Jump to content

Mega Man & Sonic the Hedgehog - Blue Bomber Blue Blur Collision Competition


DarkeSword
 Share

Recommended Posts

so everyone says my two hour mix is without energy, bare, and no one has voted for it.

R3X0i.jpg

it was originally a dirge, but it wasn't really working with the sonic spinball theme (stupid cheery music :P) so I guess its a slow march. Also there are no free bagpipe vsts. none. So I made use of the crap vsts I have atm (they sound soooooo baaaaaaad). Thanks for the nice comments tho, guys, I do appreciate them :) I also have no idea what improvements Rex hears but whatevs :P

I've been in the woods for the last five days so I might punch another quickie out this week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it was originally a dirge, but it wasn't really working with the sonic spinball theme (stupid cheery music :P)
I worked out a couple of measures of the melody of my Toxic Caves idea before the compo started, just to juggle ideas. I think you'll find it... interesting, in the light of this comment.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't have time for decent reviews this time, but I'll share some quick thoughts.

Cosmic Sounds: Similar to your last entry. I feel the instruments are better sequenced this time. I think you could do more with Aquatic Base though, it is a great song with an amazing mood and some interesting chords that I believe you haven't used yet.

Tuberz: Nice tune, I like the part with Burst Man's main melody. Rocking! I feel the drums could be a bit more powerful and that the bass could be louder too. In general, the low end seems to lack some power. Also, not much Prison Lane this time (and you repeated the same exact riff from Round 1 :-P)!

Mr. L - Once again, a pad! This is a very ambient track, sounds good. Main critique is that some leads feel very forced, which is why you put them in the background I guess. I'd really like to hear something in a different style from you, most of your tracks have a very similar vibe... The pads are awesome though, what do you use to build them?

ZeroTheMaster - Quite an unusual style for a Sonic/Mega Man mix! Main problem I have with this is that the instruments are too synthetic and don't really give a march feeling. Also, as therex said, the soundscape is a bit bare, there aren't many lows.

therex - This is unexpected :-P. Percussions are fun as are the brass fills with the Toxic Caves bass. Bass is a bit drowned by the rest of the instruments and it makes the section beggining at 0:55 feel a bit "toneless". Flute section is a bit unfitting imo, too cutesy when compared when the rest of the song.

MindWanderer - Instruments are better this time! The horns are a bit low (and some notes may be off key) though. The arrangement is good, but it's usually a bit hard to mix this kind of songs in a slow orchestra style, not every melody fits that kind of arrangement. Arrangement feels a bit long too (and that flute note at 3:21 sounds terrible!).

Cash and Change - Drum sound could use a longer reverb, it sounds slightly strange now. The part where bass enters at 0:32 is quite cool. Marble melody sounds a bit waltz-y with the new rhytm :-P. Section at 1:25 kills the mood a bit, the snare doesn't sound that good here. The higher pitched synths you used are nice. Song could use a pad, but it is cool anyway!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

REVIEWS FOR BOTH ROUNDS!

I apologize for the obnoxious, stream of thought format.

Round 1

Yami

-nice atmosphere

-build up was too long

-abrupt ending

-sources are recognizable

Tuberz

-nice guitar work

-a bit repetitive

-love the breakdown at 2:21

-rockin arrangement, sources are integrated well

Mr. L

-I'm feeling the beat

-drums are pretty generic though

-cool atmosphere going with the pads

-lead synth was a bit harsh in the high end, too much of a "ringing" sound

-source usage is nicely done, good integration I'd say

jnWake

-I like the jazzy/funk feel

-the reverby electric piano was cool

-pretty good instruments choices overall

-yep, I'm hearing both sources

therex

-the modulating panning goes overboard

-the instrumentation feels very raw, needs more fine tuning in the EQ department

-sonic palette is overall harsh

-sources are easily recognizable

MindWanderer

-I like the source arrangement, nicely done

-the fake guitar is well...very fake

-that eastern string is sounding robotic to me, could use more humanization

-I think the drums are too far in the background, they could stand to be stronger

