*NO* Pokémon Sapphire Version 'Thunderstorm in the Tropics'

[Chimpazilla]

ReMixer name: ElectricMudkip
Email:
Userid: 53717

Name of game(s) arranged: Pokemon Sapphire
Name of arrangement: Thunderstorm in the Tropics
Name of individual song(s) arranged: Littleroot Town

Own comments about the mix (I WROTE A LOT I'M SORRY ;~ : There are a lot of Littleroot Town arrangements on the Internet, but for however many there actually are, not many of them take risks--and that alone was my sole intention for this particular remix, to indeed take those risks that others never dared to. Now, I do admit that at first glance, the source material might be hard to hear--but I can guarantee it's there, in spades, even if it's not the full melody. Should I do a breakdown? Is that an acceptable thing to do here? I guess I can do a quick breakdown of what's what, to help illustrate my point:

0:00 to 0:30 = original intro, fragments of Littleroot Town theme on music box (LR theme for short).
0:30 to 0:45 = full LR theme on music box, 0:45 to 1:15 = same melody again, played by a synth-y bell-like sound.
1:15 to 1:45 = some original melodies.
1:45 to 2:15 = LR's theme again, played by Ruby & Sapphire string ensemble instrument.
2:15 to 2:45 = original again, 2:45 to 3:15 = expansion upon previous section, whilst sneaking in some more LR via piano (it's altered though).
3:15 to 3:46 = small drop (courteous of Mudkip, lol) and then an impactful original section.
3:46 to 4:01 = a quick bridge, and 4:01 to 4:31 is more original melodies.
4:31 to 5:01 = different part of LR's theme than before, played on string ensemble.
5:01 to 5:31 = some falling chord action, 5:31 to 6:01= both a mix of fragmented LR melodies and the full LR melody, all on a music box.
6:01 to end is just sound effects and bongos, lol.

… Okay, that wasn't as quick as I wanted it to be, but it proved difficult to explain this mix without dissecting it in a more precise manner, haha. Apologies. Here's to hoping I can learn something from attempting to submit one of my mixes to this cool website.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Chimpazilla]

This is a pretty unique mix! I love music box sounds mixed with electronica elements.

The bass isn't balanced well, often bass patches have one note that is too loud and needs to be tamed with eq prior to any compression, and I hear that problem here. The bass needs to be tamed in its lowest regions too, and in the mud zone (200-300ish Hz). I'm hearing a lot of rumble in addition to the random too-loud notes, and not a lot of clean impact. There is some very good bass writing here, though, like 3:47-4:02.

You've got some things hard panned (like the synth at 0:30, and the section starting at 3:17), I'm not a fan of one-sided hard panning but that's my opinion. Some of the higher sounds in the mix are piercy and too up-front, and too dry, giving the mix a crispy and resonant effect that is a bit overpowering as well as feeling not quite cohesive sonically. Some of the more dancey synths sound somewhat generic but there are good effects used. Good sidechaining.

In the breakdown, the guitar sounds fake and the piano is very rigid. Loud bass notes are very evident here. That whole sections needs to be humanized better.

The bigger issue here is source use. Even with your provided breakdown (thank you!) I can't make it all out. You've obscured a lot of it with effects, which sounds cool but unfortunately makes it VERY hard to hear. If I give you credit for what you've laid out in your breakdown, even with a lot of lenience, I'm only getting to about 42% source use, and that is really stretching it. I just don't think it's enough source for OCR. If other J's find more source than I'm hearing, I'm open to revisiting my vote on the source aspect.

There are some very cool writing and effects ideas here and I hope you'll fix this up for us, give us some more recognizable source and fix the eq/balance issues, because this is really cool.

NO (resubmit)

[Emunator]

First off, I gotta give you props on your arrangement here - even for a 6 minute arrangement you still manage to pack in a TON of ideas and pretty much eschew any direct repetition, without feeling unfocused. Some highlights for me include the great synergy between the bass writing and the engaging beats, the square synth soloing, and the occasional introduction of that iconic Ruby/Sapphire trumpet sound Lots to love here.

The source usage is definitely an issue - I'm not having any trouble hearing how you adapted the Littleroot source when it is present, but the bigger problem is how many extended breaks you have throughout the song and how often the source usage that is present becomes marginalized in the mix by other non-source elements. It's a bold, ambitious attempt but by OCR standards, I think you fall short on source usage.

I won't spend too much time retreading the production issues Kristina brought up but they're spot-on critiques that need to be addressed before this track is ready to be posted, as well.

I find it hard to suggest a resubmission on this track because it sounds very complete as an arrangement as-is, but if you were able to polish the production and sample quality in a couple of troublesome places, and were willing to make the source usage more dominant in the arrangement, this could stand a good chance at passing. Regardless of whether you send this back, I appreciated the effort that went into this arrangement and hope you continue to send more stuff our way!

NO (resubmit)

[Palpable]

Cool arrangement - to me the only issue is whether it's got dominant source usage. By your own breakdown (which, thank you for that), your song has about 3 minutes of wholly original material. That's definitely NOT having source melody in spades; in fact, it's skirting the line of too liberal. Beyond that, I heard too many places where the material was modified too much to count, where it's not recognizable as Littleroot Town anymore. 4:31 to 5:01 is a fine example. You're using an invented harmony of the melody line, making the notes bend, and changing some notes - after all those modifications, mixed with a bunch of original material, and new chords, it's extremely hard to see that as the same source. I have to do a lot of work to connect those dots.

 

I really like a lot of what's going on here, even the original stuff. You're a talented producer and arranger. I'd love to see this on our site, and I think it could happen if you'd be willing to make some edits to cut out some of the original material, so that the source melody is more dominant. That's on you to decide how willing you are to modify what sounds like a pretty cohesive piece.

 

 

NO