Chimpazilla Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) Contact Information ReMixer name: Majeles Real name: Mico M. Email address: Forum user id: 5882 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submission Information Name of game arranged: Advance Wars & Advance Wars 2 (theme exists in both games) Name of arrangement: Unearthly Invasion Name of original material: Sturm's Theme Link to original material: or Platform: Game Boy Advance Developer: Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo Composer: Taishi Senda ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please find the remix attached to this email. Comments It started out as a day dream of a possible Advance Wars game for the 3DS as I am a huge fan of all the games from Gameboy Advance to the Nintendo DS. Then it lead to a search for some remixes on the game-which I have sought, but there were none. So I decided to remix the most bad ass dude in the game STURM! I am a big fan of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin's soundtrack and the OST definitely had an influence on this remix. As I was working on this arrangement, I always had in mind what if Sturm was in Days of Ruin... or maybe was responsible of the back story of Days of Ruin. I also had old school alien sci fi films in mind and absolutely had to use that eerie Theremin sound... because his Army seemed very out of this world-perhaps maybe being an alien with alien technology. I had a lot of fun with this arrangement. I made it into a loop like all Advance Wars CO themes. There's a part where I went to town with african drums & timpani's, and went off the general rhythm-that's supposed to be the chaos that follows when he uses his CO Power "Meteor Strike." Edited March 27, 2015 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted February 8, 2015 Author Share Posted February 8, 2015 (edited) I'm completely revising my previous vote on this track. Originally I had thought it sounded so similar to the source that I thought it might be a midi-rip. Listening again, I don't think that at all, and can't imagine why I thought that. The arrangement does play it close to the source material, it's conservative for sure, but there are some very cool changes and additions. I like the rhythm guitars, the drums and groovy bassline, the saw lead and the theramin thingie. The lead is mixed a little bit loud and piercy but the writing is great. Lots of fun effects and unique sounds in the mix, it sounds groovy and also creepy. So my biggest gripe is the ending. As I said before, I realize it is intended to loop, but for a standalone track, the ending doesn't work at all. I might even accept a complete fadeout, but here it is just cut off cold. I'd love to get another version that at LEAST fades out completely, but I'd prefer some kind of resolution. If it passes as-is though, I'm ok with that. NO (resub with new ending) Edited March 20, 2015 by Chimpazilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beatdrop Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 I really dig the groove here. It's like Prodigy meets NIN circa mid-90s. The sound choices are excellent; the punchy drums combine very well with the bass synth, which I swear sounds like it's taken right out of "Like No One's Looking" by Mondo Grosso (from the Casshern soundtrack). I love the arp in the background throughout most of the track too. Basically I like all the sounds herein. Some of them are occasionally on the shrill side of things, but they're mostly mixed pretty well. Arrangement-wise, the original track doesn't have a whole lot going on with it, and this is addresses it in a no-nonsense fashion. The differences are subtle, but they're there. I particularly enjoyed the usage of the lead melody at 1:08, which here is used as kind of a high point and build transition, whereas in the original it's basically a "verse" section and is pretty fleeting. Maybe it doesn't run away with the original, but I think it takes it from its Klepacki-esque roots and drives it in a more electronic direction to enough of a degree to easily warrant the 3 minute run-time. Most of the uniqueness of this track comes from the rhythmic adjustments you've made. The contrast between 0:18--where it's rhythmically very similar to the original--and the stuff that happens after the 1:08 build-up section--after you unload the ethnic percussion--is probably what I enjoyed most. It tricks you into thinking it's fairly breakbeat-oriented, jumps into an industrial groove, and then goes right back into the breaks. The drum programming is really a highlight here. One major gripe: the ending is... yuck. Sorry, there's no gentle way to put it. I appreciate that you filtered it back down to mirror the intro, but it cuts too abruptly post-filter. Still, just a minor gripe and not worth rejecting it over when compared to everything else. