*NO* Tetris (GB) 'Blocks of Madness!'

[Liontamer]

* My ReMixer name: Too Cool For School

* My real name: Thomas Benton Murray

* My website: http://toocoolforschool.bandcamp.com/

* My userid: 52168

* Game title: Tetris

* Original arrangement title: Theme A

* Song title: Blocks Of Madness!

* Description:

I've always loved the music from Tetris, and I've always wanted to make a cover of it and I thought it would make an awesome first submission, but nothing I could come up with seemed good enough for such an iconic game soundtrack. Especially since you guys already have so many remixes of this particular song. I wanted it to be original, not too repetitive, but remain faithful to the original. So I re recorded this track several times, set it down for a few months while I learned how to mix and master and I picked back up and polished it until I could proudly submit it.

In this track I sacrificed a bit of volume for dynamics. I hope it lives up to your awesome standards.

Thanks for your consideration!

Sincerely,

Thomas Benton Murray of Too Cool For School

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Edited March 16, 2014 by Flexstyle
Closing the joojthread.

[Liontamer]

The snare drum beat is super vanilla and shouldn't sound so much cleaner than the guitar work. Maybe it's just me, but the drumbeat plods and should be taking more of a backseat to the guitar lead, not competing for space.

The lead guitar work was performed well, but the rhythm guitar sounded pretty muddy and the textures here just didn't glue together well. There wasn't much in the way of dynamics, IMO, as it was just an aggressive sound with no breaks from :53-on; this needed a breather somewhere for some contrast. The percussion writing also was too repetitive/samey over the long haul.

There were some more interpretive sections, and I'm not ignoring the original part-writing under the melody or the wholly original transitions, but the A-type melody wasn't handled in an interpretive way, and there wasn't much difference in the phrasing or style from :53's section vs. 1:45's. Some subtle melodic variations at 1:06, 1:45 and/or 1:59 would keep things interesting and well-developed. The wild supporting guitar work under theme from 2:25 was a good touch to provide something different, but the core beats basically being on auto-pilot for so long undermined that attempt to ramp up the overall energy for the close.

This isn't a poor concept or poorly performed, but it's underdeveloped as an arrangement. I know you went for dynamics here, but I thought the curve ended up pretty flat. Don't be discouraged, Thomas, but do spice it up.

NO

[Chimpazilla]

There are definitely some mixing and balancing issues here. Each instrument sounds like it is playing in a different room. The snare starts out way too loud, then the entire drum kit seems to fade into the background. The drum writing is repetitive and the kick is relentless. The rhythm guitar is mixed way too loudly and seems to want to take the lead at times, I'm often confused about what the intended focal point is. Everything competes for volume and for space in the middle of the frequency spectrum. The track has very little in the way of dynamics, but oddly also seems too quiet overall. The writing/arrangement is also very repetitive despite some soloing going on. Ending the track with that relentless kick still firing really doesn't work. Lots of work to do here, still.

NO (resubmit)

[Flexstyle]

Yeah, echoing what has been said up there, I'm going to say that there are several needing improvement in this track, and I'm not going to cover all of them.

A couple of the big points to consider are as follows:

DRUMS

There's literally nothing in the way of transitions. You go from a tame beat in the beginning to the machine-gun kick with nothing to warn anyone of the change, and I can name probably four patterns that you've used in the entire song for drums. A real drummer definitely doesn't just play the same four-beat pattern over and over and over again, so use some creativity! Fills are nice, as is changing up the basic beat once in a while.

Speaking of a "real drummer," gotta make sure you have some dynamics in the drumming. What I mean by that is that the drummer doesn't hit each drum equally hard every single time he hits the drum. Get some velocity modification in there, yo! Finally, make sure that the beat isn't completely locked to the time grid. A real drummer will have some slight imperfections in his drumming, rather than being machine- and robot-like in hitting every single note in time with the grid.

MIXING

The drums are incredibly thin-sounding, so you're going to have to beef those up significantly. I can barely hear anything but the "click" of the kick, the snare is mostly "snap," and the hats are too loud compared to the rest of the drums. I'd reconsider the kit you're using, as it may not have enough depth to it to really get a realistic drum sound going.

The guitars are all kind of a mush of same-level-ness. The acoustic guitar would sound nice if I could hear it, while the rhythm and lead guitars are all kind of the same glob of sound. Basically, you're going to want to consider the fact that each instrument should have its own part of the EQ spectrum--a lead guitar should occupy a different place than the rhythm guitars, and probably should have a different tone as well. Stereo separation will help your case.

Finally, the entire mix is lacking in any semblance of bass response. Whether it's the fact that the kick hasn't got any low end to it, or the fact that I can't hear any sort of bassline at all, you're severely lacking in the low end.

There's a lot more, but you'll be best served by working on some of the crits here and then taking this over to the workshop forums, if you do choose to continue working on it. Best of luck as you continue to improve!

NO