Zelda Majora's Mask - Deku Palace Remix

[Vidilian]

Hip hop/Rock fusion. Need to add another half to the song:

https://sites.google.com/site/vspaine/wips/Kingdom%20Plantae%20M.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1


Feedback appreciated. Cheers

 

 

Original:

 

[Vidilian]

Update. Slightly adjusted mix and added a second half. Same link in the original post.

[Dralarco]

Hi I'm new here and not using the right form to reply with feedback. So disregard my feedback if it bothers you. It's pretty much negative anyways.

I really, really, really hate the broken, inconsistent tempo. If it's your way of being artsie with music then good luck.

The electric guitar could be turned down some and the piano in the second half increased a little and that would help even out the sound.

The overall direction of the song goes building to half and then not much anywhere in the second part, probably cause you wrote them separately. If you could work it to take the listener somewhere...

I couldn't tell the tune of the song so I had to get the chip tunes for LOZ MM. So thanks for making me get them, as I really liked that game after getting over my frustration with how different it is.

[Vidilian]

Thanks for feedback. Was needed as this is an experimental song for me.

Update: Most of the work was done on the mix of the electric guitars and - adjusted cabinet, amp and eq settings - but I just saw your comment and adjusted the arrangement so the two halves of the song make a little more sense. Did that part in a few minutes just now so not perfect.

Same link above.

[Vidilian]

Update: Adjusted the electric guitar mix some more. Got rid of more of the high frequencies in them but also made them more "in your face".

This is the first song of mine that has featured electric guitars so prominently so some trial and error.

Same link

[Vidilian]

Updated.

 

Got a new electric guitar virtual instrument and amp simulator. Experimented for months trying to get rid of harsh frequences without leaving the guitars hollow sounding and hopefully i succeeded. Improved the overall mix and arrangement of the song in general as well.

 

Link in original post

[Vidilian]

Update. Increased tempo a bit. Changed tag to finished. Link in orignal post.

[Vidilian]

Changed to Mod review and added orignal to first post.

[Rozovian]

modreview/eval

Hey Vid. I'm glad you're still around.

Sound design needs work. The first synth sounds like an FM thing with it's ringing high frequencies. It might be a bit too bright for its background role later. The drums don't seem connected to the track. They seem like an afterthought rather than an integral part of the track. I would try to make it a more cohesive beat. Mute everything else and build a beat to structure the rest of the track upon. The woodwinds have tons of reverb, which works when they're supposed to be ethereal background things, but not so much when they're the ones bringing the lead melody. If you're going for a dreamy background-y melody, you need to get the rest of the instrumentation in order, not have a rap beat-type drum sound and a bright FM thing (and very little else).

The fake guitar... I get what you're doing with it, though there should be a bit more variation in tone and the background ones should be interfering less with the lead one. The drum sound design doesn't work with it, and the FM thing still sounds wrong. You might need a more powerful snare, and possibly crashes and things, to make it work. Also, the bass should probably come in at 0:25 when the track starts proper.

There are plenty of strange and seemingly arbitrary breaks. Having breaks isn't a problem, but they break up the flow of the track. Once the main beat starts playing (and it's finally a beat) at 1:03, the track feels a lot more cohesive in terms of its writing. The mixing still needs work, though. Muffle the background things a little to make sure their highs don't interfere with the lead. Get the track levels in check.

This seems to be an idea-based arrangement, the kind I often make. One idea, transition to the next idea, transition to the first again, transition to a third... The difference is that many of your transitions are abrupt and come with no warning. There's no ramp-up or reverse crash or drum fill or riser or anything to signal the change. And they don't occur regularly enough that you can rely on the listener following the grid, as in a four-chords, four-on-the-floor track. There's a few transitions that work but are a bit clumsy, like 1:37, and a few that work quite well, like the whole 1:40-2:15 and 2:35. But then there are those that don't work well at all

Source is there, and some of the ideas are really cool takes on it. The track's problems are its structure and its production. It's interpretive enough, it just has to make sense, and all its instruments need to find their place.

