Liontamer Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Remix: Pirate Fortress of the Great Bay Remixer Name: Maurs Song Remixed: "Pirate Fortress" by Koji Kondo from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, for the Nintendo 64 Scenes from the Pirate Fortress... Howling winds, bitter spray. A pirate Great Ship emerges, ghostly. Ragged sails billowing, it climbs the swells thrown its way by a raging sea... The Pirate Fortress looms ahead, its signal fires calling the Great Ship home. Soon the ship has vanished behind the Fortress's cliffs of iron and stone, the great gate is closed. Sunset over the Great Bay coast, the strength of the storm recedes with the day. But the apparent calm of night masks the treacherous waters. Waves writhe in the twilight, starlight dancing from crest to crest. Against the old fortress walls, these waves crash with tremendous ferocity. The Fortress, however, stands unconcerned by this ageless barrage. It sneers down, invincible. And behind those walls, strange fires ignite, pillars of smoke. What goes on behind those walls? Beyond the perimeter patrols, within the inner chambers - what tortures, what treasures known? The great watch tower is now alight! In the dead of night, the pirates take no chances. And through this magnificent fortress of brutal, all-female pirates, amidst patrols and firelight, a lone intruder makes his way... ... Hello djp and OCR, I always wanted to do a remix for OCR, and back in January I bought Reason and started this project. I worked on it on and off since then, schoolwork permitting. Finally, after a very concerted effort the past few weeks to get it finished, here it is. The entire thing was done only with Reason and my mouse, so anybody owning Reason has access to all the sounds I used. In creating this remix, I wanted to broaden the scope of the original work, so I made a multi-"movement" work, featuring Koji Kondo's theme as well as a lot of original composition. The first "movement" is pretty much Koji Kondo's original theme, fleshed out, with slight variations. The second (piano) "movement" borrows only chords of the theme. The third (dance) "movement" uses a little melody and accompaniment I came up with to transform the theme into a dance. The ending of the dance as well as the fourth section (the brass chorale) are original composition. Finally, the brass chorale crescendos to the Recap and the restatement of the original theme. To go along with this idea of "movements," I included a program note above. As far as I know, ocremix hasn't seen too much of that kind of thing, so I figured what the heck, and went all out. I just want to say I don't mean for the program to be the only possible interpretation of the music. You're free to see it as you please. All I'm trying to do is spark people's imaginations. Lastly, the compression to mp3 was brutal to a lot of my sounds (trumpets, piano, but especially some percussion and the dulcimer). I played with the LAME encoder a ton, but basically I think the length of the piece and the number of high-quality samples means there aren't enough megabytes to work with. I need to save bps for the loud sections, but at the same time, in the quiet sections, 128 is too low. So the quality is my gripe with the mp3, but let me know what you think. As always, any comments, questions, or criticism greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mark Mark van Mechelen 07mmv@williams.edu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted September 14, 2006 Share Posted September 14, 2006 As was mentioned by the remixer in his submission, the first section is similar to the source, with some fleshing out, most notably the string parts adding extra texture to it. I thought that the transition to the piano section could have been made much smoother, the volume also dropped drastically during that time, in a way that, rather than adding to the dynamics of the piece, just sounded like it suddenly dropped off. At 2.07 the piano starts to go a bit weird for a few seconds, just suddenly changing the vibe in a way that was quite confusing, I didn't like those few seconds at all, I thought it spoiled the section. The transition from this section to the next one was a little smoother, bringing in sounds from the next section before the piano departed. Violin at 2.53 really sounded naked, I'm not sure that it should have been left on its own like that. The third movement definitely sounds very sparse compared to the rest of the mix. However, the addition of a dancy rhythm is a welcome change, I think overall the arrangement is a very interesting one. At 4.06, again the volume seems to drop off as the horns come in. Imo, if we had a crescendo, and it went from loud to quiet, then it would have added some dynamics to it. The fact that this was made with a mouse may have something to do with the fact that the velocities in this mix overall sound quite unnatural to me; the brass really doesn't come to life because of it, and the expression suffers somewhat. However, I love the chord progressions in this section and the way it was arranged. The part where it joins the original melody was great - definitely