*NO* Shadow Hearts 'Heart to Heart'

[Liontamer]

I submitted a mix on the 25th of january, I wonder if it's not on the panel because my link to vgmix is down, anyways, I have the submission email:

Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 21:26:43 +0000 (GMT)

From: "Alex Roe" <roea14@yahoo.co.uk> View Contact Details

Subject: shadow hearts remix

To: submissions@overclocked.org

Been a long time since I've done a fresh remix, I had fun, hope you enjoy.

It's a poppy ballad style, strumming guitars, nice sharp drums, thick bass, rhodes and piano for melodies along with some different strings. Tried to give it interesting ideas for the short time I aimed for, like little breaks in the melody, and just a very mellow upbeat feeling. Cheers.

Yeah, hope you can do something about this. Cheers for your vote on my Chrono cross mix btw, I really don't know why I keep trying to keep working up that old song, hopefully newer mixes will be in the works. YUNOWAMSAYIN' NIGGA'? Yeeeah fo'rizzle ohn ya. ...

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/ShadowHearts_psf2.rar - 125 "Alice"

Played this on VGF77, so it's a solid enough listen sure, but there were still issues. Decent intro already arranging the source material; it's an interesting spin on it. Keeps the source tune's drab feel while slowly building to something happier.

Wasn't really feeling the tone of the snare here at :33. Felt like you needed something more subdued and less punchy there to work well with the other sounds, but we'll see how the others feel. It would probably be a non-issue simply by pulling it back some.

The sound balance among the acoustic guitar synth, e-piano-type deal, drums and occasional strings was rather messy at times. Everything still has the problem of things fighting it out to occupy the same space in the soundfield and the listener's ear. It sounds better after multiple listens, but still needs to be sorted out.

I generally like the writing and the instrumentation ideas, and the "performance" aspect of the track sounds a lot better handled than in past attempts at sequencing real-sounding instruments. Maybe it's just me, but on writing alone I thought the piece was a reasonable pass. I liked the job it managed to do overhauling such a miserable sounding original to a more upbeat style, and for 3:16-long it's saying what it needs to say with the quick and dirty.

But with instruments fighting for space on more than one occasion, the melody's no longer a focal point and the piece seems to lack direction as a result. Again, the instruments have gotta be working with each other, not against. Minor note, but you gotta also watch the volume for stuff like the percussion at 1:41 & 2:48.

Somewhat similar criticisms to your Chrono Cross mix regarding the sound balance/placement, only not quite as drastic as the production wasn't nearly as messy. Still needs some work though, Alex. Nonetheless, you continue to improve and it shows. I wouldn't change anything about this on the arrangement side. I'd simply say focus on reworking the balance and placement of the sounds so they occupy their own space and allow the melodic material to provide the track's direction and focus. Once you get those production aspects working in your favor, the whole piece will sound more cohesive. Could snag some YESs, so good luck with the rest of the vote.

NO (borderline/resubmit)

[JJT]

I agree with all of larry's criticisms, but I'm giving this a YES

Good, interesting arrangement, and great instrumentation. I loooooove a rhodes when its used effectively. If only it wasn't so dry. I'd suggest giving it a little more sustain and some reverb.

The tone on that snare isn't great, but the drum programming is enough to make up for it, IMO.

If this doesn't pass (which is likely) tighten the production up a little, make your piano and keyboard samples a little less dry and you should be golden. As Larry said, watch the volume on those symbol crashes.

Anyway, I dig.

[Vig]

I'm borderline on this. Sure, there are production intricacies that could be better, but there's nothing too egregious about the production. The groove as a whole is great, the strings and ELP are smooth. but the second 2 minutes of the song are fairly monotonous, with the only variation being a violin solo, which really doesnt work at all. It sounds incredibly tacked-on. I say work a bit on the ending, get rid of the violin, and make a more clear or exciting climax, and it's a yes. for now,

NO

[The Orichalcon]

The acoustic (or whatever it is) guitar bothers me the most here. The strumming sounds rather robotic to me, since there's a lot of focus on the strumming it's a lot more noticeable. While it's better than most people would manage when programming guitar strums, it still sounds a little too fake to me.

When the percussion came in, it sounded a little too loud compared to the rest of the song. As it went on though, it became more fitting, but I think it could be toned down so it's not so loud overall. Some parts got really overbearing as Larry pointed out.

Suggestions from me would be to concentrate some more on the bass end of the piece. There's not a lot there. You focus on a lot of high end stuff like the strumming, piano, EP, violin and percussion, but there's one solitary and lonely bassline plucking away in the bottom of the mix. How about a cello? Or contrabass? It'd fill those gaps in the mix.

Good arrangement. Once again it's just the production of the mix that's letting it down. Work on what some of the other judges suggestions and maybe it'll be a go on the resubmit

NO

[zircon]

The source tune here is really pretty basic and simplistic, but there's lots of material to build off of. Let's see what Roe did with it..

Alright, pretty cool groove going on; the combination of the keys, drums, and guitar is good. I like the part interaction there. In terms of production values this is cleaner than a lot of Roe's previous stuff. I appreciate that aspect. The percussive sequencing is also markedly better. However everything seems a little tilted towards the mids-highs. There's not a lot of bass presence, even from the string pads. In fact it's difficult to discern much bass at all. This unfortunately makes the whole thing sound somewhat thin and lower fi than it should. Not sure what happened to the low-end here but try to work on that. That issue aside I did not really hear any problems with the mixing. No other production problems at all as a matter of fact.

The arrangement is a really tough call for me. To me it's JUST about there. It doesn't have all that much movement, but it does have a good amount of interpretation, and the structure isn't really all that bad either (there is a definite intro, middle, end, etc). While I think it sits right on the border, I think it's barely enough to pass our bar. Given that I have no major production complaints I'm going to go ahead and give this a

YES

[GrayLightning]

This is really nice stuff. One of roetaka's best works yet.

I think the arrangement is generally good and arguably there. Roe finally does a good job with those ritardandos. Nice surprise there. I'd like to see a little more polish in the vein of the structure and some tweaking with the violin sequencing to clean it up.

Drums sound ugly in the way you processed it and overly loud. It sounds over eq'd especially the hats. I think you can use another snare or layer the snare with another snare tone. Good use of supplementing percussion like the panning bell trees, sleighbells are a nice touch too.

Generally good sequencing of the piano and guitar.

I don't like the production. Everything sounds cluttered in one little small space. Everything sounds pasted together with no dimension. I think you can use small doses of reverb to place your instruments and give it more space, width and breathing room. I would like to see this implemented so it doesn't sound like one big wall of sound coming from one dimension.

I'm almost yes on this, but I'd like to request a possible resub from you. Just a little more polish! very borderline NO.