*NO* Castlevania: Rondo of Blood 'Mechanical Salvation'

[Chimpazilla]

Hello, here's a rearrangement from Vampire Variations II for consideration.

ReMixer & real name: Eino Keskitalo

e-mail:

forum id: 20708

ReMixer name: Tuberz McGee

Real name: Callum Kennedy

e-mail:

forum id: 44165

Name of game arranged: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

Name of Arrangement: Mechanical Salvation

Name of individual song arranged: Requiem

VBR1 MP3:

FLAC.

Source: Castlevania Rondo of Blood Music - Requiem (Save screen)

Source breakdown:

The source (a single melody line) is carried by the organ, the background guitarish thing in the middleish, and the lead guitar.

0:00-0:13 Intro, no source

0:13-0:33 The bg guitar plays the first two notes of each phrase of the source. Organ is vaguely following the source as well.

0:33-0:52 The bg guitar plays the source verbatim. The organ follows it too, with additional harmony writing

0:52-1:29 Lead guitar joins in, varying the first half of the source. The bg guitar goes back to playing the first two notes. Organ continues covering the source in full.

1:29-1:40 original section

1:40-1:49 Bg guitar plays a variation of the source.

1:49-1:58 original section

1:58-2:17 Organ plays the full source slightly reduced & varied.

2:17-2:34 Organ continues, lead guitar joins in to vary up the source melody again.

2:34-2:54 original section

2:54-3:03 Organ vaguely follows the source

3:03-3:22 Bg guitar plays the first half of the source twice, the second iteration with variations. Organ plays the source too.

3:22-3:32 Bg guitar plays the second half of the source with some variation, organ as well.

3:32-3:44 No direct source connection

Arrangers' notes:

Having successfully arranged another minimal Castlevania source, I grabbed Requiem for Vampire Variations II two months before the deadline. I underestimated the time I had to make the arrangement. I planned to record two guitar tracks, I pretty quickly sketched them up and made a cut-and-paste drum track from random samples with a placeholder organ to go with it, and put chip sounds in for the guitars. We also discussed making this a vocal track with my fiancée. The time to record any of that never materialized.

Then one day *after* the final deadline I sent Chernabogue what I had, plus the thought of recruiting Tuberz for guitars since he had volunteered as a project resource, and our earlier Shell Shocked collab went quite nicely. I think the only thing I managed to do for the track in the two months was to add bits of the bass part (which is made from Chapman Stick samples). Fortunately Alex liked what he was hearing and was very supportive. Callum was enthusiastic about the track & quickly provided excellent guitar tracks, which by the way are quite different from what I could've come up with, providing what I feel is a distinct early 90s hard rock vibe. I did doctor them a bit, if you hear any nasty edits that's my fault.

The wonderful response from these two guys super-energized me to be able to finish the track quickly (for my usual two-and-a-half-years standard). Good thing the placeholder drums and organ turned out to sound all right after varying them up a bit & mixing them properly!

Here's what mr. McGee had to say:

"My cat is cute, but likes to mute my guitar mid take by pressing her paws on the strings."

cheers,

--Eino

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Edited October 1, 2014 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Nutritious]

Hmm, interesting source to try to tackle. Sounds like a tough one. Let's listen.

Gonna start with a source breakdown to validate your timestamps:

:00 - :13 Original

:14 - :32 I see what you're saying, but too much of a stretch to call it source IMO

:33 - 1:26 Guitar leads covering melody with some variations

1:27 - 1:41 Original soloing

1:42 - 1:49 Guitar lead covering melody

1:50 - 1:58 Original

1:59 - 2:17 Backing choir pad (you called it organ) on melody. It gets really obscured at the end, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here

2:18 - 2:32 Guitar again on melody

2:33 - 3:02 Original (couldn't hear organ/pad/thing well enough to establish claimed connection)

3:03 - 3:32 Guitar melody

3:33 - 3:44 Original

I counted 126 seconds of source connections out of 224 or 56%. We good here.

On the production side, there are a few big issues that are really bothering me. First is balance. When the melody comes in on the guitar, the tone is tiny and gets almost fully obscured by the loud & prominent panned guitar parts. The odd thing is, it's immediately followed by a far more prominent and better sounding lead playing essentially the same thing. I see that you labeled the first lead as the background guitar in your source breakdown, but given the fact that it's covering melody, this seems really odd to me. I'd recommend cutting the tiny backing lead and rolling with the main lead. Also, the backing guitars are far too loud. They should be playing a supporting role, but instead are constantly competing for the spotlight from the melody lines.

Second of all, progression and clutter. From the time the track kicks in with the main melody until the end, there's a general pattern of adding more and more elements on to the already loud and complex parts already playing. It gets to the point where you've got 2 busy backing guitar parts playing, a busy lead part (especially when soloing), plus a busy bass part, plus a busy background choir-ish pad, and busy percussion with lots of fills and hits. There is a couple sections with semi-respites from this, but if you scroll through different parts of the track it's like a constant stream of really cluttered, busy sections. To be honest, by the end of the track, it's really wearing me down as the listener because it's so intense for so long.

The "organ" (which sounds like a choir patch to me as mentioned), really isn't cutting it here. The sequencing is badly exposed on it when it carries the melody with choppy note changes and not the best tone (either for an organ or choir).

Ending wasn't bad but pretty sudden.

Not to say this is all bad by any means. Guitar performances are well done and good ideas on expanding the source beyond the original's single melody lines. The approach was surprising to me when I first heard it, given the somber source, but I think it works.