the best part of this piece. There were some very good parts of this mix, and I think it was arranged well, with original parts integrated nicely with original material. However, there were lots of issues to do with dynamics, volume and texture. I don't think this is up to the bar just yet, but I would like to see a resubmission of this. NO (plz resub) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 14, 2006 Author Share Posted September 14, 2006 http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 224 "Pirate Fortress" Man, the MIDI-ish soundset for this soundtrack is so shitty. This particular theme isn't a good example (as I don't care for it at all), but the Zelda 64 series soundtracks are a good example of the writing really being impressive to overshadow the weak sounds. The SNES had better sounds. Dunno how a 6-minute-long arrangement of a source like this could turn out, but you've piqued my interest. Intro felt like a mere sound upgrade, with too similar instrumentation and the arrangement structure basically being the same as the source, except adding those backing strings to fill it out. Like Malcos said, nothing unexpected given the sub letter. Soundfield got really buzzy, cramped and indistinct from 1:12-1:26. Moved over into 1:43 with the piano section. The way the instruments dropped out so fast moving into that section was jarring, again agree with Malc. Still, I see the potential in the just by making the transition a bit more gradual. Piano solo definitely sounded mechanical, but props on at least throwing in some decent effects to try and give the piano some body; now you've gotta work on getting the notes themselves to sound more humanized in the performance. Brass synth coming in at 2:37 sounded excessively dry and fake, not meshing well with the other instrumentation at all. Arrangement-wise, I won't lie in that I wasn't really picking up how you based that section off of the source. Violin at 2:53 was definitely really dry, and the entire third section was sparse. The brass returning at 3:16 with the source melody also sounded very dry once again, with even the brief layering of a second brass synth not adding much meat to things. 3:44-4:03 was even more barren. The drums are supposed to sound thick, but they don't really fill out the stereo field; it's worse after 4:03 where they possess no depth (best example, 4:36-4:37). On the plus side, the arrangement ideas were definitely worthwhile, as you got a lot more interpretive with the usage of the source tune. Scrapping that crappy brass lead for a more substantial change in the tone compared to the first section would also help. Good call by Malc with the transition at 4:06; you had a great opportunity to create some dynamics and make that transition more distinct and effective. Interesting writing, but the atmosphere still needs a lot more fleshing out; still too sparse here. Indeed, although the soundfield got swamped again briefly, that was a great transition back into the source arrangement at 5:17 for the finale. Malcos really broke it down and had loads of criticisms that were on point. A lot of what I had to say was merely echoing his call on this. He summed things up so well, I have to crib from him: "There were some very good parts of this mix, and I think it was arranged well, with original parts integrated nicely with original material. However, there were lots of issues to do with dynamics, volume and texture. I don't think this is up to the bar just yet, but I would like to see a resubmission of this." Stick around the community, use the ReMixing & Works forums here like mad to learn more about Reason and obtain feedback for your future work. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted September 20, 2006 Share Posted September 20, 2006 this one is complicated. on one hand, this is a fantastic arrangement. not sure where on earth you got half your ideas. were you born on an island? with an eye patch? this isn't clever pirate music, this is a freaking crash course in it. your production really leaves a lot to be desired. the track embodies a ton of energy dynamically at all the wrong times. instead of meaninful crescendos (aside from 2:36) you have volume spikes at points of great intensity... usually accompanied with the introduction of new instrumentation which succeeds at muddying up the soundfield. speaking of which, there is a noticeable bland dampness to the mix from start to finish. the brightness is sucked totally out of the mix. the strings sometimes sound kinda rough but they serve their purposes well. i think the piano is fantastic; not any more mechanical than it ought to sound. it is a percussive instrument, afterall. very well written part, i feel. the brass is simply not bright enough. i'm afraid this is just a terribly lossy mixdown of your track because this ought to sound amazing. and to be honest, if it did, that would earn it an instant yes. resubmit it as soon as you can. address the EQ and give us something that sounds brighter and i'll show you three beautiful letters NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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