Halo - A Stroll to a Run [A Walk in the Woods]

[APZX]

Long weekends for me typically mean a lot of boredom and sometimes with that boredom I decide to muck around with music. Though long weekends also typically have the side effect of me not feeling all that . . ., awesome. So, I decided to relive my youth a little bit and try to capture some of that . . ., awesome by remixing a track that always made me feel like a total badass.

is the original track. Short and full of that . . ., awesome.

A Stroll to a Run (WIP) download & listen link.

I'm still working out a lot of things and I know the mix is kind of terrible but that is how it goes sometimes. It will most definitely be cleaned up when the composition is finished. The idea is just to get well the ideas down.

Edit - All righty then folks got the composition finished. follow the link to listen & download.

Edit no. 2 - Well I think this is going to be pretty close to the final version of the mix. However, it has yet to be mastered. Need to get on that I do, but also I need to sit on the mix for a day or two to really get a feel for whether I like it. Follow the link to listen & download.

Edit no. 3 - Well okay folks this last link is to the final form of this track. Fully mastered and sounding as tight as it will ever. Link to listen & download.

Edited September 15, 2014 by XPRTNovice
MR Complete

[XPRTNovice]

[ModReview]

I'm a little disappointed that this spent a couple of weeks on the forums with no comments, and I'm sorry you didn't get a lot of community feedback before the mod review. Regardless, here goes:

- The bass feels a touch dry/in my face at the beginning. Perhaps consider adding a TOUCH of verb to see if you can't get it to blend better with the plinky plinkies at the beginning; or maybe just turn it down.

- That bass in your face problem continues for me at :55. Still seems to forward to me, and the melody takes a back seat. I'm not a back seat melody guy.

- I was starting to get pretty tired of that bass riff by 2:00, even though you were adding in other elements.

- By 3:23 on my first listen, when it finally gave me a break from the 8 measure thing, I was starting to feel like this was an exercise in looping. From an arrangement standpoint, 3 minutes of the same progression is a bit much, especially when there aren't VARIATIONS, there are only ADDITIONS.

- The little ethereal break at 3:30 ish is nice, but by 4:00 we're back to the beginning. At least it makes me think we're back to the beginning. So I'm noticing immediately that my major beef with this piece is going to be the arrangement side.

- The mixing, in general, with the exception of my comments about maybe the bass being a little too flat/dry, is actually quite good. Things are panned nicely and everything is in its right place, so to speak. I never feel like it gets overloaded or muddy.

- Another similar woooooshhh break at 5:30 to the one at 3:30, though I have to say I like this one a lot.

- Buuut then we're right back at the beginning at 6:00. And it kind of goes out the same way.

- The repetition is made worse by the fade out at the end. With how much you leaned on the source, you could compose an ending completely from scratch and still be well within OCR's requirements for source.

So, my final word on this is that the arrangement is far, far too repetitive. I won't rehash what I've said above, but you basically have 7 minutes of the same 8 measures with different layers.

The good news is, you have 7 minutes of material. Cut this song in half and mix it up a bit, and the repetition problem will largely be solved, perhaps. I won't try to tell you what to do artistically, but you might consider writing some kind of chorus/bridge using another Halo source. The source itself is kind of repetitive, so I can see how you'd fall into that trap.

Good luck!

[/ModReview]

[APZX]

XPRTNovice,

Thank you and I too have no idea how it did not get any comments. But oh well.

First thing to start with is the bass. I wanted it like that. Completely out front, dry, and without question in your face. I really did and that was a very conscious choice. I had a feeling that it would get on at least one person with just how in front it is.

Now, what makes me curious is the comment on the lack of variation. Do not get me wrong I completely understand that there is essentially a loop going on and to a degree you are right. However, there is more variation going on here than you might notice. Bass, arps, and layers in general. So, it does make me curious then if I did too poorly of a job mixing it to make that clear. I will grant that the main layers are considerably more prominent in their monotony. I don't know I guess I have to take a step back and think about the composition a little differently as it makes clear sense to me and I need to figure out to make that translate more correctly. Perhaps over doing it a little bit.

Thank you very much for your input. I have got to do some thinking.

[timaeus222]

Okay, here's my take on Joe's review, if it'll help clarify.

- The bass feels a touch dry/in my face at the beginning. Perhaps consider adding a TOUCH of verb to see if you can't get it to blend better with the plinky plinkies at the beginning; or maybe just turn it down.

- That bass in your face problem continues for me at :55. Still seems to forward to me, and the melody takes a back seat. I'm not a back seat melody guy.

