Metroid Prime 2 'Stir of Echoes' RESUB 11/25

[avaris]

Hola, this is my first post along with my first mix to the site. I am just an amateur, who has been arranging and making tunes for around 4 years now. All self taught. As like most noobies I've been listening to stuff on this site for over a year, and I finally got a full version of fruity loops again,so now I am able to start making music again after a year long break. This remix is of the most bad ass intro song ever to Metroid Prime 2 Echoes. I accept any and all criticism, and I'm hoping to be the first to get this one posted on the site, although after spending some considerable time on this mix I can see why nobody has done it yet, the arrangement and room for interpertation are insane. It is after all just an intro song.

This is the source song

Click here to listen to Metroid Prime2 Echoes Intro

Update 8/6

Click here to listen to Metroid-Prime2-Stir-of-Echoes-OC-Remix

[Radiowar]

not really getting a sense of rhythm here. piano interrupts the heartbeat thing pretty suddenly, then it is interrupted again by stuff. The piano needs something other than an echo on it so it doesn't seem so harsh. The lead instrument that plays around 0:21 is way too murky. I don't know what I'm supposed to be hearing but what sounds like the melody is drowned out by its own decay and the marimba-ish thing.

I'm hearing a lot of instruments suddenly appearing then disappearing way too loudly.

I recognize the source, I'm not really familiar with it, but I can tell there isn't a whole lot of arrangement. The melody shifts 3 or 4 times throughout in seemingly random intervals.

I think I'm rambling. Here are some things to think about:

- work on entries, at least change the volumes because the quiet-loud disparity is huge (and add some reverb to that piano, it's wayyy too dry)

- structure, to say that this mix doesn't go anywhere would be inaccurate because it goes pretty much everywhere and back more than a few times with no sense of direction.

- and finally, arrangement. not hearing much interpretation.

[The Vagrance]

First off I'd like to say thank you, many newbies here will make a post asking where to host their mix, not thank anyone for help, post their mix, get 2 or 3 comments, not comment on anyone elses mix, then complain about not getting enough comments. Many thanks for commenting on other people's mixes instead of just hoping people would comment on yours.

Now, onto the remix:

I've never heard the original source music (well, I don't think, I recognize the Metroid theme here and there) so I'm not sure how much is original and how much isn't.

This stuff kinda reminds me of that sound collage style music, many people claim its brilliant, however I am not one of those people. You need to give some sense of rhythm, a light kick would fit in perfect for an ambiant feel.

I like that really wet bell sounding instrument that comes in at about 0:21. The piano sound is really dry and crappy though, get a good piano soundfont then reverb that mofo, and if it doesn't sound good then layer it multiple times. The miramba thing sounds pretty good, I actually like the reverb.

As for the song structure, I can't really tell if this song has any. It needs some amount of structure. It reminds me a lot of old Jazz stuff (Thelonious Monk - 'Round Midnight is one of my favorite songs right now) but your arrangement comes off as just lazy rather than bad ass, add some tension and release to your song.

Overall, there's something oddly redeeming about this mix to me, probably because I'm into this sorta stuff right now. There's just so much about it that should be there and should be replaced instead though. A good dark start, but needs something more.

[avaris]

thanks guys, im trying to implement all of those things right now, it'll take me a little bit but I've already made various changes

[Radiowar]

Just a quick note if you update your link you should probably bump the thread or else nobody will see it.

So on to the mix..

First think I noticed is that the pads come in too early. It doesn't seem to be playing in time with the piano...the piano seems to be playing just randomly.

eww bass. Wrong note. Made worse by the fact that it is constantly repeating.

From what I remember, not a lot has been changed from the first version of this. The entrances are still as awkward as they were, volume disparity is still too much, only now there is a bass playing the wrong note throughout the whole thing. Also noticed clipping around 2:00. Could just be my crappy headphones though.

Everything seems random here. Still needs structure and also needs to not have 40 seconds of silence at the end.

[Splunkle]

I <3 the metroid prime 2 opening theme, so I'm rather familar with the soruce. It is one of those themes that seems deceptively simple, but is actually really freaking pro. But enough of this, onto the mix itself:

Timing is definatly strange. Check your time signature, and make sure everything is coming in when it should. Something is off, but I can't put my finger on it.

Also the mix is REALLY empty. But not in a good way. If you are going for that ambient soundscape thing, fill it up with the appropriate backing stuff - light percussion (hevay filtering is your freind), paddy things, or random sound FX - just try not to make it sound to corny. Also remember that Reverb is usually very important in an ambient song - so make sure its sounds good and consistant. Else it will sound disjointed.

