djpretzel Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 name : gonzo real name : laurent gonzololo@yahoo.fr http://perso.club-internet.fr/laurent.blanot/index.html Name game : the legend of zelda NAme of the song : 8 worlds of gloom Comments : A collaboration with pianist cedric who did nice improvisations on the dunjon theme of the first zelda. Harps, viola, piano and guitars for this remix. Start with a soft part, then goes heavy and finishes soft again. URL : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nouveau : téléphonez moins cher avec Yahoo! Messenger ! Découvez les tarifs exceptionnels pour appeler la France et l'international. Téléchargez la version beta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda.zip - Track 4 ("Underworld")Ah, "Underworld"; it's actually surprisingly undermixed in this community. Piano coming in was a little muddy for my personal taste, but nothing wrong it; has a good atmosphere for the gloom the arrangement's meant to connote. Given how much piano's in the piece, I'd probably co-credit Cedric. String on top of the piano at :22 felt too clear and upfront compared to the piano, so that they didn't sound like they were even in the same place, but the other string instrument at :43 sat better in the track alongside the vox. Production still felt a little unpolished overall, but seemingly nothing major. I'll listen again on my normal setup, if anything is meaningfully wrong with it. Decent segue into the rock section at 1:05, along with some solid variation on the drums, though the tone/sound in that section was bad, and the timing from 1:23-1:27 felt slightly off. Nonetheless, you were doing a good job adding a lot of personalization and embellishments with the arrangement. 1:49 with that absolutely depressing/wailing guitar lead was pretty hot, and the first point in the track where you played around more with the melody. It continued like that into the harp and Cedric's piano solo sections with lots of enjoyable and genuinely creative arrangement ideas. Strings again at 2:59 felt too clean-sounding and upfront given the contrast with the piano. String seemed to halt a bit too abruptly at 3:28, and the ending cut off at 3:35 instead of fading out nicely. Rough around the edges, but again a minor issue for me given the relative strength of the rest of the instrumentation and arrangement. Enjoyable piece, Laurent, and good luck with the rest of the vote. YES Well, I had this sitting for a while and Vigilante asked me how this could escape my "big production cock" (it is pretty big), so I'm finally relistening on my normal setup now that I've voted on everything else. When I listened to this before, the increased volume on that setup covered up a lot of the problems. It was like bumping up the volume +5db, and indeed it sounds a lot better that way. Vig also had some big issues with the arrangement, saying that it sounded like it has little-to-no structure, but that's completely offbase IMO. The arrangement is pretty cohesive. The way gonzo and Cedric went for several variations here was well-done for the most part. Unfortunately, the production is in fact a very substantial hit. Some old criticisms, some new: The opening piano's pretty muddy and could use some more clarity (though not a dealbreaker). The lead string at :22 needs to sound like it's in the same hall as the piano if the piano's gonna be kept this muddy for the gloomy mood. Transition at 1:05 to the rock section sounded too abrupt now that I hear it again; you gotta introduce some rock instrumentation or something a little earlier to make the transition more fluid. The worst offender on relisten was the percussion from 1:05-2:20. "Slightly off", geez. Too lenient. The writing/patterns were good, but the sound was incredibly lo-fi & tame and the performance sounded REALLY rigid. You just gotta fix it all up. The wailing guitar, you really gotta punch that WAY up and fill up the soundfield to really make it work. It sounded way more emotive when it was louder. During 1:05-2:20 especially (less so for :00-1:05), some EQing work is really needed to spread the sounds out and achieve a better balance. There was also a light pop at 2:02 that needed to be fixed. Remember to fix that hanging string at 3:28 and the fadeout cutting off at 3:25. Smaller but very amateur issues which add up. The last piano/string section was still pretty strong and a great way to end the track. This really does need a production overhaul though. Keep in mind that you guys were doing a lot of good things right which I mentioned in the old vote. But you definitely need to refine the sounds here to really get this sounding good. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 this track is quite sloppy. the piano is dull, the guitars are verby and mushy. the section after 2:30 sounds best, unfortunately there's very little tying the sections together. the guitar section needs to be cleaned up in a big way, tightened up. the idea is definitely solid, but it needs to be more coherent. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I agree that the disparity between the recording quality of the piano vs. the sampled stuff is noticeable and a bit jarring, especially considering the amount of room ambience in the piano recording. I appreciate some of the piano stuff that was going on, for sure, and I think with a slightly better recording (or recorded on a keyboard w/ good samples) it could be a nice focal point. However, the guitars are a bit sloppy in their performance and the lead doesn't stand out much. The drums aren't bad either but they're on the mechanical side, and the bass drum/snare are sort of lost in the mix for the most part. The transition from guitar to piano/harp works in theory but the way it is executed isn't as smooth as possible (timing differences). For whatever reason, when the piano comes back later it actually sounds better than it did at the beginning. To summarize, I liked the piano parts a lot. I think building on those would be a good idea. Also, you don't need to be afraid about adding original material or some new chords to give the piece your own interpretive spin. This isn't a bad mix at all, just polish up the middle section, maybe work on the transitions some more, and perhaps try to integrate some new material as well to keep things interesting. I like the ideas here. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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