Super Mario 64 Menu Select Remix

[TheReverend]

Hello all. This is a mix I have had for years and years, but I didn't really work to get it polished. It's complete and I'm looking for opinions or suggestions, as I'd like to have it considered for admission to the site.

It's a remix of a very short theme, the menu select from Mario 64. Please give it a listen!

Thanks!

Source:

http://youtu.be/2HhdZMpSvXg

Remix:

https://soundcloud.com/ryan-joseph-miller/file-select-v9-5-sm64-file

Edited August 2, 2014 by TheReverend
Update

[Unknown Alias]

I really like some of the tones used here, and I personally enjoy the way you arranged it a whole lot.

The guitar sound you're using though is very obviously fake (except the slides, those actually sound very good). I think it sounds a lot less noticeable when there are other instruments there later on. When I first hear it at the beginning though, it sounds very "midi". With some EQ and mixing though I bet it could sound a lot better!

I love the triplet notes at 1:36. and again, a lot of the other tones are very nice to me, and while some others might find issues with them, nothing personally struck me other than the guitar.

[timaeus222]

Yeah, the guitar sounds like it has no round robins at all. Each part with multiple repeated notes in a row sounds as if it's retriggered. In other words, the phase of the sound resets on every note on the same velocity. It's not necessarily off-putting, but yeah, it's fake and not sufficient for a remix with so many organic instruments playing. Same thing as above with the e. piano and piano. Since their velocity ranges are rather small (all three instruments), there is very little variation in their tonal hardness and character, which heightens the stiffness. However, the piano is substantially quieter than other instruments in the beginning, so it's not as big of a deal to me at that part. At 1:30, it's more of an issue though since it's more exposed, and at 1:48 the fast notes reveal its stiffness the most. Good news is that there is thankfully some reverb to hide the stiffness a little.

The bongo work is interesting, though a little loud, especially that last hit at 1:04. The strings aren't bad, as they were sequenced within the confines of what you had on hand.

For some reason, at 1:49 - 2:10 things are quite indistinct. I can very barely tell what notes are being played or what harmonies are being made. I guess the volumes are very close to each other and frequencies in the upper mids are overlapping; as you go more to the edges (far left/right) of the frequency spectrum, it's harder to hear frequencies clashing, but if enough of them are, then clarity is an issue. Right now, things don't sound muddy there, but they are also not clear enough.

Edited July 23, 2014 by timaeus222

[Argle]

Yeah, real acoustic guitar notes don't cut off so abruptly during transitions between notes, they ring out more. Overlapping the notes would help in that regard, or maybe turn up the release on the sample.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Argle

[Garrett Williamson]

I very quickly skimmed over what everyone else said and it had to do with the guitar sound.

And I donno exactly what they said but my suggestion is that you "imperfect" it a bit for one. What this will do is make it sound more like it's being played. It sounds like it's already not totally perfect but even a bit more is good. When everything is perfectly on time, it doesn't sound as real.

The other part of it is that your release on the guitar sound is EXTREMELY fast so it completely sounds like a computer. Make the release longer so that it just slightly rings a bit afterward to give it more realism. Not too much, but I mean definitely give it a boost in the release time.

The pros to this mix are that everything else honestly sounds pretty good to me and also I really like this arrangement. The only way I'd say to improve this is to, once again, imperfect stuff. Not so perfectly quantized. That perfect quantization can destroy the emotion of a mix in this style. But you did a very good job with the arrangement. Like, I really like it.

[Xarnax42]

Yessssssssss. So glad you're revisiting this.

[TheReverend]

Thank you all for the prompt feedback.

I don't have too many options to change the guitar sample. A lot of what I have access to sounds the same, so I'm not sure where to go with that quite yet. However, I did modify the release so (hopefully) it sounds more organic and less robotic.

I changed the e-piano sound to something with less brightness at the top end.

Some minor changes to quantization. I didn't want to do too much and have it sound sloppy.

Minor adjustment to djembe crescendo.

I appreciate your feedback guys! So so much!

[Eino Keskitalo]

Good arrangement. The way it progresses, grows and pulls back and develops the instrumentation sounds very thoughtful and is both easy and rewarding to listen to.

I like the string work. It's quite buried under everything else though. I think there's more work to be done in giving each instrument their space with levels, EQ, stereo placement, and possibly reverb. There also seems to be little in the way of bass, a solid bass might help to glue things together and help the other instrumentation to find the balance.

The loudest hits of the djembe are quite loud and make the percussion sound mechanical. Guitar is, like everyone mentions, quite mechanical. Trying to let the previous notes ring longer might indeed help. The sound is also kind of hard. Very very cool arrangement on the guitar alone though.

[TheReverend]

Thanks again for the feedback everyone. In this newest update, I tried a different guitar sample and tried to humanize it a bit more. Made some other adjustments to volume levels and I also added a new part later in the mix.

Please let me know what you think! I certainly appreciate it!

[timaeus222]

Something in the intro kinda bothers me though. It's some sort of... bell-like drone? It gets rather loud at its peak levels (0:07, 0:09, 0:12, etc.). Also, this is a small thing, but at 0:45, there's something bassy and thumpy, probably bongo-like, that's panned rather far right; to me it could fit more sensibly in the center or near the center, but that's just my opinion.

Yeah, the guitar is a little better. Still has issues though with the round robins, but is otherwise alright. I would still find it an issue concerning OCR standards, but as a casual listen it would be fine. As for the E. Piano, maybe you can try jRhodes3? That's one that I think is really good, and comparable to commercial samples such as Neo Soul Keys. The one right now occasionally has a loud note here and there (1:59, 2:09, etc.), and objectively the tone is pretty good, but I thought maybe you'd like an alternative with lots of velocity layers. The piano is less exposed now in the timestamps where I heard it sound mechanical. Perhaps you can try out these piano soundfonts I picked out and see which one fits this remix (though "Piano 4" and "Piano Jazz" are rather loud; you could scoop out some of that ~190Hz and ~330Hz to help some of these soundfonts). "Steinway 2" and "Steinway 4" are rather good.

Edited August 4, 2014 by timaeus222