Cosmic Sounds

-I like the feel of this one, dark but with a bit of hope

-instrumentation works, but the piano sounds like it may have a bit much reverb

-creative source usage, well done

Me (C&C)

-well...it's basically a piece of crap

-I smashed the sources together without thought, production also sucked

-the main reason was I didn't leave myself enough time; I was working on Remixing With the Stars, and then my brother's graduation

Round 2

Cosmic Sounds

-opening string is very fake sounding, mechanical

-the orchestral instrumentation is well done, after the intro

-overall, pleasent and enjoyable

Tuberz

-definitely more subdued than your round 1 entry, but I like it

-good guitar work as usual, I would say the synths are the main weak point, and maybe the drums could be stronger

jnWake

-I'm digging your synth choices, the piano is pretty cool as well

-I can't really find any major flaws production wise

-I had trouble picking out Turbo Man

Mr. L

-nice intro, and I'm enjoying the atmosphere

-drums feel a little weak, as well as repetitive

-great job with the sources, it feels like one song

Zerothemaster

-the brass sample is not very good, sounds way too fake, needs more humanization, it's a big issue because it dominates the whole track

-aside from that, everything else seems okay

-I can't hear Toxic Caves

therex

-brass here works fairly well

-trumpet is descent, though I think it could use some more humanization, and perhaps more attention to EQ

-I like the title, it defintely fits the style nicely

-sources are handled well

MindWanderer

-I'm not too hot on the instrumentation, sample quality isn't the greatest

-I think more could be done to mask the quality, mostly in the EQ department

-arrangement works for the most part, but I'm still having a hard time picking out Marble Zone, even after seeing your source breakdown

Me (C&C)

-soundscape is mostly too bare, like rex said

-I was obsessed with the arrangement this time around, I put a ton of effort into integrating the two sources together, I think it turned out pretty good

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ Edit: Thanks for the comments / reviews, Cash and Change! :D

Mr. L - Once again, a pad! This is a very ambient track, sounds good. Main critique is that some leads feel very forced, which is why you put them in the background I guess. I'd really like to hear something in a different style from you, most of your tracks have a very similar vibe... The pads are awesome though, what do you use to build them?

:smile: Sorry about the 'pad as intro' thing. That is actually something that started 2 years ago due to a comment on one of my earlier mixes.

The piano in the background was repeating the 3rd part of Turbo Man's melody. The arpeggio was just the pad... arpeggiated. The middle was an experiment in taking small parts of the basslines of Turbo Man and Chrome Gadget Zone, respectively, and seeing how they sounded. And, of course, the 2nd part of Turbo Man's melody was repeated a lot. 8) Heck, a part of his first melody was a bassline for the first part. I did say that he drove this mix forward, after all. ;)

To answer your question about the pads - I'm glad you like them! - I layered two pads from two different banks in Synth1 (I use it in almost every mix):

Electricity (from bwwd's Pad Bank)

Warm Pad (from Kaiyoti Bank 1)

Finally, about the same vibe - hope I can do something about that with these next three entries (since my current one's pretty much on its way now). I'm not very knowledgeable about many genres, but I've been listening to all kinds to get a feel for how they flow... but no success, yet...

One change, though, is that if my ideas actually work out - this current entry is the last one that'll use the piano for the rest of this competition.

Thank you for the comments! :smile:

On another note, I really enjoyed everyone's entries this round - great job, everyone!

Edited by Mr. L
Link to comment
Share on other sites

therex - This is unexpected :-P. Percussions are fun as are the brass fills with the Toxic Caves bass. Bass is a bit drowned by the rest of the instruments and it makes the section beggining at 0:55 feel a bit "toneless". Flute section is a bit unfitting imo, too cutesy when compared when the rest of the song.

