Liontamer Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 (edited) Contact Information: ReMixer name: TeslaFox Real name: Austin Spann Email address: Website: http://www.soundcloud.com/Teslafox User id: 53012 Submission Information: The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning/The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon. Name of arrangement: This Unseen World Name of individual song(s) arranged: Credits (with choir), Spyro Menu, Escape from Forge (with choir) Additional information: The Legend of Spyro Trilogy :It includes the games A New Beginning, The Eternal Night, and Dawn of the Dragon. The trilogy was ported to PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Mobile Phone. Rebecca Kneubuhl and Gabriel Mann of Spiralmouth Link to the original soundtrack : http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-legend-of-spyro-a-new-beginning-original-game-music-score-mw0001709959 Took a long time to make this, Ive been studying this score for a while now and I thought it would be fun to make my own rendition. ------------------------------- - "Credits" (A New Beginning) - "Spyro Menu" (Dawn of the Dragon) - "Escape from Forge Edited November 10, 2014 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 Not the approach I would have expected with these themes. The source usage checks out fine, but this was a long track, so I'm just going with stream-of-consciousness bullet points of what I noticed: * Mixing was pretty muddy until :52; not sure why the track needed to clip from :49-:52, but that wasn't necessary * Texturally, this plodded, but 1:19 at least moved on into something different and more complex * Weird, abrupt changeup at 1:19; make that flow from one style to the next. * Pretty intense stuff from 1:19-on, and the more distorted stuff at 2:12 was interesting, but the overall intensity was become taxing and some sort of changeups in the energy would have been cool. * The sequencing of the line at 1:45 sounded too rigid/quantized, IMO. * The melodic line from 2:25-2:52 was too rigid/quantized. * Happy for the dropoff at 2:52 (finally!) to offer some sort of contrast * Machine gun drums from 3:28-3:32 was over the top, but I'll live * The aggressive warbly synths from 3:51-4:31 weren't particularly melodius; neither was 4:31-4:51, but I'd argue that lead was a better fit * Cut-and-paste stuff of :52's section at 4:51, again with no transition, but adding some choir synths & a keyboard line at 5:04 & 5:17. * Vox line at 5:04, synth line at 5:17 & 6:10, and synth line in double time at 5:44 were all too rigid/quantized. * Cut-and-paste stuff of 1:19's beats at 5:30, again with no transition, but a new added writing on top. * Back to :52's section at 6:10, using the same melodic ideas as 5:18 with a different tone to the lead. * Why does the music just cut off abruptly at 7:03? OK, so summarizing, the arrangement approach is creative and interesting, but: * All of the rigid lines I mentioned should have some more humanized sequencing. The timing dragged the intended energy down, IMO. * IMO, the intense sections went on for too long without enough dynamic changes * I get what you went for, but having the textures completely change with no real transitions four or five times was too awkward * Even though there were some minor differences, the last 2 minutes mostly felt like a retread * The ending can't just be a cutoff, there needs to be a resolution NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 I'm not going to examine the source usage, if it's cool with Larry I'm going with that for now. I want to get right into the production. I can hear that you wanted to go bold with your production choices. I think you went a bit overboard in your production. The track does have dynamics (meaning there are sections that are softer), but the really loud sections are squashed to smithereens and that section at 0:49-0:52 distorts quite heavily. Gotta dial back the master compression/limiting. I don't hear muddy mixing per se, but you've used quite a few bell-like timbres and they all have resonances as bell timbres often do, and with multiple bells together, resonances overlap and sound messy and sometimes painful to the ear. Everything here seems to be playing at the same volume much of the time, as if you've barely used your mixer at all. All the parts are sequenced extremely rigidly, mostly quarter or eighth notes all hitting right on grid at the same volume. The track is repetitive and comes off as very long for what if offers, many of the sections of this song could easily be cut in half as they seem to play through exactly twice. This is not a great way to get length out of your track. You seem to be using dubstep-type basses in a way that doesn't work. For example, at 2:12, there is a prominent bass that I'd expect to hear in a dubstep production but it is playing straight eighth notes for quite a long time, and you've teamed it with a drum kit that really doesn't match the timbre, with the kick sounding quite "poppy." Together with the lead synth playing straight quarter notes, the whole effect is just uncomfortable. Similar situation at 3:51, dubstep bass not used very well or effectively, teamed with odd drum kit. You have some pretty harsh sounding transitions from soft to hardcore sections in this track with no warning, this makes the arrangement feel quite choppy. Need to find ways to introduce the listener somewhat to new textures... even a simple white noise sweep will do the job sometimes. You have some unique ideas here but the execution needs a lot of work. I'd recommend popping this track into our wip forum for some additional feedback, but I'd suggest the following as a starting point: 1. dial WAAAAY back on the master compression/limiting 2. get a grip on the bell resonances, or replace timbres with less bell-like samples 3. learn how to write more interesting patterns than just quarter or eighth notes 4. spend time learning to balance and mix 5. find a way to cut out half of this song (my suggestion based on what I hear is that you can cut many of the sections in half), or make the extended sections more interesting 6. make a proper ending with no abrupt cutoff Lots to work on here. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 I gotta agree with my verbose friends here, this needs a good deal more work. Thankfully they have given you a helpful list of things to hit up to improve your work overall. THere are some cool ideas here, but the mixing and production needs more polish. I'm looking forward to hearing a refined version of this track in the future. No, please resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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