*NO* Mega Man 7 & Sonic Spinball 'Spin Like Turbo Man'

[DragonAvenger]

ReMixer name: jnWake.

Name of game(s) arranged: Mega Man 7, Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball.

Name of arrangement: Spin Like Turbo Man.

Name of individual song(s) arranged: "Turbo Man" (from MM7), "Toxic Caves" (from Sonic Spinball).

LINK TO ARRANGEMENT: .

Mix comments:

I made this mix for Round 1 of the Blue Bomber Blue Blur Collision Competition (a.k.a. B4C2), which was essentially a Sonic vs Mega Man competition. Anyway, on this round I had to mix "Turbo Man" from MM7 (my pick for the competition) with Sonic Spinball's "Toxic Caves" (picked by therex). My goal for most of the competition was to do the arrangements in the style of my opponent's source, so when I first listened to the bass in Toxic Caves, I knew I had to do (or try to do) a funk-ish mix.

Blending the sources was a bit hard because Turbo Man is very fast and the tempo in Toxic Caves is slower, but I think I succeeded in making both songs recognizable. Also, I'm usually more of a rock person so I also had to experiment a bit to create more of a funk vibe. I used many chords with 7ths, 9ths and other alterations I had never used before! In the end, I think I managed to make a groovy and funky song. I'm also proud of the section beggining at 2:30, the chords I used there combined with the hard strings create a nice vibe.

Hope you like it!

Source breakdown:

0:00 - 0:59: Bass plays the bassline from Toxic Caves. Lead that enters at 0:25 plays the main melody from Turbo Man.

1:00 - 1:27: Bright synth plays the melody from section B of Turbo Man.

1:28 - 1:45: Some neat chords are laid over Toxic Caves' bass line!

1:46 - 2:21: Synth solo over an 'original' progression (if you want to call that progression original!).

2:22 - 2:29: Build-up!

2:30 - 3:05: Bright synth plays the melody from Turbo Man's C section (rhytm is altered) while bass plays an alteration of the Toxic Caves bass line.

3:06 - 3:22: Lead plays the main melody of Toxic Caves.

3:23 - 3:47: Repeat of the 1:00 - 1:27 section.

3:48 - End: Outro, synth lead plays Turbo Man's main melody.

---------------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJxir0_MCGo - Mega Man

- Sonic Edited March 20, 2014 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Chimpazilla]

Definitely funky! But my first impression is that the entire track has been band-passed, it sounds muffled and lacks both highs and lows. The instruments are competing badly for frequency space all in the middle of the spectrum. The track is also sounding extremely dry overall.

You've got some leadwork playing panned right, and some panned left, and this is kind of an odd effect and I don't think it really works. It would have been better if you had centered and slightly stereo-separated the leads rather than hard-panning, it sounds very two-dimensional and unbalanced as is. Your backing keys and strings would also sound so much better with some nice stereo spread.

There are a several of points where the track comes to a complete stop, really interrupting the flow (and I hear that same idea in the Mega Man source). It would be better to bridge those gaps with something, a drum fill or even a sweep or sfx.

The arrangement sounds good though, and you've got some fun soloing. That solo at 1:45 is really nice... but the lack of reverb or any kind of effect on it is really leaving it flat. It seems like the source use is adequate and you've done a good job of combining the two sources. But production and mixing are unfortunately holding this one back.

NO (resubmit)

[OceansAndrew]

Basically echoing all of Chimpazilla's crits here; the highs and lows have been snipped off somehow, and the elements are all missing cohesion soundwise with each other. I think stereo delay on all of the prominent leads would be a good start to glueing the track together, and combined with highs and lows in the mix, it'd be in a much better spot. THe arrangement and overall sound palate are really nice. The foundation is there, it just needs a bit more work.

No, please resubmit

[Nutritious]

Some good crits from the above J's here. I wouldn't go as far to say that everything sounds bandpassed, but I would agree there are some EQ and panning/stereo separation issues here. I'm gonna break down what I'm hearing instrument by instrument:

-EP/Rhodes at the beginning sounding good

-Synth bass sounds pretty weak as soon as it comes in. It's one of the parts that sounds like the freqs are chopped off in the top and bottom. It also sounds like a mono synth, which isn't helping it's presence. Either beef it up with a stereo bass synth with more low and/or high presence or look into fixing the above mentioned issues. Nice writing on it though, I like the groove.

-Acoustic drums are sounding good overall. They're a bit subdued, but I think it works in the funk context. I think they could use some more variation to follow the action, rather than the standard groove/fill/groove/fill/switch to next groove/etc.

-String stabs are sounding pretty muffled and mono as well. Not as big of a deal because this can be an intentional effect for a background supporting part such as this.

-Right panned lead IS a little distracting as mentioned before. The synth itself doesn't have a stellar tone, but it works pretty good here. May want to try and do some subtle variation via some phasing or LFO conntrolled effects to give it a little more life.

-1:49 is a bit strong in the 2khz ish range, and could use some more high end presence. It also sounds a bit static in the tone.

-Synth stabs at 2:29 are in a similar boat with the strings as occupying mostly midrange eq spectrum and don't have much presence.

Ending felt a bit anticlimactic. I think you could've extended it by a few bars to have a more effective wind down to the track. Not a big issue, though.

Overall, the writing is really good here. There's a lot of creativity throughout and a good blending of the sources. Some production love, focusing on eq, spacing, and presence could push this one over.

NO resubmit, please