djpretzel Posted April 14, 2006 Share Posted April 14, 2006 Contact Info o USERNAME: Bod o REAL NAME: Rob Westwood o E-MAIL: minty_tim_666@hotmail.com o WEBSITE: http://www.robwestwood.com/ o USERID: 21440 ReMix Info o GAME: Kirby Super Star, o ORIGINAL SONG: Gourmet Race Stage 1, 3, o INFORMATION: I've always liked orchestrations of retro games songs. I've been composing original soundtracks for games and films for a few years now and I felt it was nice to hark back at older pieces like this and turn them into something fun, sounding like it might if it were redone now a days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=kss - "Gourmet Race Stage 1, 3" (kss-27.spc) Like me, many people really know this from Smash Bros. rather than the original game. Any reason why I can't find any information on you on MobyGames or IMDB? Oh well, one starts small and moves onto bigger things. Arrangement seems on point. I thought DarkeSword would be all over this already. Great genre adaptation going on in terms of the writing. Samples could sound richer and lend more emotiveness to the piece. Good crafting of tension at 1:48 for a nice change of pace. It's good to see this piece not necessarily be happy-go-lucky syrupy crud. Piece goes for a bigger last section at 2:42. Not really as grandiose in execution as you were trying to go for, as I felt the soundfield felt a bit empty most of the way through, but GrayLightning would be a better judge of that. Nice stuff at 3:10 as well working the xylophone or whatever percussion that was; you had some good instrumentation ideas throughout to keep things from getting stale. Vox entering at 3:23 was a good idea, though sounded somewhat robotic, and more importantly swamped the soundfield when it didn't have to. Solid work, Rob, and I'm looking forward to hearing more of your material in the future. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted May 2, 2006 Share Posted May 2, 2006 Pretty nice first section here. However, :45 through 1:47 or so is really lacking in energy or development. I was hoping for a strong sort motif or melody there but there was none. The marcato strings tended to be overbearing also. 2:25 things START to pick up, but the texture is still really minimal and I feel again that there's too much of a reliance on the marcato strings, which aren't even very interesting to begin with. 2:44 brings a rather abrupt tempo change, in my opinion, and as Liontamer noted, things aren't very grandiose here. There's a lot of sustained notes and very few rhythmic patterns which leaves the general soundscape feeling more like a "bed" or a "pad" if anything. It's only at 3:11 where that begins to change, but the brasses are on the muddy side there so you can't really here the nice staccatos. The ending is rather sudden and feels like it just peters out. Overall I feel like this is somewhat rushed. I think it could use more polish in several areas before it can pass our bar. Most importantly I think you need to work on making a logical structure and one that has more movement and dynamics. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrayLightning Posted May 3, 2006 Share Posted May 3, 2006 Great intro! I agree the section at :45-1:47 felt dead. It's like you couldn't figure out what to do, you have the cello/db's playing marcattos but everything else long sustains. It just felt lifeless. I'd say get rid of the marcs there, and all low end instruments should play legato or sustains there. I also agree there's too much reliance on the marcatto in the string sections considering how empty the first parts are. If the tempo were faster or if there was more going on, it could work, but for slower passages one has to be careful on how this is executed and in what context, in this, I think it needs a bit of tweaking. Orchestration in general is good. But the problem is there aren't many parts being played by other instruments until the end, which is all fine and good, if your parts are rich enough for the individual instruments. But when so little is going on in the beginning, it just sounds vacant. I would rework the chords in that area and at least make the strings play more of a prominent role all around. I don't agree things are necessarily muddy here, it's a side effect of the huge reverb you have going on here, and I think it works wonderfully. Very dark and large european sound. I would focus on adding more elements in the beginning to supplement the fast violin and dbass notes. The last passages and ending were good in my book. Needs a bit more polish to make this really over the top for me, close though, but borderline NO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 ...there's too much of a reliance on the marcato strings... Pretty much sums it up. There's a lot of emptiness throughout the piece that's a result of your samples essentially being all staccato/marcato. It gets really old after a while. The section at the very end with the major key section was nice, but it was too little too late. It felt like a really watered down version of what we've heard from the Orchestral Game Concert/Super Smash Bros. arrangement of the theme. Much too basic. This piece needs more dynamics and contrasting sections to really make it work, as well as more attention paid to filling out your parts, like the middle voices. The piece as it is comes across as scant. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Orichalcon Posted May 11, 2006 Share Posted May 11, 2006 This reminds me of Tchaikovsky's music. Especially the quieter section. Which relies more on getting the melody accross in bits and pieces, rather than with bigger climactic sections all together. Either way, there's no ballet going on to distract one from the shoddy production on the samples used. The reverb has this awful muddy feeling over it making the string, bass strings, drum sample, everything flood together and creative a very muddy, unclear and unpleasant soundscape. I'd say your arrangement is fine the way it is. The quieter section is actually quite nice, though it could be a bit more involved, it's really the production that's killing the feel of that section. Fix up the problems with the production, and you might have a winner here. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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