What tools are you using now? You used a keyboard before, I recall, though that was ages ago. If you're not in a computer DAW, you might have trouble getting an overview of the arrangement, which might be why you're struggling so much with it.

Arrangement lacks direction, sound design and mixing need work. Cool ideas in here, just gotta get the rest of it to make sense.

[Vidilian]

Hey Roz. Thanks for the review. 

I'm on a DAW now but, since this remix idea was done back when I was using just a keyboard, I transferred the midi info from back then so it wasn't built from the ground up in the DAW.

I'm thinking I'll play it safe and try and make this more of a typical rock track, especially the drums. Atleast then I'll know the drums will definitley fit the guitars both mix-wise and stylistically, and the arrangement will be more cohesive. 

The key thing I've been focused on with this track was trying to get the guitars sounding decent since the song depends on them and fake gutars can be seen as a big negative. Other thngs took a backseat. Sounds lke they still need a bit of tweaking but now I can focus more on the song as a whole as well. Cheers

[Rozovian]

Depending on the DAW and its workflow, it might work with regions or patterns. Cutting up the arrangement into manageable chunks, whatever the DAW would call them, should help you move things around. Things should be a lot easier for you now anyway.

Rock drums could work better than the hiphop beat-style drums you've got now, that's a good idea. I recommend you split the drum kit into different channels so you can process the different elements of it differently. The snare might need different EQ or compression than the kick. The hihat samples might have a lot of noisy mids an unnecessary lows. You might want to add more reverb to the crashes than to the kick. That all depends on the sound of the kit and how you want to use it. There's two ways to do this: one is to have multiple tracks with the same kit, and give each of them notes for just one of the elements, eg all hihats on one track, kick on one track; the other is to route the kit's output to different channels so you can write everything on the same midi channel, but you have the different elements on different audio channels for separate processing. The first is easier to set up, and doesn't require the sampler to support multiple outputs. The second is generally easier to edit, once it's set up.

Fake guitar is only a problem when it's in the uncanny valley, or when the sound (as with every instrument) is just bad. One of my old favorites from the site has fake guitar. You can clearly hear some unnatural bends in there. But there's an illusion of performance in how it's sequenced, so it sounds fine. Not necessarily real, but still badass. That illusion of performance is important, more important than realism. Realistic fake guitar is difficult even if you're working with good guitar samples. This doesn't sound like good guitar samples. Own it. Own the fakeness, and make it feel like a good performance regardless of how realistic it is.

[Vidilian]

Update. Worked on everything said.

Most notably, I've reworked the compostion of the drums completely. Changed them to rock drums, added fills between transtions, etc. Also, changed elements of the composition and arrangement of other instruments to refect the new fully rock genre.

Made the lead guitar tone fuller and removed more highs from rhythm guiitar so they interfere less. Varied things up with a clean tone in a part towards the end.

Did other smaller changes you mentioned as well but will keep tweaking things.

Same link

[Vidilian]

Update. Overhauled the EQ and reverb of every instrument so the mix is cleaner , fuller and more open. Also a couple arrangement changes.

Same link

[Vidilian]

Update. Tightened up EQ and reverb some more and some subtle changes to hihat patterns. Same link

[Vidilian]

Update. Final tweaks to mix.

Switched to eval. Same link

[Rozovian]

Aaaand we're a month late for this. Just PM some of us evaluators if we're being slow, ok?

I'll just base this on my last eval and see what still applies.

Sound design still needs work. The FM synth isn't a problem. The delay on it is a little annoying.

There's that weird tuned shaker-like sound that's not lining up with the other melody. I recommend you just scrap it. it's not a bad sound, but when it doesn't line up, it doesn't work. it plays the same melody as one of the other instruments, so you're not losing anything important.

Drums feel more like a part of this now, so that's an improvement. There's a lot of different beats used here. Good news, bad news: it feels like variation for the sake of variation rather than what the track needs at the time; you've now got lots of beats to work with, and can pick the ones that fit the dynamics of the tracks, whether it's banging cymbals or something lighter, whatever the track needs at the time.

