NieR - Steam Powered Trouble (The Wretched Automatons Remix)

[sschafi1]

Hey there all,

Got another NieR remix for you to listen to. This one is pretty much finished; now I just need new sets of ears to help tweak the details.

This is a retro funk style remix of "The Wretched Automatons", the Junk Heap dungeon theme. I gave it more of a 70s style funk groove and I used the a capella track from the Arranged Tracks album for the vocals. Vocals were used for background voices and the main verse.

As the verse ends, the momentum is carried on by a clean electric guitar solo until the end of the song, with background vocals coming back as accompaniment toward the end.

I mixed everything to the best of my ability, but I'm still an amateur, so I would love some mixing advice for this one before I submit it. I should add that this is my FIRST time mixing anything in this style of music, so please bear with me

Here's the track: [Edit: Updated track in later post]

Thanks for your time!

It would help if I posted the original too, lol.

Edited June 10, 2013 by sschafi1

[V___]

Dont know the original so cant comment on arrangement

On processing though, the elec piano needs to be rebalanced something savage - it stands out too much. Balance overall needs some work, but its minor compared to that elec piano; seriously pull that sucker back!! Compression + -6db mixer, or something

Nice track overall though. I feel like I should be chatting some barfly up.

[sschafi1]

Noted. I have the project loaded in Pro Tools as we speak so I brought it down the level of that E. Piano

Edit: Here's an update. I lowered the volume on the E. Piano and added a little bit of compression. I also corrected the levels of the guitar solo (mainly when there's an accent on a higher note, those stuck out quite a bit too). Lowered the background vocals in the beginning to compensate for the lowered piano as well.

http://tindeck.com/listen/lvcp

Edited June 10, 2013 by sschafi1

[timaeus222]

I used the a capella track from the Arranged Tracks album for the vocals. Vocals were used for background voices and the main verse.

It would probably be better to record your own vocals, rather than use possibly copyrighted vocals from an arrangement album.

[Rozovian]

Cool source. Never really heard anything from NieR except what's been posted on ocr, and that's amongst hundreds of other remixes I haven't really gotten to yet.

Super-fun groove you've got going. Repetition is a bit of a problem. There's also something about the rhythm guitar that bothers me, could be that it doesn't sound like anything fun for a jazz guitarist to play.

But it really hangs on the vocals to carry the track, and that's where the biggest problem lies. If these vocals are from an arrange album, ocr isn't gonna pass the track. You need new vocals for it if you're aiming at ocr, tho nothing's stopping you from using this version wherever else you want.

Another thing is that I don't think the groove and the chords alone are enough to justify the whole length of the track, so you can't just chuck the vocals and sub it as an instrumental... especially with the repetitive groove you've got. It's cool, but it gets old, even with the vocals. You can work on some variations, some build-up and breakdowns, the dynamic structure of the track, dropping out instruments and taking it to a half-tempo part, stuff like that, where appropriate.

So new vocals, more variation and dynamic changes, stuff like that. Cool stuff overall.