As for arrangement, you haven't really done much here. There is a bit of nice stuff going on at the end with the piano, but that needs to happen earlier, and there needs to be more of it. I know its hard, because the theme is kinda crazy, but keep at it until you get some results.

With hard work, this could be awesome. Keep at it.

[avaris]

thankx guys, I am totally revamping some stuff, it is going to sound completely different, many new ideas, I've completely rearranged the strings, what I have in mind after listening to you guys is going to take me couple of days to implement...this is hard work, but hopefully it'll pay off

[BreakTekk]

The first thing I think when I listen to this remix is that I would love to hear some drums on this. Hell, I'm probably going to put this on my ipod and actually drum to it, I want to hear the drums so bad. This song just needs that pop that a kick drum would give and the groove of busy ghost notes on a snare.

Another thing I noticed, which initially manifested itself as vague sense of wrongness, was that this song felt a lot like an intro. All of the empty space felt like a perfect set up for something that never arrives. Actually, something kind of arrives around 1:40, but its does't have the punch necessitated by a minute forty of intro and only sticks around until 2:12 or so. I kept thinking "This is gonna break open like crazy," and then it never did. Like Splunkle said, fill things up a bit when everything kicks in, and stretch it out for a while.

My final comment on this piece is about the piano at the beginning. It fit perfectly, and should've kept going on for a while. It also didn't come back anywhere else in the song. The beginning of the song is where you set the tone, and yours was misleading. The piano should have a presence throughout the song.

I really like the foundation you've created here, and I hope you keep pursuing this piece.

[avaris]

alrighty, just finished the updated version. This is a major revamping, I added 2mins of material, which includes some rearrangemnt, fx(rainstick, voice samples, and a funky waterbass at the end, oh yeah and a friggin beat! Those are my own lyrics in the song, I just used the standard voice creatr on the fl studio, i really wanted some voice samples from neon genesis evangelion but i couldn't find any for the life of me.

i updated the link uptop

[Radiowar]

The intro still sounds wrong. The whistle-ish thing goes for 5 bars before the piano comes in so that's why it sounds wrong. Plus, the rhythm that it establishes is too different from the one that the piano plays. Then on top of that the piano barely gets halfway through the second bar before a huge pad comes in. I don't even know if it's a bar because there is no sense of time. That problem happens over and over throughout the song so you need to work on that, instead of just adding more instruments...

I think the rainstick is too loud. It's a cool idea though. Could use some reverb or something. Piano still needs to be less fake. Pads are a too loud.

It sounds really muddy but it isn't too bad until 1:12. There's just too much happening. The beat you added doesn't really help anything. It sounds cluttered and off key.

The entrance at 2:07 is still too loud! it's been like this since the first version and i think I pointed it out. The voice samples are bugging me...if you have a mic you could just record yourself whispering at least.

To be honest I kind of stopped listening around there. This song doesn't really go anywhere it just repeats certain parts at random intervals. It's too aimless. Needs to have a point to it.

[avaris]

Alrighty, I submitted my update too early last night. Went back through and cleaned up and added. Worked on sound volume, some basic arrangment errors. There are two big things I need some feedback and a lil bit of help on for this mix.

1. beat, not my greatest strength i know that

2. direction, not my greatest strength i know that

The beat is taken from the source, though i took some of the notes in the main beat, bc when it comes in during my mix, everything is slow, so i don't want a beat to come in fast and take over, I do that later in the song when everything really picks up

[BreakTekk]

This is an definate improvement over the last version. This one is a lot more structured and seems to have a good flow. The best part of the song was from 0:39 to 1:16, the new piano stuff sounded great there and really seemed to work with everyhthing else. However, there's still a ways to go on this mix.

You could probably have two measures or so with just the heartbeat and rain stick to create the atmosphere before bringing in the piano. The rain stick, while a good idea, should really only be in the intro. After that it just distracts from the rest of the song.

The reason I said the best portion of the song stopped at 1:16 is because that beat doesn't work. At all. It works with the source tunes, but doesn't feel at home with your melody. The beat and the melody are supposed to work together, not distract from each other. Having a beat is good, but you would be better off with no beat than this beat.

Like I said, the new piano stuff really helps, but it isn't flawless just yet. The two piano notes at 1:39 sound really dischordant and out of place. There were also a couple of places where it seemed rushed coming in as well(but I don't know if it actually is rushed or if that is just an effect of that damn beat).

