*NO* Sonic the Hedgehog 2 'Numinous Cavern'

[Chimpazilla]

Hi,

My name is Ace Waters and this is my first time submitting a song to OCREMIX. I make music under the name "Motive Makes a Man" so, I suppose that would be my ReMixer name. My music is a unique blend of analog electronic equipment and natural instruments. I started making VGM with my youtube channel, and each song is actually made for a video, including the submission below. This means that most parts are recorded in one continuous take, to allow the video to look more natural. You can watch the video here if you like:

My submission is titled Numinous Cavern. It is a reworking of Mystic Cave Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I hope you enjoy it!

As stated, I have a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/acewatersthe3rd) that I update weekly with cover videos, VGM, and original songs.

I also have a website here: http://motivemakesaman.com/ That contains all of my original music.

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Edited April 17, 2015 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Chimpazilla]

The drum machine right away sounds repetitively programmed, as does the bassline. You've got instruments hard-panned right and left, I don't understand why people do that. The main lead sounds piercing, and the vibrato goes a little too wild on the longer notes. The arrangement is very conservative and simple, although there are clearly improvisations made to the melody. I think this would need a mixing cleanup as many of the frequencies are competing for space, and that panning really isn't working for me. Still, some promising ideas here.

NO

[Emunator]

Wow, your bassline is loud. I know the Mystic Cave bassline is fun, but let the rest of your track breathe a bit!

There's some fun parts to this track with a lively groove and some cool synth flourishes, but ultimately this is a pretty conservative approach that doesn't expand much on the original source's ideas. In addition to that, there's some serious mixing/sequencing issues with the bass/drums that need to be reigned in - while the drum groove is fun, the way your drums are sequenced is not very realistic, and the bassline is just too up-front and crowding out everything else in the mix.

Solid attempt for a first submission, and it's cool to see the video accompaniment to get an idea for your creation process, but I think you need to refine your mixing skills on this track so that the parts are better balanced, and introduce more personalization and original ideas to the remix overall.

NO

[Liontamer]

Opened up with pretty empty beats until :18. The leads at :18 with robotic timing and sounded very lifeless; the warbling effects were there to try and personalize the sound a touch, but it didn't really add anything to the presentation. Everything's pretty dry.

Some xylo/chromatic perc action at :37, which was interesting, but the sound of that didn't really mesh with the rest of the instrumentation. I'm about 1 minute in, and there's nothing substantially interpretive about this; structure pretty much the same as the original.

While the instrumentation is different, this doesn't stand apart enough from the mood, tempo and structure of the source tune most of the way. 2:09's original writing ideas were a welcome change, but that was less than a minute of the track and only after 2 very straightforward playthroughs of the source tune with little variation.

I also agreed on the production issues that Chimpa and Emu pointed out, so there's not much more to add. Really need more humanized timing, better balance between the different parts, less drastic panning, and (most importantly) more interpretation and/or personalization of the source theme.

Keep at it, Ace. Based on the writing from 2:09-onward, you have the ability to add your own spin to things, you just need to better integrate those ideas with the source material. See what other ideas you get for a greater level of interpretation on future arrangements.

NO