Work in progress - Okami megamix

[dmkeshim]

Hey everyone, working on another submission with Crowberus. This has been a work in progress for a long time and has undergone many refinements, but at this point me and StruttingCrow are happy with the results. As it stands, this is a heavy rock/metal megamix of various songs off the Okami soundtrack. The idea behind it was intro/verse/chorus/verse/bridge/chorus/outro where each section was its own mini remix of each song, including Reset, Ryoshima, Shinshuu, and Izanagi. The outro is a change in pace and tempo, we were trying to emulate something along the lines of Black Cat by Cacophany because it just fit so well with the style of music and inspired so much creativity from what we were working with.

Reference materials are here:

Ryoshima -

Shinshuu - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woOelIO6Cmw

Reset - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpuGNH75pUc

Izanagi -

Pretty much, we are just looking for general feedback about the layout of the song, execution of melodies, and the quality of the mixing, and the overall sound. I apologize in advance for the clipping, that is going to be ironed out, along with a few other potential enhancements, before submitting to OCR. Thanks in advance!

https://soundcloud.com/crowberus/work-in-progress-untitled

So, one immediate question off the bat... currently I am using a heavily hacked together triangle for that short jingle sound in Izanagi (it sounds uglier than I want it to), it's present in many other songs on the soundtrack, but I cannot for the life of me find a sound that resembles it, does anyone know where I can find at least a clean sample, what the instrument is called, or something along those lines?

Thanks!

[strutting_crow]

This is the link for the solo that starts at 3:10 (played much faster). Please let me know what you think.

[jnWake]

Mixing needs some more work. Drums and rhytm guitar completely drown the rest of the instruments. Cymbals for example are very loud.

The first section (Ryoshima) sounds very muddy, I can barely identify what the rhytm guitar is playing. Strings are completely drowned in that section by the way. Flute in 0:42 plays a wrong note!

I'm not sure I like the lead tone. I think it would sound better with a bit of a softer tone, this one is too agressive and doesn't blend that well with the flute. The solo also sounds a bit dirty, but I believe that is more because of the mixing rather than the playing.

Arrangement is good, the blend of the different themes is seamless and you picked many of Okami's best themes. The switch to Reset is very good!

With better mixing this would be a pretty good song. Try to balance the rhytm sections better and give some space for the leads to shine!

Also, the change to clean guitars in the ending is great. In fact, I'd love it if you inserted more of this type of changes into the rest of the song

[dmkeshim]

Thanks for the reply, jnWake, that was very helpful. I have updated the link and fixed some minor issues, but it looks like we may need to go back and rework some of the sounds overall, which may take more recording, and then some re-mastering. In the meantime, I've completely redone the ending of the song, as I was really not at all happy with how it turned out the first iteration. I changed up a ton of instruments, added new sounds, and it's about 30 seconds longer. I think the extra length really allows things to sink in and let the atmosphere settle. Same song, so same link, https://soundcloud.com/crowberus/wor...gress-untitled, thoughts?

Edited December 19, 2013 by dmkeshim