Chimpazilla Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Remixer Name: Neurophonic Real Name: Ryan Lau Email: Website: https://soundcloud.com/neurophonicdnb Forum ID: 54263 Name of game arranged: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong-Quest Name of arrangement: Forest Glade Name of individual song arranged: Stickerbush Symphony Here’s the track! It’s quite chilled. Sit back and meditate or something Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 This is luscious. I adore the bird ambiance, and the bucketloads of reverb. The heavy sidechaining with the soft kick is good. Drums are a bit simplistically written but it fits the mood. Really nice relaxing track with plenty of source use. I considered this track for a DP but it is quite repetitive and there are a couple of areas of straight copy-pasta in the arrangement. It's such a mellow track that it's hardly noticeable though, it's definitely meditation material, and for that reason I give this a YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 This is luscious. I adore the bird ambiance, and the bucketloads of reverb. The heavy sidechaining with the soft kick is good. Drums are a bit simplistically written but it fits the mood. Really nice relaxing track with plenty of source use. I considered this track for a DP but it is quite repetitive and there are a couple of areas of straight copy-pasta in the arrangement. It's such a mellow track that it's hardly noticeable though, it's definitely meditation material, and for that reason I give this a YES Yeah, I'll co-sign on this. It's transformative enough that the segments of repetition weren't enough to drag this down. Awesome arrangement that's melodically conservative but significantly mellows the mood. Very relaxing, Ryan! Welcome! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 So, uh, I hate to be the downer, but I'm not feeling this one. I mean, I am, it's well-produced and chill and neat and stuff, to be sure! It's just that it's essentially the same thing twice, with a little bit of percussive additions the second time around. The main beat stays the same for way too long, the pacing is too slow, there's not a lot of actual rearrangement going on. The percussion is thinner than the rest of the soundscape seems to call for, the hat is a bit too loud, and this means there's a whole lot of stuff adding up to make this one not sit quite right with me for posting on OCR. I'd be willing to forgive the pacing issues if the soundscape were to evolve more effectively, or if the percussion were to be made more interesting, or if there were to be a more obvious arrangement going on, but this thing as-is just plods without any real development. Too close to cover territory for me, and definitely needs to be given a bit more TLC to keep it interesting as it develops. NO (resub!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 I'm a little between Mike and the others. I think the personalization and the chill out mood do pretty well here, but I also wish there was more done in terms of the arrangement. Mike also brings up the drums being thin, and I'm agreeing there too: a thicker sound would fit in better, though I don't think it's terrible. All in all I think that this track skims past the bar due to the subtle but nice change in mood here. I hope that in future subs Ryan goes a bit further out with the arrangement though! Yes (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Since I disagreed with Flex's NO, I'll flesh out what I didn't have time to comment on before. The intro was original, then there was original piano writing (:20-:45, 1:12-1:26) and SFX accenting the melody, and the writing of the beats and ambient supporting lines wasn't taken from the source. Original ambient section from 2:33-3:11 loosely based on the source's chord progression; good stuff there, before going back to the source melody on bells (or mallet perc, I wouldn't know) as the lead, plus good original string accent writing behind it. 4:10 was a copy-pasta of 1:31, but only lasted as a pure copy until 4:20 when some more active handdrums entered for some subtle variation. In any case, I thought the variations and interpretation here were subtle but substantive. I don't agree with saying this is too similar throughout or not interpretive enough just because it's not melodically transformative. There's more than one way to create a meaningful interpretation with legit development, and IMO this is done here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 In any case, I thought the variations and interpretation here were subtle but substantive. I don't agree with saying this is too similar throughout or not interpretive enough just because it's not melodically transformative. There's more than one way to create a meaningful interpretation with legit development, and IMO this is done here. I didn't find the drums thin, just intentionally clean & ambient, so I won't focus on that. The core issue is lack of variation/development, I'd say... I see where Flex is coming from, and I don't agree with Larry that it's not an issue... this is dynamically a pretty static experience, and if you jump around from minute to minute randomly, you'll hear the similarities. But, I mean.... it's a chillout/ambient piece. It's a meditation on the source and it's definitely going for an aesthetic where nothing is supposed to really stick out or ramp up in intensity... in other words, the stasis is intended. I think production's fine, but my personal thinking is... what if this went on for another 3 minutes? 5? 10? We would draw the line somewhere, if the level of development & change remained at this pace... while one can compare the last minute to the first minute and hear clear differences, the level of structural self-similarity is pretty durn high. Not too high, though... ultimately this fits within my mental framework of a ReMix that uses its time well and isn't excessively static... but it's either on the threshold, or at least in the proximity, of being problematic, in that specific regard. Otherwise, fine stuff. This concern is mostly a genre thing, but I'd encourage the artist to attempt to evolve things a bit more over time. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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