixing is not great and the source usage needs to be bumped up a bit.

I don't think Vig's assertion that it's "cookie cutter" really brings it down; trance is a genre that's got its own characteristics just like rock or symphonic. To do a straight genre adaptation is not necessarily bad, and I think this does a good job of working towards a great genre adaptation.

NO, resub