The robotic voice was creepy. Like Radiowar said, record yourself if you have a mike. If you don't like your voice or don't have a mike, go to the Remixing forums and request someone else to do it. There's also a really creepy background synth thing that runs from 1:55 to 2:22, it sounds like a robotic monster of death opening its jaws. You might want to cut this out.

The synth from 3:10 to 3:44 is too loud, and the timing feels a little late, but again, this may be a product of the beat.

[Radiowar]

Pads at the beginning are off key or something. Rainstick sounds better.

Entrance is still too sudden! I don't know what's going on here.

So far it is sounding more structured...but that isn't saying much. Still feels too random. It's probably because the pads are out of key.

And the beat doesn't fit. This mix sounds like it's trying to be atmospheric while the drums are trying to be uptempo or whatever. Doesn't work.

Too random. You need to pick a direction the song is going in and stick with it...

[avaris]

UPDATE 7/17: ok, making a list and checking it twice to see which updates are wrong and which are right

(new rmx posted uptop)

1.took away robotic voice samples and added a real voice sample from Minority Report (it's not Tom Cruise) also changed tone of freakish voice

2. Took out the beat completely in the first part of the song(best thing I ever did besides taking a shower), and took out hihats in 2nd part

3. added and changed a few notes here and there to give the song more flow and cohesive thought

4. changed chord structure on the pads that come in on 0:01 (radiowar u were right they were slightly off, good ear)

5. added low bass dist guitar in breakout, lowered volume of waterBubble bass

6. BreakTekk, the strings in the 2nd half of the song were off by 1/4 a sec fixed that shit

7. changed volumes all over the place, lowered the volume on many of the entrances (thanks again to Radiowar)

8. thought about an official name...guess i'll sleep on it

[Radiowar]

Beginning is off key. I don't know whether the dissonance is intentional or not. Sounds unintentional though, so you're gonna have to fix that...

Entrances are a lot better now! Pads still sound off key especially around 1:30 and 1:37...and 1:44. Starts to get really messy after that. Pads are overdone. You can't really force atmosphere.

Transition at 2:15 would be better if the pads weren't off key. The marimba synth you're using plays some wrong notes I think.

Melody that comes in at 3:07 is out of time with the piano and the drums and bass which are also out of time with each other...

This is getting there, some issues with wrong notes and wrong keys and mixed up timing. Structure is slowly developing so that's good. Or maybe I've heard this so many times I'm just getting used to it. Whatever. Keep it up.

[Splunkle]

Okay, while the heartbeat kick drum is nice, some may disagree with the way its half out of sync with the piano. But I like it.

Vocal sample struck me as cheesy. Others may like it though, so if it rocks your boat, leave it.

Very nice drop into the main theme... but then it just kinda stays there. Where are we going? Sure, a lot of ambiant tracks don't have that much direction, but that melody there is full of direction. It goes somewhere... but the track doesn't follow. It just repeats. =/

Don't be afraid to write a whole bit to follow on form the introduction. Even if its all orginal, its interpretation, so its all good. Hell, its to be encoraged. Write some nice bridgey bits for that piano to go between the parts, so it doens't sound so disjointed.

Mad props go to that backing thing - sounds like some kind of FM xylophone, but I can't be sure.

Hey! the ending has direction. The two pads kinda swell up a bit much... you might want to compress them a little.

But the track just kinda ends. 'Salgood, since this is a WIP, but make sure you fix it.

Summary: you have the atmosphere thing fairly downpat, but work on the direction a bit more.

[BreakTekk]

Beginning is off key. I don't know whether the dissonance is intentional or not. Sounds unintentional though, so you're gonna have to fix that...

Didn't hear that at all, the beginning sounded spot on to me.

Pads still sound off key especially around 1:30 and 1:37...and 1:44. Starts to get really messy after that. Pads are overdone.

I didn't hear the offkeyness at those points as well. I dunno; I could be hallucinating, but I don't think so.

Anyways, this keeps getting better, and I dig it. The only thing I have to say about the first minute is that you should ditch the voice samples. Altogether. Don't improve your voice samples, leave them out.

It gets a little too stop and go for me from 1:00 to 1:55. From 1:00 to 1:17 goes together really nicely, as well as from 1:19 to 1:35 and from 1:38 to 1:54. My suggestion with this is just to take out from 1:19 to 1:35, but that's just me.

The synth notes at 1:55, 1:59, and 2:03 did nothing but lessen the effect of the piano.

The bass is bad. It sounds bad the whole time, but REALLY doesn't work from 3:07 onwards. It completely contrasts with all the synths you use during that period. The uptempo is nice, but can't really be commented on until the bass is gone.