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Can't say I like this OST very much. What I do like is the filtered intro segment in your track. Synth bass sounds pretty nice Right off the bat, the mix sounds pretty hot in the mid-high (1khz-2khz ish) levels. The hats, kick, and snare are all pretty loud in this same range. Mixed with the lead synths and, to a lesser extent, the stab synths and it can sound pretty cluttered and a bit piercing in the more busy sections. Interestingly, the converse seems to also be in effect where there sounds like a bit of a frequency gap in the low/mid-low range, somewhere around 100hz-400hz (most noticeably in places like :18, 1:16 & 1:44 where the track feels like it should be more filled out). The rhythm guitars could fill out this nicely, but currently they're pretty top-heavy. Maybe layering a nice sub bass with the current bass line alone would do the trick. Arrangement-wise, this does keep it pretty close to the vest. The overall style/sound & groove is pretty similar to the original. We do get some good expansion in the writing and transitional parts, which helps drive things along. I liked the percussive changeups at 1:33, which was wholly unexpected and creative. Yeah, I hate to beat a dead horse, but the ending sounds super lazy (straight-up mirror copy of the intro) and audibly cuts off too soon. The track would be much better served leaving your listener with a better impression in the end IMO. I'd like to hear this one again with less of a top-heavy mix as well as a better fleshed out ending. It's possible I'll be in the minority with my vote and other won't see these as significant issues. Either way, I'd like to see this one on the front page. NO resubmit, please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Some really cool things going on with this mix that I didn't really catch on my initial listen when I hit this in the inbox. Your percussion changeups are really nice, and the spastic hand drumming was a really interesting choice that works great here. The guitar also adds a lot of flavor to the mix. Aside from that, I feel that this retreads a lot of the same ground as the source, sonically and arrangement-wise. I don't want to devalue the personalization that you did incorporate here, because you did make plenty of interpretive decisions that give this mix its own flavor. Beatdrop did a great job covering some of the things you did well here, so I definitely want to give credit where credit is due. There are some production issues with the track that I'm noticing. Nothing too major, but the overall mixing imbalance toward the mid-high frequencies sounded off to me. Specifically, I feel like transitions such as the one at :17 would have more impact if you beefed up your kick drum post-transition with a layered sub that helped fill out the lower frequency ranges. Right now, there's not enough of a difference between the intro and the meat of that verse, so the transition doesn't really work as intended. Also, the theremin-style leads are mixed a little loudly, as Kristina pointed out. And the ending is definitely a weak spot, I don't think that worked at all :-\ The production issues definitely don't add up to a rejection in my book. However, for a mix that only runs 3:00, I find myself rather underwhelmed. To be blunt, everything from 2:35 onward felt like a copy-paste from earlier to achieve the looping effect, so I'm effectively viewing this as a 2:30-long submission... for a track that short, I just don't feel like this takes enough risks with the source material or covers enough ground to pass muster. Truthfully I'd likely be borderline-okay with passing this mix if the production was tightened up and the ending were replaced, but I'd REALLY like to hear more exciting writing and ideas like you demonstrated in 1:31 - 2:04. I think there's a lot of untapped potential here, and it would be a lot easier to justify the short length of your mix if the ideas that were present were more ambitious. This is a close decision for me and I can totally understand why you got a YES vote, but my gut tells me there's enough room for improvement here that it's worth sending back for revisions, at least on the production/ending if nothing else! Good luck with the rest of the vote! NO (resubmit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Mmm very close call. I wouldn't fault a YES on this at all; it's just barely under the bar for me. First the positives: I liked the arrangement a lot. Keeps the same creepy-chill vibe with a stronger production and some genuinely weird (in a good way) instrument choices like martial drumming and the crazy ethnic percussion freakout at 1:33. The song maintained a good flow the whole while. Now, what you can still work on. Biggest issue is the ending, which is barely one. You've got a pretty low-energy section starting at 2:42 leading into a filter-down, which just finishes its last measure. No hold on the last note, nothing. You've got a bell that plays at the start of every 2 bars and I think a cool idea would be to not have that instrument filter out. Then you can end on one last strike of that bell. It would sound much more conclusive that way. As other judges noted, the mixing is slightly problematic, though not a huge issue. One thing I didn't see noted was how bland the snare sound is. I don't think it's horrendous for one or two sections, but you use it the whole song. The few problems you've got here add up to a NO, I'm afraid. It's just barely under the line though. Please give us another version! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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