Yeah, that second section is where I hit a wall and it suffers because of it. As for the flute I had wanted a jazz flute for some kick but I didn't have the sample and I went with a normal flute instead, which didn't turn out so hot.

My mix is hopefully almost done after tonight. Xarn, how's yours goin?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Zerothemaster

-the brass sample is not very good, sounds way too fake, needs more humanization, it's a big issue because it dominates the whole track

-aside from that, everything else seems okay

-I can't hear Toxic Caves

I only have one brass sample and its utter shit, if someone can recommend a better sounding one thats free hit me up

good i guess

1:00 to 1:47ish the lead is the beassline to toxic caves. seriously rex that song has like nothing to work with :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have no clue where to post this question, so I might as well post it here.

Does anyone know how to get a semi-colon ( : ) into the title of your song?

I've seen it in other songs on this site, but don't know how to put it in my own title (it keeps saying "not a valid title" whenever I try).

Quick question: did you mean the colon character - :? :-)

If you meant the semicolon character - ; - you can use that, yes.

If not...

To answer your question, when entering metadata into your file with a program such as Mp3tag - you can put pretty much any character you want in the 'Title' field.

However, in regards to the actual filename of your audio file, you can't use the following characters (at least, in Windows):

<, >, :, ", /, \, |, ?, *

More than likely, someone had their file named 'My Remix - Part 1.mp3' (just as an example), but tagged its Title field with 'My Remix: Part 1'.

Hope that helps! :smile:

(Also, another place to post this would've probably been the Help & Newbies forum)

---

On topic: I guess I'm about as finished as I'll ever be with this week's entry! There's still a part I'm a bit 'hmm...' over, but, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it...

So, I'm just listening over it a few times to make sure I didn't miss anything glaringly obvious (even though I probably will, anyway).

Also, this one has the lowest BPM I've ever tried @ 75 BPM.

---

Edit:

Entry submitted!

Neptune / Chrome Gadget Zone at 75 BPM is quite interesting!

As for source usage, the piano is playing Neptune (except near the end of the mix at around 2:59), and the synths are playing Chrome Gadget Zone's Melody B and C (or, in one case, the chords that accompany Melody B). Hope that helps! :)

And, win or lose, it was an honor competing against you, Zerothemaster! :)

Looking forward to everyone's entries tomorrow!

Edited by Mr. L
Condensed post.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Entry Submitted! :)

@Mr.L: Thanks, it worked when I tried it in Audacity, but then I realized that I'd be sending it in as a .wav , so I asked Darke to do that. Oh, and I did mean a colon xD.

Also, I'm glad that I gave you some ideas for when you revisit your Round 2 song. Mario Kart 7 is a soundtrack that I like as well.

@NovaReaper: Good Luck to you as well. :)

@jnWake: I utilized some of the chords that I haven't used yet in this entry. Thanks for the critiques.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just sub'd. Source is integrated very deliberately, so here's the breakdown:

:01-:10 Sonic Spinball intro should be obvious

:09 FMish bass plays a variation on the intro of Quick Man

:19 Chip lead plays Main Melody of Quick Man, vocoder does the Sonic Spinball intro rhythm, all of the previous stuff is still playing

:37 Sonic Spinball Main Melody while everything else plays in the background

:55 variation of the two basses from before (quick man and Sonic intro)

1:03 Chip lead plays the groovy bassline of Sonic Spinball for two bars and then goes into a variation of the Quick Man melody that's hard to spot if you aren't listening for it.

1:32 is ridiculous soloing with all of the source stuff backing it.

Hope that helps, and sorry in advance for the somewhat short track - I was up late last night and wanted it done XD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1:32+ ?!!? Bahahaha, my track is done QUICKER. Take that, therex!

It's not much, but at least I actually subbed something this week. Actually, I'm really happy with what I did get done. I wish I could have developed it further, but I'm just way too slow...

More importantly, this and the little WIP I managed last week are the most (and best) work I've done in over a year, so I'm really glad to be ANY degree of productive again. :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...