This thing is progressing in strides, keep up the diligence(it is quite impressive).

[avaris]

The backing Xylophone sound, is actually echo bottles from sytrus about 2 octaves down, and I haven't attached any other reverb or chorus to it either.

This song, after some painstaking observement, is in the key of mainly C(2whole steps, 1 half, 3 wholes, 1 half[b is never present]) and then at small odd parts is the key of Ab(same step sequence) The pads starting at 0:01 were not in any key, I had done some crazy arpeggio and chopping, i included them bc i liked the sound, but now they are in the key of C. The pads from 1:30 to 1:37 the B note made it's only appearance of the piece hence the odd sound, even though it was in key. I gave those pads some Robatussin so now they're ok. Now from 1:44 till the breakout, the pads were in Ab and the piano in C, so I switched the piano the key of Ab to keep with the flow of the piece. The key of Ab only appears at the end of melodies and arrangements. The drums were putting the wrong emphasis in certain parts of the guitar. I tweaked the everything around 3:00, where the rhythm get's lost in the with the piano coming in, so I changed the rhythm of the piano. I don't know if I am goin to create my own piano in the beginning part where it is repitative/stopNgo, or just cut it shorter. I might make a piano solo and stick it at the end of the piece. I am goin to sleep on all that, and it's too late to attempt anything like that, I also haven't gotten to those synths around 2:00 yet. But, I almost put in some great william schatner voice clips.....just kidding. Well the update mainly includes all the chord changes and adjustments(that sucked), and no voice samples(see how it sounds without em).

This is one of the hardest arrangements to work with, especially after taking a year's hiatus from doin anything with music, but you guys have been a big help in getting this mix where it is today. Thnkx

update posted up top

[BreakTekk]

I'm am undeniably stoked that there are no voice samples in here. I mean, like, woah.

Alright, putting stereotypical stoner comments aside, there are still some things to work on here. I still don't think it all comes together in the second minute minute; is it just me, or do the phrases start just a moment too late at 1:18? It just doesn't flow into one cohesive piece. Whatever, minor issue. Then you still gotta fix the buzzy bass thing during the last 94 seconds or so. And the rain stick ends a little too abruptly at 2:27. That is a nitpick though; not very important. I'm ramblesome today. Oh well.

*likes idea of new piano stuff*

[avaris]

ok, added a new piano right before 1:55. the timing was off from 1:55 to 2:10 with the piano and the strings. I think the bass in the last 90 secs sounds good, of course I can see the beef with it. I'll prob try some different sounds in that part tomorrow and see is i can find anything better. I added a solo piano arrangement at the very end, yay or nay on the new piano before 1:55 and at the end? and the buzz u hear right at the end, is from fl studio bc i am using a demo plugin in the song(slayer2 thats the bass) and after 15 mins it starts making that buzzing noise.

All these small errors all over the place come from when I did the big rearrangement that added 2mins of material and also learning the ins and outs of the new fl studio 6 (I used to use fruity loops 3)

[Radiowar]

Beginning needs work. Fix the piano sample. I'd recommend the Maestro soundfont.

Actually, I think the entire intro should be cut out and the song should start at the part at 1:06. Or at least get there quicker. The intro just kinda sits there sounding all off key and weird.

I don't know what kind of weird xylophone synth that is in the background, some kind of Sytrus thing I'm guessing, but it doesn't sound right.

Do you think you could send me the .flp file? I want to see exactly what's going on here.

[avaris]

I am looking any and all new sounds to use to FL Studio, thanks for the link. Although I can't seem to install the file? I'll try some more and see if I can get to come up, the readme file wasn't to specific on install instructions.

I tried to post the file here or sent it to u in a message but I couldn't find anywhere to attach it. If you give me ur email I can send it to you. Although...*warning* as u know I've a ton of updates to this mix, the flp file is extremely cluttered. The first pattern contains all of the original midi file. I have up to 60 patterns worth of material, although not all of it is incorporated in the song. If you want I can create a "clean" version of the flp. file that only contains the patterns and instruments that are currently being used in the mix.

This goes for anyone else as well.

[BreakTekk]

I like the arrangement of the intro. I dunno, slow builds work for me. I kinda miss the old piano a little, just from the old 1:19 to 1:35 segment. I'd like to see a combination of new and old piano pieces. Ending with a piano sounds good.

[Radiowar]

Wow you weren't kidding when you said it was messy.

I'll take a better look at it over the weekend.

[avaris]

maybe I should have put the warning in red to better prepare you for it, haha, yeah if you want I can make a "clean" version i really don't mind