Mario Kart: Bowser's Castle Remix

[pokemoneinstein]

My arrangement can be heard here
And here's the original for comparison.

I know the drums are a big area which need improving, but I'm terrible at writing percussion. so some advice would be much appreciated.

Other than that, I think it's mostly mastering I need to take care of, but that's also a field I'm pretty new to. I did my best, but I'm sure it needs more still, as well as any fine-tuning to the arrangement that I might not have noticed.

Sort of in the same vein, should I pan some instruments more? Thoughts/suggestions on what could or shouldn't be panned?

 

EDIT: New version can be found here.

Edited May 4, 2015 by pokemoneinstein

[pokemoneinstein]

Updated the first post with a new version and marked it for mod review

[Rozovian]

Appropriate title. Nice.

I'm not sure if it's terrible or brilliant sound design to have aggressive guitar and drums and nice soft vibraphone things. I guess it depends on your intent. But I like it.

Yeah, drum writing is simplistic. Pretend to be a drummer, wave your arms around and imagine what you hit. There's more than just snare, hat, kick, and crash in a drum kit.

Mixing seems to have trouble deciding what's important. Drums and guitar fall way into the background towards the end of the track. Not sure how intentional that is. There's a few other parts where things jump out of the mix, or seem buried way too deep. Sort out how loud you need each element to be, and what's most important at any given time.

Source is there, most noticeably the altered lead that drops out a few of the shorter notes. Might need a take or two where it's more obvious. Not sure.

Melody around 1:30 is rather weird. I guess it's supposed to reference the 0:22 part of source, but it sounds like random notes. Needs to be more deliberate to work.

The guitar being so soft makes it sound like random scratches in the background. Starts around 1:30-ish, but gets really annoying when the vibraphone comes in at 1:54.

Arrangement seems to be a fairly straight adaptation of the source, but I think it's sufficiently personalized to not be a problem.

I'd give it a NO (resub). It's has potential, and feels like a good track to get up to ocr level. Most of the problems are technical rather than creative, so you don't have to deal with the interpretation/direction/arrangement issues that a technically good but too cover-ish track would have. Work on the mix, the drum writing, and the weird writing around 1:30.

Not done yet. Nice work so far.

[pokemoneinstein]

Alright, version two, new and improo, and ready for a mod review!
https://soundcloud.com/colinsm/hellracers-now-with-more-sex

Let me know what you think, guys!