*NO* Ninja Gaiden 'Nailed'

[Liontamer]

To djpretzel and the judges panel:

I am presenting to you my first attempt at remixing. I have no background in music (aside from the eight years I played in my school's orchestra), and have not read a piece of sheet music in over seven years. I'm quite certain that information is irrelevant, but I thought perhaps it might be worth noting when making your judgments. I have been a fan of this site for years now, and have always been impressed by the quality of submissions here. Now I find myself a bit more intimidated, and hoping that my efforts are good enough to be among those worthy of inclusion.

When I first started this remix project, I was committed to a single track from Ninja Gaiden (the NES version, of course). However, like most Ninja Gaiden tracks, it was short and repetitive, and needed something more. I ended up remixing three different tracks from the game, and layered them in a way that seemed very complimentary to me. The underlying "melody" of this remix is the Nails of Lukifell song from level 5-3. This is also where the title "Nailed" came from, as you can surely imagine. The accompanying

"melody" that appears twice in the song is the Basilisk Mine track from level 4-2. Sadly, because I transcribed all of the game tracks by ear, and also by using just the touchpad mouse on my PowerBook (I don't have a keyboard), I was unable to include all of the Basilisk track because it was just too difficult. The last track I remixed for this song was the Masked Devil theme, which I opted to use as more of a harmony than a melody.

In the end, I think all three tracks match well with one another, which I tried to make apparent at 2:24 when I combined all three tracks at once. As for the song itself, given my lack of musical background and knowledge, I can't really comment on things like transitions and phrasing and whatnot. I'm not even entirely sure what sort of genre the song would fit into, but I think I was going for something in the trance/dance categories. In any event, I am happy with the end result, and am proud of myself for actually going through with the whole mess, despite the setbacks of not having a keyboard or a mixing program other than GarageBand. I hope you find the song enjoyable, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have. I'm also hoping that this isn't my last remix, so any suggestions you have are well taken. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

David Greenspan ("G-Speezy")

mrdgspan@gmail.com

P.S.- I apologize for submitting my song in this particular manner, but since I have no website or hosting mechanism currently, attaching it to this e-mail was the only way possible to submit.

[zykO]

well now that my eyes are dizzied by your novelette, let's see how my ears fare.

this is actually quite groovy for "no musical background" especially when peculiarly followed in chapter 1 of the track's written prologue with "aside from eight years of orchestra." well you know, that makes for a pretty significant musical background. how old are you? old enough i'm assuming where 8 years could make up anywhere between 33-50% of your life.

this is good. but if it will falter, it will be because creatively speaking, the arrangement is not active. the arrangement from the perspective of instrumentation grooves very nicely. good use of the original attributes of the source... it gives the piece a commanding sense that is missing when original source material is forced into a differently shaped container.

however, the piece's structure doesn't really give it any positive points. given also the simplicity of the instruments and a significant lack of workable orchestration, it is hard to give it a yes.

i did enjoy it and think you definetly have enough musical background to have solid musicality and only need to adapt to a new facet of music which is creating it and presenting it.

you are at least starting on that path now and if this is any indication, you're on the right track

NO

[JJT]

this isn't bad.

i'd encourage you to keep remixing by ear, as that's what a lot of us (including myself) do.

i think you've got what it takes to get a remix posted on this site someday, but this submission is too simple from an arrangement perspective.

it sounds nice though.

keep at it, and try to throw a lot more melodic, rhthymic, dynamic, and harmonic variety into your arrangement.

best of luck.

NO

[Liontamer]

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_ga.zip - Tracks 18 & 13

The original's pretty repetitive, so we'll see how you attempted to expand it and achieve a standalone track.

Somewhat generic opening with those synths, but decent energy. Joined by some beatwork at :16, followed by some countermelodic stuff at :36 for a gradual build.

Terrible synths, and production on them, for the main verse at 1:03. The melody's buried under the beatwork & countermelodic work and doesn't stand out; adjust the sound balance accordingly to let the lead cut through a bit more.

Beatwork also hasn't changed up at all so far, so it needs more variation. You could randomly click on nearly any point in the track and it would the same beatwork and the same overall groove and energy level; needs to have more evolution and dynamics rather than work on cruise control.

Adding in that second source theme at 2:08 was a decent touch, but once you went for a full plate of sounds again at 2:23, it only contributed to the indistinct muck. Brought back the main source tune at 2:23 and the arrangement was literally nothing that we hadn't heard for the first couple of minutes beforehand, except with that second source tune barely audible underneath; the arrangement doesn't bother going anywhere else unfortunately.

Decent stuff so far, but you basically found a comfort zone for the arrangement and wouldn't budge from it, even if it meant the track became excessively repetitive as a result.

NO