DragonAvenger Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 (edited) Artist name : Vey Real Name : Benjamin Harvey Remix on youtube : Game : Legend of Zelda Marjora's Mask Arrangement Name : The Monkey and the King Orginal song name : Deku Palace Orignial composer : Koji Kondo Original song : Edited December 13, 2013 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 (edited) This opened up very similar to the original, only going for more intensity once the beats came in. Whoa... the padding at :16 absolutely swamped the string lead and everything else. It's a cool idea; unfortunately, the soundscape is just massively imbalanced. :34 moved into more of an electro feel; the lead synth there was grating and and needed a sharper, more focused sound (if that makes sense). That said, I do like the personalization employed here, even if the countermelodic writing was a bit swampy. Cool clearing of the soundscape at 1:26 leading into the source chorus. The energy escalated again at 1:44, showcasing some relatively basic but solid dynamic changes. Again, the verse at 2:01 sounded kind of flooded with the way the lead was processed, but it was serviceable. Really odd (read: briefly messed up) rhythmic variation around 2:26 that could stand to be tweaked. The arrangement was relatively straightforward as far as the treatment of the source's structure, and I thought the sound design was on the vanilla side with the more electronic side of this, which I honestly didn't like and though undermined the quality of the arrangement. Still, this arrangement had the fundamentals down as far as personalizing the sound and building an engaging enough interpretation. Much of the melody :31-1:27 & 2:00-3:08 was bordering on abrasive, IMO, and needed to be toned down, and I could see NOing this on needing more effectively dynamic contrast and more creative synth design. I'm on the borderline, and it's not even really my cup of tea, but I felt the original supporting writing in particular during the melody was smartly written. Even during the bridge, there was subtle but well-handled original writing underneath the source melody that pieced together with the melody well. There's room for improvement on the production side, and the volume actually hurt this, but why make the perfect the enemy of the good here? I can (barely) go in favor of it. If this doesn't make it as is, that's OK, Benjamin, then work to improve the production and send it back. You need a 192kbps or VBR1 encoding anyway, which would help improve the sound quality (just) a touch. YES (dancing on the borderline) Edited November 1, 2013 by Liontamer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 I think the arrangement here works pretty well, and the countermelodies you have are great, but I think the production issues are too much for a pass as-is. Definitely cleaning out the muddiness and adjusting your volumes will make this track shine a lot more. A couple things I'd suggest for future submissions is to do a little more with the main melody line and the structure. There was just a touch of variation I heard near the end of the main line that I thought was pretty fun, and you can expand your options when you open up to more like that. Really want you to clean this up and send it back in! NO (resubmit, please) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 That lead is killing me. I know what kind of sound you're going for but honestly it's too much. Especially around :50 with that massive wall of sound there. I love your rhythmic variations and general approach to the arrangement, but the sound design on the electronic stuff is so bright and splashy that's it's bordering on abrasive. NO, resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 I really enjoyed the arrangement on this, but the sound balance isn't where it needs to be yet. SOme of the synths are a little too piercing, and with some EQ shaping they'd be in line, but a decent amount of work needs to happen to this to pass. I'd check intot he individual crits the other judges have given, and run it by the workshop crew as well to get the bolts tightened a bit, because the arrangement was really fun and cool. No, please resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 first thing: that drum is tuned to the major7th of the key. Tune it up one half step. Sonically, you've got some cool aggressive sounds. The problem is that all your aggressive sounds sound exactly the same. There's a wall of sound, but there's no character to any of the sounds, and there's no sonic variety, so it just seems very static. You've got to make your elements different in order to pull off that dense drop type thing. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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