Chimpazilla Posted May 2, 2015 Share Posted May 2, 2015 (edited) Hiya, Contact information: Remixer name: Jorito Real Name: Jorrith Schaap Email: Website: http://www.jorito.net/ Userid: 3917 Submission information: Name of Game(s) Remixed: Legend of Legaia Additional Game information: System: Sony PlayStation Developer: Contrail Genre: RPG Released: 1998 Composer: Michiru Oshima, Kōhei Tanaka Name of Arrangement: Da Legend Of Da Regg Aelm Ya Names of song arranged: Rim Elm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2TSDlXy7EQ) Link to the remix: Comments about the mix: This song was actually my entry to the finale of the Remixing with the Stars compo, season 2. The choice was either between my song and my partner's genre, or the other way around. Unfortunately my partner dropped out and I was stuck with my choice of reggae (which I didn't know a lot about) and my partner's song (a game I never played). Lucky for me, summer was slowly arriving here in Holland, and what better way to celebrate that with some reggae. So I went on a nice musical journey, learning out all about riddims, bubble organs, typical drum patterns like the one drop and adding nice li'l bits of swing to the rhythm guitar. Turns out those Youtube tutorials are quite useful after all I wanted to stick to instruments that are regularly used in reggae, but since this song was all VSTs and no real instruments, and -more importantly- no vocal lines that left me with a bit of a problem for the lead. There's not a lot of instrumental reggae, you know? In the end I decided to give it some Carribean touches by using a flute and some steel drums for the melody. I'm pretty happy with the end result, especially given the short deadline. I think it turned out to be a fresh new take on the original, with a nice oldskool reggae sunny vibe. Cheers, Jorrith -------------------------------------------------- Edited July 8, 2015 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted May 2, 2015 Author Share Posted May 2, 2015 Oh gosh this is cute! For a first reggae track, I'm impressed! I have a reggae track cooking as well, as soon as Sir J gets me the horns he has promised, I'll inflict that one on the world... but I digress. You've done rather a good job using all sampled instruments, and getting the reggae groove going. The organ bubbling in the background is nice and groovy. Not bad on the steel drums, those are hard to humanize especially on the runs. Drums sound good, especially the snare, you nailed the sound. The bass sounds like it could stand to be eq'd and then compressed and controlled just a bit better, it's a little indistinct but it gets the job done. I'm not totally in love with that flute lead but it works. The brass is noticeably fake but you've mixed it in very well. My main beef with the track unfortunately is how repetitive it is. From 0:33-1:17 I hear the same writing four times, once with just the steel drums and then three times with the flute lead. You've added the little bits of horns but it doesn't quite break it up for me. One writing variation would have helped a lot there. Nice breakdown from 1:46-2:13. At 2:20 though, we are back to the exact same lead writing with the same flute. From 2:20-3:15 (until the end) there are five more repetitions of the same writing right in a row. Just a little bit of writing variation in one or two of those repetitions would really make that feel less repetitive. I can see this getting some yesses because it has a lot going for it. I think it's not quite there yet, but darn close. Nice work so far, irie mon! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Oh gosh this is cute! For a first reggae track, I'm impressed! I have a reggae track cooking as well, as soon as Sir J gets me the horns he has promised, I'll inflict that one on the world... but I digress. You've done rather a good job using all sampled instruments, and getting the reggae groove going. The organ bubbling in the background is nice and groovy. Not bad on the steel drums, those are hard to humanize especially on the runs. Drums sound good, especially the snare, you nailed the sound. The bass sounds like it could stand to be eq'd and then compressed and controlled just a bit better, it's a little indistinct but it gets the job done. I'm not totally in love with that flute lead but it works. The brass is noticeably fake but you've mixed it in very well. My main beef with the track unfortunately is how repetitive it is. From 0:33-1:17 I hear the same writing four times, once with just the steel drums and then three times with the flute lead. You've added the little bits of horns but it doesn't quite break it up for me. One writing variation would have helped a lot there. Nice breakdown from 1:46-2:13. At 2:20 though, we are back to the exact same lead writing with the same flute. From 2:20-3:15 (until the end) there are five more repetitions of the same writing right in a row. Just a little bit of writing variation in one or two of those repetitions would really make that feel less repetitive. I can see this getting some yesses because it has a lot going for it. I think it's not quite there yet, but darn close. Nice work so far, irie mon! Co-signed in full. Read it again. I was about to YES this, because the arrangement is very interpretive in shifting it to the reggae instrumentation, so I could also see some YES's with the feeling that the creativity compensates ENOUGH for the repetition, especially with the grace notes here and there. However, 2:20-3:15 going copy-pasta tipped it to a borderline NO. If you could improve the brass realism, that would rock, because there's a significant realism disparity with that vs. any of the other instrumentation. Get the track sounding a little clearer (partly by getting bass mixing under control as well), and (most importantly) add some more variation to the picture for 2:20-3:15 and you're golden, Jorrith. Great concept here, and if this passed, I wouldn't be upset at all, because it's really close. This is 90% of the way there, for me, at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 So crunchy. Enjoy your mix a lot, great production quality and an interesting choice of genre to adapt the source to. I think the major problems with your mix have already been mentioned by my fellow judges - you have a solid rendition that starts off great but doesn't really go anywhere after the "cover" portion competes. It feels a lot like a solid WIP that has had most of its sounds sorted and is now waiting for the arrangement filled out. More variety on the arrangement side would pretty much green light this track. Most of your instrument choices are spot on, but the brass stands out as being very fake and feels like a placeholder waiting for a higher quality instrument to be dropped in. It doesn't bother me greatly, but the track would certainly benefit with some more realistic sample choices there if you go back to revisit this for resub. Some distortion bits also get a little ear piercey in the high end (like the portion at 1:42), but these parts are mostly isolated events. If you can strengthen the arrangement above all else, I think we'll be on board. NO (please resub) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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