OCR03110 - *YES* Tehkan World Cup 'Playing in the Park'

[Chimpazilla]

ReMixer & real name: Eino Keskitalo

forum id: 20708

Names of game arranged: Tehkan World Cup

Name of Arrangement: Playing In The Park

Names of song arranged: (it's the intro song)

This is for Hakštok's World Cup EP project!

Source:

I'm not a huge football fan, but I like to kick the ball around with my daughter.

We found Tehkan World Cup via leafing through "1001 Video Games You Should Play Before You Die" - on the page next to Super Mario Bros, which is one of our favourites to play together. It's a 1985 arcade game and the writeup made it sound like a great head-to-head game I'd never heard of before. Turns out the gameplay relies on trackball controllers to do all sorts of neat stuff with the ball. Sounds great, but we don't have one (or two)!

So, actually playing the game will have to wait, but the short intro ditty was pretty catchy. When the World Cup EP recruitment thread came up, I decided to try to do an arrangement of it (the concept & the timing was too good to pass up).

To speed things up I used an existing piece - one we made with the daughter as a Christmas present to her mother - as the basis of the production. My modest guitaring was done in five takes, and I picked the best bits from each, doing some doubling & other cheating in the solo part. Overall I tried to work in broad strokes and take in any happy accidents.

Source breakdown:

0:00-0:07 noise

0:08-0:27 actual intro, with melody adapted from the source melody

0:27-1:08 1st verse, starting with the bassline from source, source melody comes in at 0:37

1:08-1:13 little original break

1:13-1:32 intro part again

1:33-2:13 2nd verse

2:13-3:01 guitar solo based on the source bassline, with some support melody from source melody

That's all. Cheers!

--Eino

Edited February 27, 2015 by Chimpazilla

[Chimpazilla]

Simple, cute source! Interesting ideas in the remix. I like the intro with the crushed noise, but when the noise continues as the bass and lead comes in, it just sounds unnecessarily crunchy and lossy. I like the initial arrangement ideas but that bitcrushed noise bothers me.

As I get into the track, it sounds repetitive. 1:13 sounds just the same as 0:08, ok so layering them together they are in fact nearly identical: 0:08-1:08 is the same as 1:13-2:13 except that the second part has some variance in the lead writing, not enough for me though and the timbre is the same. This makes the arrangement very samey and repetitive unfortunately. I like the soloing from 2:13 to the end, but since it is played over the exact same backing, it doesn't feel like enough difference from the rest of the track.

If I click around randomly in this track, I can't tell where I am. Needs more development and maybe a little less bitcrushing.

NO (resubmit)

[Liontamer]

I treated some of the interpretation as a little too liberal IMO, but my breakdown ended up checking out just barely over 50% regardless:

:26-1:07, 1:32.5-1:51, 1:53-2:17, 2:30-2:33, 2:35.5-2:38, 2:45.5-2:47 = 90.5 seconds or 50.2%

Anyway, I strongly disagreed with "If I click around randomly in this track, I can't tell where I am." Maybe I'm more used to the piece having listened to this a lot when Futebol Arte came out, but I didn't get thrown off by any of the structure, and I thought the layout of this wasn't any different than a lot of A-B-A subs we receive. It may be a case where listening to it more and getting more used to the structure makes it click for the full listen.

I can see concerns about the melodic and backing repetition, but IMO the overall interpretation of the source and expansion of the instrumentation was more than substantial enough to bear some repetition. There's a difference between copy-pasta that works and doesn't work, and I felt there were a lot of textural/combination changes that helped this not feel samey.

Overall, the the instrumentation and production were on point, the textures changed up more than enough, there were lots of subtle dynamic changes through, and the source tune was very nicely interpreted, varied and expanded. I didn't get any sense that it was getting into boring/underdeveloped territory at all, and I'm with this all the way. IMO, it's a mistake if something like this can't pass.

YES

[Jivemaster]

Nice track, very crunchy. You have some great guitar playing as always. Although the overall sound of your track is similar, I didn't find myself craving more variation when listening through. The first half of the song felt a bit more samey than the second half, but you've thrown in different licks here and there to distinguish the different parts, which is great. Like your soloing. The main thing I thought could have changed up a bit more is your lead synth as I wasn't a huge fan of the patch over time, but it's nothing show stopping.

Production seems solid, everything is relatively clear despite the bit crushing across the track. This would have been challenging to mix. Nice work.

Your source is identifiable, and going off Larry's breakdown as source usage being acceptable, I'm happy about this one.

YES

[Emunator]

Well this is pretty neat I actually found this to be one of the most fun and interesting of your submissions that I've heard so far. The guitars contribute a nice foil to the predominantly-chiptune soundscape, and is appropriately crunchy to complement the rest of your bitcrushed sounds. Fun groove, bouncy and active melodies... no major production or source use issues... it's not blowing me away necessarily but I dig it nonetheless

YES

[Palpable]

I disagreed with this sounding copypasta too. There were little change-ups in the lead, drums, and bass that kept this humming along. Thought there was more than enough development and didn't think it got repetitive. It's a pretty creative take on the source tune. Chip and guitar is an unusual combination but one that works well here. It's a buoyant pairing that gets offset a little by the minor key melody, making for an interesting mood. Cool stuff.

YES