Fake guitar still needs more performance/humanization/sound design work. Consider where the notes overlap where they shouldn't, and where they don't, where they should. The lead works ok in this context, the backing guitars don't. They're managing to be both too loud and distinct, and muddy and muffled. Are they playing octaves? Power chords? Consider what a real guitar player would play if they weren't playing lead.

Still feels like something is missing at 0:25 when the bass isn't there.

Your transitions have improved. There's still work to be done to make the arrangement make sense, but they're a lot more fluid than before.

Yeah, the arrangement still doesn't quite make sense. Here's how I'd break it down:

0:00-0:18 pre-intro whatever
0:18-0:23 intro proper (yes, there's overlap, and that's fine)
0:18-0:37 first source melody, we call this the A part
0:37-0:53 repeat and end of the A part
0:53-1:31 the B part(s), which is a collection if disparate little bit stacked in sequence
1:31-1:50 the transition into the break, which works quite well
1:51-2:07 the break proper, also works quite well
2:07-2:22 the break, again, but with drums, which then randomly stop
2:25 ending and fade, works well

Based on that, I find that the problematic parts of the arrangement are in the second repeat of the A part, the entire B part, and the part between the break proper and the ending. There are some melody lines that I find awkward, even in the good parts, and there are parts of the problematic bits that can be reworked into something great.  Here's how I'd solve the arrangement problems:

The repeat of the A part wouldn't be that different from the first time through, and would transition into _a_ B part.

The B part would be replaced, possibly with something new, but probably with something based on a part that's already there.

I'd probably repeat the A part after the break, but do it differently. An easy way to do this is to just change key, but changing scales, making it "bigger" by using different instruments or just getting more out of the ones you used before; something.

That's my solution, but it's not the only one, and it might not be right for your vision of the track. Maybe the pre-ending bit should be a "smaller" repeat of the A part? Maybe it should be something completely new? Whatever works, I guess.

The problems of structure and production remain. But it's a lot better. How are you adjusting to working in a DAW now?

[Rozovian]

Vid asked for clarification about my comments about the B part (0:53-1:31 imo), and I'm responding here as a resource (and in case any other evaluators/listeners want to chime in; please do), and to remind you all that it's fine to ask stuff about the eval/feedback.

In this case, the problem with the B part: it's a problem with the overall structure of the remix. Until 0:53, there's a kind of buildup, and it works. From the 1:31 break and on, it works. This bit in between doesn't, and it's difficult to articulate why. I think it's because of the mood. The mood of the melody suggests a different structure. This isn't a problem in the source, because the source has a different mood. It also feels less cohesive because of the variation in the melody and drum patterns, which messes up the dynamic structure and makes the break thereafter feel a little odd. The break is fine, it's what leads into it that's the problem: the B part.

I think you should build a brand new part for it, chords, rhythms and all. The melody can be from that same part of the source, or from a different part of source, and you might have to alter the melody to make is flow better with the surrounding parts. It can incorporate other elements of the source, too (and I enjoy both doing that and hearing it in remixes of sources I know well). But the chords and rhythms create a mood that just doesn't flow, just doesn't fit, just doesn't sit right. It sounds terribly subjective, and I'm struggling to explain why I have a problem with it.

I dunno. It _feels_ wrong. Any other ears on this?

[timaeus222]

Well, one crit that doesn't seem to be addressed is that the rhythm guitars have a thin feel to them. I can hear a bass, but the guitars are completely missing low-midrange EQ (130~380 Hz, specifically, has zero guitar content), and they are overboosted in the midrange as well (~700 and ~2100 Hz, by about 2~3 dB). The bass also has almost nothing above 200 Hz, so I guess you low-shelved or scooped it that much? As a result, the track feels hollow in the low-midrange.

At 0:53, you go out of the key, not in the way jazz does, but in a way that sounds like a mistake. You're using basically a whole tone scale (you play E, G#[higher], F#, D, C, E, D, G#[lower] at 0:53).

I dunno, I guess it's maybe because you were playing in F# minor (F#, G#, A, B, C#, D, E, F#) at 0:39 - 0:53, which somehow doesn't jive well with the whole tone scale you used at 0:53.

