Liontamer Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 "Casting Out Demons" - Your ReMixer name: nepsus Your email address: nepsusocremix@aol.com Name of game(s) ReMixed: Demon's Crest Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: "Beyond The Colosseum," "Memorial Of The Fallen Ones," "Dance Of The Snowy Barrens" Link to the original soundtrack: http://www.zophar.net/zsnes/spc/dcrest.rar Comments: I liked the soundtrack to this game a whole lot more than the game itself. The main melody always impressed me as being perfect for a 6/8 metal tune, but it took forever to work up the resolve to actually attempt it. I hope I did it justice here. -------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dc - "Beyond the Colosseum" (dc-06.spc), "Memorial of the Fallen Ones" (dc-24.spc) & "Dance of the Snowy Barrens" (dc-16.spc) "Memorial of the Fallen Ones" is basically the same as "Beyond the Colosseum" for whatever it's worth. Cool soundtrack; need to check out more of that Ghosts'n Goblins series stuff anyway. Interesting piano intro, somewhat liberally inspired from "Beyond the Colosseum". Synth from :17-:33 is really rigidly sequenced. Same with the piano, but there's some decent attention paid to velocities. Nice combination of the piano and harpsichord for a very beautiful texture. Some light strings faded in and hovered in the background to help pad the track out. The atmosphere seemed slightly muddy, but was certainly fine. That odd synth returned from 1:08-1:26, but you needed something to sounds more organic and realistically performed. Serviceable transition to the rock section at 1:26, but the synth guitar parts in here had awful tone and were rigidly sequenced. The sounds also kind of bled into each other, though that wasn't a significant hit; possibly a bit heavy in the midrange, but the others would know better. Connection to the source material after 1:28 felt a bit liberal and tenuous, but perhaps someone else will make a better connection. Guitar synths at 2:48 were really flat; rather a shame about the sample quality and production, as the arrangement seems fairly creative. Bad transition back to the intro section initially repeated verbatim with the piano at 3:34. Sounded more like the beginning of the track had merely crossfaded into the (seeming) ending. At least you changed up the instrumentation of the melody and had the string pad out the background, but I'd change the tone of the piano as well to really create a different feel for that ending. Promising arrangement, but too rough in the execution. Work on making some of the transitions smoother. I'd research like a madman to find more serviceable guitar synths, and use the ReMixing forums to see what you can do to bring out a more realistic sound to synth guitar in both tone and sequencing/performance. I realize it's tough, but a stronger result is definitely possible. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 the piano intro is interesting on a couple of premises. it is eerie and doubled with a harpsichord before being layered with a spooky lead. all in all, the intro is gripping and telling. unfortunately, it stuck around too long. A minute and a half intro of that nature before getting into the meat can do either one of two things if not done convincingly fresh; it can either lose the audience's interest (not attention) before they get to the meat or it can lose their attention. luckily for you, judges don't lose attention because we have to hear it through. that said, the idea when things get krazy is great. the guitar synths are really bad. the transition into it implies some fairly heavy metal and in order to do that, you've got to have a better guitar than that... don't give me the synth guitar excuse cuz i've heard amazing synth guitar. this is simply not even a guitar to begin with - the celtic lead is a great idea but awkward sounding because of the actual instrument's quality. the last thing you want happening to a good arrangement is killing it with your instruments. get a real guitarist to play this because it almost does kill it. the drums are very awkward, as well; i don't feel them at all. they lose their service as a rhythmic tool and become more or less a placeholder with a lot of unnecessary fills. not good for percussion. another issue is the errant harmony accompaniments. there are all sorts of synths jumping all over the place behind the synth guitars and i can't tell what they are doing; too incoherent. i think your arrangement has some great ideas for the heavy section but it needs to be better executed and laid out. too many ideas stacked on top of each other makes it very cluttered. the transition back into the piano is interesting. at first, it rubs me the wrong way... it feels too abrupt , too sudden then it seems perfect. the outro is surprisingly better than the intro. think about making the intro as long as the outro. the effect of the outro is that i want to rewind/fast forward to hear it again. a very effective musical phrasing is one that gets the listener moving back to it and listening to it again because it warrants exclusion in the soundscape. nothing on this track does this with the exception of the ending. the intro would have had it been a bit shorter. you've got to tease your listener, in essence. it feeds interest. i like the direction you are taking the original and for that, i implore you to consider working on it a bit and resubmitting. but for now, this isn't servicable. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted September 29, 2006 Share Posted September 29, 2006 well, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, going over everything my fellow J's have already covered. Here's the bottom line. This is awesome. It's got style, energy, everything key to engage the listener. And take it from me, bro, from one Slayer user to another, this is far too awesome for Slayer. The thing about certain instrument synths/soundfonts (in this case, guitar) is that you have to use them very carefully to mask their phoniness. Usually, moderation is the best way to cover their guise. Unfortunately, in such a genre, there's really no way to trickle good ol' Slayer in there in such a way and have it pass for much more than a crappy generic geetar model. I really truly would like to vote the other way, for sure, but this piece has incredible potential, and I'd hate for this to be forever criticized as the OC remix that could have been awesome if it weren't for #%&$ slayer. You've got some great talent in your sequencing, and you've manifested your creativity in the interpretation of the source songs. I know sometimes it's hard to obtain a better synth plugin, either due to limited funds, resources, whatever, but this song deserves the best. I've googled the hell out of free guitar VST's for myself, with next to no luck, so I wish I had some better advice as to where to look. I'd say a professional retail prog would probably be the way to go--tap into the people and resources here on the site; I'm sure you're bound to find something. Bring this one back for sure when you return, bro. Seriously, awesome stuff. Great work. NO REWORK/RESUBMIT! Feel free to PM me along the way if you find a better plugin, and I'll be happy to lend you some feedback. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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