DragonAvenger Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 (edited) Remixer Name: Darangen Real Name: Michael Boyd Email: Website: www.darangen.com UserID: 8948 URL to Remix: Game: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom Songs: Fear and Courage (sometimes known as The Final Decisive Battle) Original Soundtracks: Comments: I've done this theme so many times, but I still get so many ideas for it... Anyway, this is a more laid back interpretation of the song. I was experimenting with the idea of having a phrase that was maintained pretty much through the duration of the song, only being modified slightly to match the chord progression. I like how it turned out, though I know it's not everyone's favorite musical idea. Either way, I learned from the experience and that's what really matters. As always, I hope you enjoy it as well! -Michael 'Darangen' Boyd Edited March 6, 2014 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 I wish the acoustic guitar was a little louder in the mix and had a slightly larger reverb trail at the beginning, but I am really enjoying the moody electric arpeggio. The mood changes up and the lead playing there is really nice; very expressive and confident, while still maintaining the pensive atmosphere. I think there could be a touch more variety in the arpeggio throughout, but there is a lot of care in mixing it up, and the atmosphere and mood is really solid here. There's a tiny bit of overcompression in the cymbal hits when things are full on rocking, but overall I feel it's a minor detriment to a song that otherwise has a ton of character. I'm on board! Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted December 22, 2013 Share Posted December 22, 2013 Oh man, I feel like this one is super-close. I love the arrangement, for the most part, and I like the compressed feel, personally. I like the tone you're using, and I like those little synth bits in the background. I'm still thinking resub on this one, though. Why is that? It's mainly because of one simple thing: drum realism. The sequencing, while pretty well done in terms of velocity writing, is still clearly locked to the grid. Get this humanized a bit, and it'll have the loose, gritty feel that the guitars are giving off so nicely. I'd also recommend not just sticking to 16th notes for some of your snare rolls--get some 32nd note ghosts in there or something, as a real drummer would get bored playing that slowly really quickly. Finally, drums-wise, there are spots where your drummer is playing with three hands at once--crash cymbal, snare, and hi-hat. Gotta fix that. I'd also love to see something a bit more exciting than the fade-out ending, cos it felt an awful lot like a cop-out to me. Maybe do a drum build-up to ending with a bang or something, I dunno. Anyways. Get those drums straightened out and I'm ready to sign off on this one! NO (resubmit, please!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I'm finding that backing riff a little repetitive, but I know that's what you are going for, and you varied the instrumentation on it so I'm ok with that. I have to agree with Flex about the mechanical sounding drumming, and it is especially apparent against the organic instrumentation (wouldn't stand out as much in an electronic track). The snare is the worst offender since every hit is the same, and the snare is a touch woody for my taste. That choir sounds incredibly fake, which would be ok but it sounds distractingly dissonant to me at some points between about 1:21-1:40, maybe it is the writing, or maybe due to too long a release or too much reverb, or a bit of all of these factors. The piano also sounds a bit mechanical when it begins playing the backing phrase at 1:48-2:00. The velocities are varied enough, but the notes hit right on the grid each time. It is most noticeable there since it is totally exposed. I'm thinking instead of moving notes (which may sound worse), maybe some sort of light drum fill or even some nice cymbal splash would hide that a bit there. And yeah, fadeout ending! Ggggrrr. Not a fan of those at all. Regardless, nice arrangement, great guitar performances, and generally well mixed. Couple of little tweaks and it's there for me. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 I can always count on Mike to bring some moody guitar music to the table, and there's a lot to like about this track. The intro is really sweet, especially those little fragments of acoustic guitar. I'd like those to peek out a little more - too much the space was taken up by the electric guitar riff. The snare work that you added after that was nice, but the timing of the electric guitar started to go off. It sounded like you looped it, and towards the end of the loop, it got off track. Not a huge deal though. When the main song kicked in at 1:48 is when I started hearing bigger problems. First off, the piano is very mechanical, possibly overcompressed. All the notes hit at the same volume and there's no space in it. The electric guitar in the intro had a similar treatment, but for some reason sounded more natural than the piano. The main drum pattern is also in kind of a no-mans land, where it doesn't sound quite fake enough to be a hip-hop kind of loop, but doesn't sound varied enough over the course of the song to be real drums. I also think there was too much reliance on that one background riff and it wore over the song. Consider dropping it out for a few measures here and there. Your awesome lead guitar there can more than carry the song for a while. The ending was its own kind of strange. You introduced a new section with some heavier guitar and drums every couple measures, but it sounded like it was leading into something else. Instead it faded out. I didn't think it was a very strong way to end the song - having one super heavy section followed by a sparse fadeout outro is one option that I think would have worked better. I also liked Flex's suggestion of getting into the 32nd notes here and there on the hi-hat for some added energy and realism. There's some good ideas here, but on the whole, it needs further refinement. I don't hear a particularly strong direction for this song and it could use more detail work. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 Really liked the approach with the slowed down electric guitar notes to start things off. Acoustic is fighting a bit to be heard against the electric with some of the notes, but not terribly so. 1:00 is where things start to get shaky. Very stiff drum pattern on top of looser guitar performances. Some of the choir notes sound like they're clashing with the rest of the track - specifically in the male voices. Even though it's not loud, it sounds cluttered to me. 2:00 sounded stronger to me, perhaps because it didn't have the backing parts that hurt 1:00. Minor point: felt like drums could be a tad brighter in tone as it comes off dull in relation to the other elements. Fadeout ending works as is, but personally would've liked to hear it actually resolve. Overall, I'm definitely digging the approach to the original you've taken here. I just think things need to be further tightened up. NO resubmit, please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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