djpretzel Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 -CONTACT INFO- REMIXER NAME: Strike911 REAL NAME: Jason Koohi EMAIL : Jason@sanctuslegacy.com WEBSITE: http://strike911.sanctuslegacy.com/ USER ID: 1748 ( i think...) DOWNLOAD SONG HERE (from my website): REMIX NAME: Helena's Trance ReMix Info GAME REMIXED: Dead Or Alive 2 ORIGINAL SONG: Helena's Stage Additional information about game: I don't think this game is on the site yet, I'm unsure of the composer. The game came out on Dreamcast originally and gracedthe PS2, and most recently in the form of Dead or Alive Ultimate, it featured the original song as well. COMMENTS: There wasn't enough DOA2 love. The game has some incredible music. I'm had a tough time remixing this one since the original was almost completely composed of strings, not to mention the time signature was 3:4, but I think it turned out okay. You may notice a little French speaking accenting the remix here and there, and its because the character in the game was French... i thought it was a cool effect. I spent a long time on this one and I really hope its accepted. Thanks a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 9, 2006 Share Posted March 9, 2006 Dead or Alive 2 Original Sound Trax PlayStation 2 Version - (10) "Blazed up Melpomene" Covered this way back in early July for VGF. What took you so long, bro? Liontamer]Strike911 - Dead or Alive 2 "Helena's Trance" [VGMix2 #4388]Jase K’s got some pretty cool trance going on. The grooves are pretty basic, and the production needs some sharpness, but the energy is good, and has some tasteful voice SFX sampling. Not much else to say, but that's not on account of the track being poor at all. Certainly worth that look, and solidly put together for shakin' it in your favorite European club. The excellent tracks from the Dead of Alive series really deserve more attention. Synth tone opening things up was pretty generic, but I had to see where it was going to go from there. I did like the mix going right into the source tune at :13. Immediately, it proved how the original could be a good fit for the trance genre. With the original's melody being strings and the mix being nearly the same with its instrumentation, I was waiting for something else to happen. Strings also could have afforded to be a bit fuller/richer. The melody changed to some more familiar trance synths at :53, which were ok but didn't really stand out from lots of other club music I've heard. Better stuff at 1:47 going for piano on the lead to change things up followed by the woodwind style synth on support at 2:01. Around 2:23 it went into some somewhat awkward comping stuff until 2:40 that seemed REALLY out of place and adversely affected the finish. Overall the arrangement ideas were there, but the overall approach was fairly conservative and could get riskier and more interpretive. The boom-tss beats felt too straightforward and repetitive, going non-stop for a little over 2 minutes. The energy was good, but again somewhat vanilla/cookie cutter for the genre and I think it could be upped a little bit. When it comes to active listening, it's kind of a "failing" of the genre here if you can call it that. Besides zircon, I'd be most interested in bLiNd's feedback on this. If you'd be willing to tinker a little more in terms of either creating some slightly more creative processing, or providing more variation or creativity in the beatwork, or providing further interpretation of the source melody, this would sound all the more dynamic and exiciting. Right now, this is perfectly standard club trance but needs a boost to become more than that. Can you give it that nudge, Jase? I sincerely hope you're willing to revist this. It's some of the your best work ever in the community, I'll say that for sure. NO (refine/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Orichalcon Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Strings sounds subdued, the reverb on them sounds a little beginnerish. I'd be happy if it was a little more upfront. The vocals I can't really make out, not sure if they're really adding anything to the mix there. When we get into the trance of the piece, it sounds pretty good, but there's still the feeling that we're not getting the full force of the piece, like the EQ is a little flat for the genre, or perhaps like the whole thing is lying under a layer of reverb which is killing the sound of the mix. I'd like everything here to be sharper, and the bass to be punchier. With my uneducated technical issues behind, the arrangement is another thing. Very enjoyable, yet rather generic trance. It all fits together fairly well, but as Larry said it's quite conservative, could probably use some more defining synths and mixing. Not necessarily any risky sequencing, just need to "wow" the listener with some cool sounds, which is pretty much what trance is all about. at 3:01, this felt way too short. I'd like to see it lengthened and many more ideas pounded into the mix like eggs in a cake. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I'm not sure that it was the best idea to follow a similar instrumentation and stylistic interpretation as the original (which was in and of itself a driving dance tune with string marcatos and so forth). When the main beat comes in I was a bit surprised at the lack of low and low-mid power. The bass is very "rubbery" but lacks any real presence in those frequencies. Everything else is kind of thin and tinny. The timbres (processing aside) aren't bad, but they aren't anything to write home about either. In fact, overall, most of the sounds here used are pretty textbook synth patches for this style - pretty standard drumbeat too with no percussive variation to speak of. The lead and harmony synths tend to get muddied up very quickly as they're occupying the same frequencies. In my opinion the mixing/mastering as a whole could use some improvement - the ReMixing forum, as you know, is the place to go for advice there. My compression/limiter advice, combined with blind's tips on mastering, should give you a place to start. The arrangement is unfortunately pretty basic. The original had a unique selection of sounds and some driving energy to it. There were numerous changeups including chord changes and melodic variations that you didn't include here. I think that you simplified the original for the worse, I suppose, since a lot of the material there was very cool to begin with. Given the short and repetitive nature of your arrangement (which again, left out material), I would recommend working on that aspect first. Changes to the mastering and production would be secondary in this case, in my opinion, though they are still issues. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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