King Dedede Remix - What do you think?

[Sparkyrogers]

Hi everyone. I recently submitted an arrangement of the King Dedede theme to the panel. What do you guys think of it? It was my first time mixing and mastering a track, so how do you think I did with that? Constructive criticism is welcome. ^.^

https://soundcloud.com/sparkyrogers/a-quick-brawl-king-dedede

Edited January 8, 2014 by Gario
A more descriptive title would garner more attention, so let me help you out, there.

[Gario]

Well, since you've submit it already, a MOD REVIEW won't do you much good, but I'll give you one anyway so perhaps you can fix the track up and be ready for the feedback you'll get when you get this from the J's.

Overall, this actually isn't bad at all. It's not perfect, and it has it's rough patches, though, so I don't think it'll make it as it stands. No worries - I'll give you a nice overview of what's likely to be said, so you can get something in to them that will pass as soon as you can.

The first and most noticeable thing about this arrangement is the volume level. If a song doesn't match the volume level of the rest of the tracks on a site then it doesn't sound good when it comes on a music player with the other music from the site. You'll need to figure out a way to raise the levels across the board on your instruments without causing too much clipping in the process (that's the trick, isn't it?).

At 1:47, that melody just jumps out at you. Oddly enough, that's probably the right level to be at, but you need to raise everything else to that level so it doesn't just jump out like that.

The piano part at 2:04, while cool, does seem to drag on after the first few iterations. If you want to keep it in there for that long for the sake of structure, do be sure to give it that piano line some more variation. It's cool, but it gets annoying after the third or forth repetition.

These are... actually minor complaints, and they even might be easily fixed. You'll likely get a NO - RESUB from the Judges because of it, but at least you'll know what to expect. I had a lot of fun listening to this, though, and it's really quite good as it is. I hope this helps you out some, man, and I do hope when you resub that I'll see it on the front page someday.

[Kanohi]

If I could toss some input to go along with that~

Being Drum and Bass, the Drums need to be super spot-on for it to sound good. I love your arrangement for the Drums, but some of the samples themselves are a tad lacking.

The kick sounds like some of the default kicks in FLStudio, which isn't a bad thing but I think it needs some of its own power. Something to make it punch out. It sounds more like a Trance/Electro kick right now (at least in my opinion).

The Snare is awesome, but it needs more of a low end, I'm thinking. It's punchy, but just a tad too high to match the kick right now.

Gario already talked about a lot of the melody stuff being not matched in volume, so I don't really need to touch on that.

Overall, catchy and fun, got my head bouncing right away! Just needs to be touched up a bit, I'd say you have a good shot the second time around

[Sparkyrogers]

Thanks for the input....

Looks like I have work to do, then. =n=

[timaeus222]

This is actually quite good man. Arrangement-wise, this is really well done for the most part.

The first and foremost arrangement issue is what sounds like a sampling of the source tune until 0:14. Minimal sampling is encouraged by the Submission Standards and Guidelines, so that intro could be reworked, just in case of that being a large enough issue when combined with the others, which, right now, it is.

The second two of three arrangement things I have the most issues with are the leading at 1:47 and the piano part at 2:04.

Like Gario heard (he said it in a different way), the lead is too exposed compared to the previous lead. It needs to fall back in line with the track's overall volume and have some reverb to make it fit into the soundscape. It also seems more basic in its melodic flow than the previous lead, which was more awesome. This sticks out because there isn't much else consciously accompanying. It takes a while to realize there's more than the lead and the more obviously audible elements, and a more spacious soundscape would help in that regard.

The 2:04 piano part sticks out as oddly positioned and dry. You've had all these electronic elements, and suddenly this sequenced, mechanical piano part comes in, just like that. Organic instruments in electronic music is fine, but it's the only organic instrument here, so it would be important to make sure it isn't neglected in such a way that it's overshadowed in competency, as it's a large portion of the arrangement. Sure, the piano partwriting sounds stiff and robotic, but to me it just sticks out regardless, due to the mixing exposing it as a sort of low-mids "solo" panned widely for an unknown reason.

The abrupt ending by itself wouldn't be enough for a rejection, but fixing it wouldn't be a bad idea.

As for the production, it's not bad. The main thing to work on here, with this being Drum & Bass, is the drum programming and the loudness. This is quiet compared to most tracks on OCR, and like Gario said, it'll feel awkward if this is played in between louder tracks. I know it's hard to hear sometimes when something is loud or not because you're not accustomed to paying attention to that, but that's a topic that needs to come up sometime. The drums have basic timbres that sound relatively unprocessed, and would benefit from some layering to get the "perfect" timbres, overdrive/distortion to scale up the harmonics (make something sound stronger) and compression to "glue" the drums to a "ceiling" (the 0dB ceiling) and maximize the punchiness.

Some references to loudness, assuming the production is good enough already:

, almost too quiet until 0:30, even for orchestral. May be a borderline NO/YES, but a YES would probably have a pretty darn fantastic arrangement.

Medium --- Could be louder but is not problematic, and if the VGM arrangement is terrific, this is a YES on the judges panel.

Medium Loud --- normal/good enough volume for OCR, for any powerful non-electronic genre, and if the VGM arrangement is great, this is a strong YES or a Direct Post.

Loud (Example 1, Example 2) --- great volume for OCR, and approximately where Drum & Bass lies in the non-VGM world. With a great VGM arrangement, this will likely be a Direct Post. Example 2 is ambient just so it's clear that the genre has nothing to do with the loudness.

LOUD, but still good to go, and typical of hardcore electronic music! With a great VGM arrangement, this is an easy Direct Post.

TOO LOUD (

, Example 2 [The MP3 is louder than the YouTube video]) --- shouldn't listen to this kind of loudness too often to keep your ears safe for music production. This kind of loudness may be overlooked sometimes by a judge and made into a YES on the judges panel or a Direct Post because it's solid *enough* and not clipping. No offense intended.

You're at the "Medium" loudness, the way I hear things.

Edited January 13, 2014 by timaeus222