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*NO* Blaster Master 'Area 5' *FALLTHROUGH*


Liontamer
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Would need an actual title if this passed, since this is the source name - LT

ReMixer name: Brent Weinbach

Real name: Brent Weinbach

Email address: 

Website: www.youtube.com/brentweinbach

Name of game arranged: Blaster Master

Name of arrangement: Area 5

Name of individual song arranged: Area 5

Composer: Naoki Kodaka

System: NES

Note: This was recorded as part of Episode 35 of my video game music podcast The Legacy Music Hour, originally posted July 2, 2011.

 

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Edited by Liontamer
closed decision
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Brent's co-host of the long-running podcast The Legacy Music Hour, a sweet stand-up comic, AND everyone in the staff channel enjoyed how he nailed it with the AOL commercial parody "Early Facebook Commercial (1995)", so this is a pleasure. :-) This one's a fallthrough that Brent said he sent in 2013 but never heard back. Never saw it in the inbox (which goes back to mid-2006), but it's possible it got spam filtered or something, so we'll hit it now.

The source usage was obvious and lasted from the very beginning to beyond the first half of the song, so I didn't need to timestamp it, and the source usage was dominant.

Recording quality is an issue. As I like to point out when I run into a good arrangement with a bad recording, IMO our floor on live recording quality is close to Mega Man 3 'Intro Jazz'. The overall sound here was lo-fi, and some of the loudest parts sound like they were lightly distorting. I didn't mind the shuffling, creaking, and room ambiance, but they may not be everyone cup of tea. Really, I only would have needed more clarity to the recording.

After a brief flourish at 1:30, the writing goes into some more original territory from 1:39-2:09 before going back into the source tune. Nice pick-up of the energy at 2:22 before the finish.

The arrangement of the theme into piano was pretty solid. It's not hugely interpretive with the structure, but the adaptation to piano was personalized nicely with capable original left-hand writing, good variations of the tempo, and seamless original writing after the first half before winding back to the source. The arrangement's a win, but the recording quality being so low quality holds this back enough, IMO, especially with this being a solo instrument recording.

If you were interested in revisiting this, Brent, would love to hear a sharper/clearer take, because that was the only thing holding this back. With this being an older piece and a one-off live take, that understandably may be a no-go. Your arrangement skills aren't in question, so if you have any other pieces where the recording came out better, (and the arrangement is fully developed like this was, not a short <2 minutes), hit us with one of those. It doesn't have to be a pristine recording, just noticeably higher quality than the setup for this one.

NO (resubmit)

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Man, I hate rejecting songs on recording issues - especially ones arranged and performed as well as this one.  But Larry's right, the recording quality is really hurting this one a lot.  Definitely sounding lo fi and louder sections and I also heard the distortion in louder sections.  Really hoping we can get a new recording take on this.

 

NO resubmit, please

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