Very creative, but you need to think about what you want to take the foreground for the listener and consider more contrast in sections to give the listener a break.

NO resubmit, please

[Chimpazilla]

Thanks so much Justin for the source breakdown! Source does seem fine.

I don't often just blanket-agree with someone else's vote, but Justin nailed it here. The arrangement is really nice, but the production is just too darned busy. Nothing ever gets to take the spotlight. At any point in a track, there should really only be one instrument playing a busy line, while everything else plays softer, smoother lines or blocked chords. Two busy lines together are ok if you're doing a lead plus countermelody, but even so, one melody should be more prominent, generally. You've got lead guitar, rhythm guitars and bass (in addition to the pad) all playing like the devil is chasing them! I'd recommend you go over this arrangement again and determine which instruments should get the most attention at the different points in the track, and calm the other stuff down.

I'm also in agreement about that very first melody, when it comes in it should really be upfront and not in the background.

Good performances, just needs to be planned out a bit better.

NO (resubmit)

[Jivemaster]

Some great ideas here for probably one of the most repetitive and minimal source tunes I've heard in a while. I almost died of boredom listening to the source lol. Nice instrumentation and riffage to keep things fresh here, and big varied arrangement. I didn't initially have a major problem with the production side of this track, but later I encounter some mixing problems. Read on.

The main point of contention for me in your track was source usage, and audibility of source usage. I've been given the opportunity to look at this again to satisfy that there is enough source for a pass, because the others feel I've dropped the ball on this. Firstly, I must admit that initially I was having problems hearing source tune in your mix, which is why I initially dismissed the track without a complete breakdown - and that was wrong. I have come to the realisation however that at that point, I didn't really have a lot to break down - from beginning to end I could hear the notes occasionally touching the source, but then leaving off to do their own thing too frequently, or the source was buried in a faint lead in the background which has apparently skipped my ear. I've now moved to headphones and have listened again another 10 or so times, and have gotten closer. This is an extremely tough one for me because the others are hearing it fairly clearly, but with all the amazing instrumentation you have going on I found it incredibly challenging to catch more than cameos of the source tune throughout.

My initial concerns stem from the following:

1. The track is too interpretative at times with lots of original supporting elements going on at once AND

2. These supporting elements like the guitar are too big to hear the source clearly in places. So this moves from a source usage issue over to a mixing issue.

There is buckets of skill here, nice guitar tone and a great choice in sounds... but for me to be confident in giving this a Yes, I need to be having a less challenging time hearing that tune so I can relate it back and say "hey, thats a remix of that Castlevania intro song! Neat!!" Let me break it down how I heard it:

0:00-0:13, original intro.

0:14-0:33, I'm hearing an interpretation of the source in the tiny lead in the background, which is probably not enough to constitute actual usage. The guitars at this point are making it difficult to point out as they're big front and centre.

0:34-0:51, I'm hearing the source tune in that tiny lead, it is quite faint, again buried behind a bunch of stuff, but this is the first time I hear verbatim source.

0:52-1:07, I'm now hearing the melody in the lead guitar. There's some soloing, but it's in there.

1:08-1:41, lead guitar soloing gets a bit interpretative and moves away from the source to do its own thing. (which is quite nice BTW)

1:42-1:48, clean guitar lead is playing the tune.

1:49-1:58, we have some some original guitar chordage.

1:59-2:18, organ/choir playing the tune (or variation thereof).

2:19-2:26, guitar lead is back playing tune.

2:27-2:36, initial lead guitar solo uses source elements.

2:37-2:53, original guitar lead solo portion.

2:54-3:02, original guitar chordage.

3:03-3:21, clean guitar lead is playing the tune.

3:22-3:26, lead guitar briefly plays the tune, then begins to guitar solo with source making a brief appearance initially.

3:27-3:44, original lead guitar solo plays us out.

Totalling what I've heard above (excluding original soloing elements) I'm only hearing a clear 1:35 of total source out of 3:44. It's possible I could be missing source material here and there, but I don't think it'd be enough seconds for me to get to 50%. It would be good for another judge to possibly weigh in, but at this point I am the only one concerned about it, so I'm willing to concede on the point of adequate source usage.

I will say however, for any artist going through the OCR submission process it is far better to hit a home run with source than make us get out the calculators to see if you make the 50% rule. As a judge I must unconditionally accept 50%, but I strongly encourage more. I know this can be hard with all these ideas you want to implement, being super talented musicians and arrangers, I don't want to discourage your creativity. But hitting things clearly past that 50% mark (and I recommend a bit further to be safe) will take the possibility of source contention off the table altogether, which means we can approve your tracks a lot quicker! You guys are the next emerging OCR talents to take over from the Strader's of this world, and it annoys me to No this stuff.

As I get to my final deliberation, I'd like to emphasise a point Nutritious made, concerning the foreground elements. This is something I want to add to - to make it easier for us to hear source tune and clear a track, getting that original source melody/progression/whatever up close in your face is crucial. You distortion guitar lead was front on, but your clean lead was lost in the background behind all the original foreground elements. Some mixing to bring out those important source carrying leads and push less important stuff to the background will solve the issue.

In the end, I'm on the side of there is source (just - based on the other judges analysis), but the mixing is off the mark to hear said source. If you can bring those source tunes buried in there out to the front (aka your leads), this is Yes.

NO (please resub)

Edited October 2, 2014 by Jivemaster