- I was starting to get pretty tired of that bass riff by 2:00, even though you were adding in other elements.

I have to say, I certainly agree with Joe on the notion that it could feel too upfront. I don't think it really is completely the case that it's too upfront BECAUSE it's too upfront, but because the textures are too sparse until 0:45. You have a bass, reverbed bells, and reverbed aux percussion (rimshot?) until 0:45, yes? Yeah, it's not enough. When you added the pads later on at 0:45, it filled in the soundscape and made it substantially fuller. Even something like WN faux wind or additional reverbed aux percussion such as clave or shaker could help fill in the hole by supplying that ambience and covering up the dryness of the bass (which just has no noticeable reverb... even though it's not actually conventially necessary).

And the other reason why it felt too upfront is because it actually is. When more elements come in at 0:45, and even 1:15, the bass sounds a little too loud, but if it's really exposed, which it was at the beginning, then it just seems louder. I get that that's playing the source tune notes, but with bass, you can feel the notes without hearing the filter modulation. You don't need that much treble on it, necessarily, even when things pick up more at 1:58 with the addition of the acoustic-like snare and the little plucky arp, so you could probably subdue the bass's trebly frequencies later on to make it more of a felt presence than an audible presence (obviously you can still listen specifically to it and focus on it and hear it, but you know what I mean).

- By 3:23 on my first listen, when it finally gave me a break from the 8 measure thing, I was starting to feel like this was an exercise in looping. From an arrangement standpoint, 3 minutes of the same progression is a bit much, especially when there aren't VARIATIONS, there are only ADDITIONS.

- The little ethereal break at 3:30 ish is nice, but by 4:00 we're back to the beginning. At least it makes me think we're back to the beginning. So I'm noticing immediately that my major beef with this piece is going to be the arrangement side.

...

- Another similar woooooshhh break at 5:30 to the one at 3:30, though I have to say I like this one a lot.

- Buuut then we're right back at the beginning at 6:00. And it kind of goes out the same way.

...

So, my final word on this is that the arrangement is far, far too repetitive. I won't rehash what I've said above, but you basically have 7 minutes of the same 8 measures with different layers.

...

And yes, I agree with Joe here as well that it takes too long to progress. Think of it this way: 30 seconds in, generally there should be substance to the arrangement that is enough to keep people listening, regardless of what it involves. It has to maintain interest, however it is that it's done, because 30 seconds is quite a while (it's a whole TV commercial, of course). I can personally stand a minute or two of build and development, but three is stretching the limits of one's patience. It just isn't changing up quickly enough. In a sense, it's almost proceeding like a logistics curve with regards to the dynamics and layering for 3.5 minutes. Remember that the average song is 3~4 minutes. If the same notes repeat with only a little variation texturally but not dynamically or melodically, for 3 minutes, that's just it, it gets too repetitive. If I were to imagine the dynamic curve of this remix, it pretty much goes like this:

1 - logistics curve (0:00 - 3:27)

2 - exponential decay, tapering off at a low point (3:27 - 3:29)

3 - backwards logarithmic curve, down to the lowest point (3:29 - 3:58)

4 - logarithmic curve (3:58 - 4:58)

5 - high, sort of constant point, arguably the climax (4:58 - 5:27)

6 - exponential decay, tapering off at a somewhat lower point (5:27 - 5:28)

7 - backwards logarithmic curve, down to the lowest point (5:28 - 5:59)

8 - gaussian curve with a low maximum (5:59 - 6:55), maximum at 6:27 - 6:43

You can have the nicest textures ever, and it wouldn't change the arrangement that much because it's sound design, not note pitch or melodic contour. How you wrote the notes is how you wrote them, even if you add more and more layers and take some out, if the layers don't make it feel different overall melodically or harmonically. Also, this is a very conservative arrangement. Almost all of the instruments match the original exactly. So overall... (if you didn't fall asleep reading this)

Write some more overt variations in the melodic contour. Either develop the arrangement more quickly or add more contrasting ideas. Cut out the unnecessary repeats (which honestly I would put 3:58 - 4:58 under, because you already had that snare roll going at 3:58), because you aren't really cheating your listeners out of something they hadn't already heard before. If you were to scroll through this 30 seconds forwards at a time, I think you could notice how similar it really sounds all throughout. Lastly, the sounds you chose are very, very close to the original. You have a bass playing the bass part, strings playing the strings part, and pads playing the pads part. That makes it much harder to differentiate from the original.

You might be able to find something from this that gives you an idea of how to adapt the source tune in interesting and diverse ways.

Edited September 17, 2014 by timaeus222