B and C#, though in F# minor, aren't in a whole tone scale that starts on F# (F#, G#, A#, C, D, E, F#), so if you play a chord that uses notes in F# minor, it would usually sound dissonant (especially after some distortion is added to make each note less tonal).

https://app.box.com/s/ktj8z3k68qoxessbwhgx6yedsrctmym6

[DJ A.H.]

I'm kind of simple in my comments... I like what you made there, specially the drum work

[Vidilian]

Thanks for the clarifation and comments. Yeah, the song changes key at 0:53 so that must be the main issue you're having with it.I did it on purpose but I guess it doesn't make sense. Will sort this one out at some point Will take it off of eval. Cheers

[Vidilian]

Update.

With all the previous versions of this I've been trying to get rid of the high frequency hiss of the guitars by using a low pass eq and then keep the guitar from sounding too muffled after I do that by using a high pass as well.

With this update I decided to give up on trying to clean up this hiss as my attempts have been taking too much away from the guitars. They are fuller and more powerful now so it's more clear that the rhythm guitars are playing power chords. This makes up for that the fact I can't figure out how to clean up the hiss.

Everything else that was mentioned has also been worked on, most notable being the removal of all key changes and adjustment of overall sound design.

Same link

[Vidilian]

Update. Some adjustments to EQ and fader levels. Also, made the drums end less suddenly before outro.

Switched to eval.

 

[Vidilian]

Realised that I posted a slightly older version. Updated the link.

[Gario]

EVAL

Very interesting harmonic approach to the source - it sounds like you pretty much rework the harmonies to get a whole new mood to it, and that approach works quite well.

I've got to say, there are a lot of instruments in this that are very wet. Pads, delay on the guitars, etc., and when too many are going at once it creates a very washed background. You lost a lot of the harmonies and synths when they all start blending together. On one synth in particular (the one that comes in at 0:05, ends up carrying the theme) it sounds like the release of the synth itself is exceeding 1-2 seconds, which is a recipe for creating lots of unintentional mud.

The drums, by contrast, actually need a little more reverb to them, to help match the room ambience of the other instruments. Not too much, but just enough to make it sound like it's in the same room as the other instruments. The drums should also be mixed a little more to the front of the mix, too, as they're virtually drown by the other instruments, at the moment.

The hard panning in the beginning is quite distracting. It's no dealbreaker due to how short the offending panning lasts, but it is a bit annoying. Consider centering that left panned synth a little more in the beginning. It doesn't need to go full center, but pulling it a little away from the left would help considerably.

The instrument quality seems to be improving, from what I gather (there were prior comments to the guitar quality, for example), as it doesn't sound too terrible. There are a few ways that you could improve it further, though. Ironically, in light of my comments of much of the track being too wet, adding a little more reverb (not delay, but reverb) to the guitar part can hide the releases better. Not your fault, but the release of the sample sounds strangely inhuman - a hint of reverb can help hide that. Another interesting point is how you handle volume envelops - moments like 2:14 - 2:16 sound like you're simply playing with the volume knob rather than a natural result of the guitarist playing notes at different volumes. Swelling can work as a technique (Metallica did this for the opening of "Justice for All", for example), but you've got to study and understand how guitarists use such volume envelops in their own music before applying them as such. If you want to humanize the overdrive guitar, use different velocities for a few of the notes, and have the velocity affect the levels. That's the best way to humanize volume for that instrument.

The more acoustic part, in contrast, is pretty darn top notch. It sounds natural, and it really takes the track to a different level. Great work on that.

There's a lot of wetness that is occurring in the background of the music - enough so to where I'd send it back if it were on the panel. The arrangement is pretty sweet, though, so it'd be pretty solid on that front. Hopefully some of my advice on humanizing the guitar helps, too, as I'm sure this would still be called out for not having enough proper humanization on some of the instruments.

[Vidilian]

I'm a little late to reply. Thanks for feedback. Good to hear it's improved.

I'm sure I can figure this one out at some point since its seems like it's getting closer to be being OK and would be waste not to try and fix it. For now, taking it off eval.