Chimpazilla Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Hi OC ReMix judges, Seven months minimum for reviewing tracks is a LONG time, but given the volume you receive, I understand and appreciate your work. I've been a fan of your selections since the early 2000's and have awaited the day I could produce and submit my own work. I hope you enjoy it. I'd like to learn from your constructive feedback, so be harsh! Cheers and happy new year! Anton ---- ReMixer name: Anton Nation Real name: Anton Email address: Userid: 54404 Game arranged: Maple Story <http://ocremix.org/game/766/maplestory-win> Name of arrangement: Gallops on Pianos Link to arrangement: Individual songs arranged: Ellinia <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M-ytoRguS8>; Ellinia Tree Dungeon <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDyTSx1kUcQ> Comments: I've been getting into producing EDM and decided to give one of my favorite tracks from Maple Story a dance-inspired mix (though it's hardly danceable). There are intentional sub-bass frequencies coming from a reverb plugin and a low pass filter on the piano melody. I included it to create the sense of a cavern, similar to the tree dungeons where many players would spend their time in the game. The breakdown is the tree dungeon melody that is sequentially accompanied by elements of the main melody until it fully returns with an epic drum thundering in the background. One big recurring element is the "galloping" string of identical piano notes that is featured prominently at the end of most of the verses and the intro and outro. This was the inspiration for the Native American-esque name. Edited March 25, 2016 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 This track is a borderline direct-reject for me. The arrangement idea isn't too bad, but the writing is repetitive as heck. The piano delay in the source isn't my favorite effect, and it's too strong in the remix. Maybe if the piano writing were less stiff and unhumanized, and if there were some lows removed from the reverb, it wouldn't sound so cheesy to me. The writing is identical to the source material. The drum groove is so simple and quiet. The hats and crashes sound so cheap and default-ish, no polish at all. The bigger issue in this track unfortunately is an aspect that you thought was cool, that low rumble from the reverb plugin and the overly low piano delay. If you look at a frequency analyzer while this track plays, you'll see you have inaudible rumble playing VERY loudly, which isn't cool, it takes up frequency space in a bad way and causes you to not be able to master loudly. The track sounds very loud and overcompressed, distorting audibly in some places, although it never gets louder than -16db RMS. It's that darned rumble. Your cave effect would be much better accomplished by using sweeps, wind samples, other types of sfx (water dripping perhaps) and delays. This much low end on things just wrecks it totally. That rumble is the kind of low end garbage that a good producer is careful to remove from every instrument in the mixdown stage. I suggest taking this track to our wip forum for further advice, as the arrangement has merit. Don't be discouraged, but please learn from this! Good luck. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Ouch, Kristina pretty much nailed this vote so I'm not going to do much more than cosign here, but the low-end rumble is absolutely crushing certain parts of your track. I actually really admire the intent, I think it's great when artists go into a track with a particular motive in mind and then use their tools to allude to that concept, but in this case it just comes off as a bad production choice Arrangement-wise, you have some good ideas and a solid enough structure, but the lack of changeups on the instrumentation makes this tedious to listen to for nearly 7 minutes straight. The piano is a great foundation, though the sample you used is not the most realistic, but I think you need to experiment with other sounds to flesh this out and give it more variety. It's too repetitive to work like a solo piano track would. Cool work on some of your delay effects, that shows a lot of promise! This definitely needs a lot of cleanup and expansion before it will be ready for primetime, but keep working! Even if you move on from this track and onto something else, you've got promise and a good conceptual approach to mixing. Best of luck! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillRock Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Filter on piano. Never thought that would sound as cool as it does here. Some cool writing at points as well. However, the track suffers from some weak drum samples, there is over compression, muddy low end, the piano sounds quite mechanical. This track needs quite a bit of work to see it brought up to a postable standard imo. My advice is to work on bringing down the over compression, humanising the piano some more, and i'd also consider removing some of the repetition in the arrangement. Needs some more work, but keep at it! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 As far as I could make out, "Ellinia Tree Dungeon" was barely present in the piece, maybe just a few cameos. Anyway, just being honest, I would have direct rejected this, mostly on production grounds, but also on arrangement grounds. There's no reason the piano sequencing should stay stiff and mechanical like the source. The piano tone and effects are too similar to the original for comfort, even though the dance elements are later added, and the piano is produced with basically the same sound and patterns the entire time. On the plus side, care was given to having the textures change from section to section, but the overall presentation and energy level was one-dimensional and repetitive overall. The overall sameyness of the arrangement didn't justify nearly 7 minutes. Production-wise, there was nothing but soft distortion, mud, and clutter once the track picked up, particularly from 2:14-onward, and with 5:15-5:41 easily being the worst offender. Some sound design touches were made around the dropoff at 3:15, but the phasing sounded very generic and basic. Sorry to pick at so many different things here, Anton. I'm sure any fan of MapleStory would at least dig the potential behind this, but it needs a lot more arrangement development that stands more apart from the original song, and much more sophisticated sequencing and mixing in order to have a shot. Good luck applying the criticisms to future works. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMonz Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Great source choice, but I'm sorry to say that the arrangement and production are both very lackluster. Production: first of all, as previously stated, the prominent bassy reverb is definitely the big culprit for making the track sound muddy and unclear most of the time. Especially when the lows and low-mids are busier (such as with the bass, bass drum, and that big "boom" that occurs on a few occasions), the whole soundscape gets messed up and incomprehensible. You have to gauge carefully the gain you're feeding on all frequencies, especially the lower ones, by EQing the instruments and effects, in order to get an acceptable production quality. Personally, I have the habit of cutting a very large amount of low frequencies from pretty much all my reverb patches in order to avoid such problems. Arrangement: Most of the track is very conservative and feels more like a cover with added rhythmic components and generic transitions, rather than an arrangement. Also, said rhythmic components are very similar to one another throughout the track (for example, I feel the reversed cymbal fill is particularly overused). I think you should look into ways to personalize your track. For example, you could change the instrumentation, alter the melodies, the chords, etc. I also think I'm hearing some chords being played by the bass at a few occasions, and I can only recommend not doing that. At such a low frequency, close notes are bound to clutter up and contribute even more to making things muddy and unclear. Sorry, but this needs a lot of work to be on par with OCR Standards. Don't give up, keep working, ask for advice, and I'm sure you'll keep improving. Using the Workshop boards would be most certainly a great place to start. Best of luck! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Very basic drum programming. I hear some strange sub artifacts at around 1:15 and onwards. Piano is very mechanical and lacks emotion to it. Compression seems overly harsh and creates very strange artifacts at some points as well (specially on big hits). Mixing issues aside, you need much more than this to qualify for OCR. You need to put more interpretation on your tracks specially if you're relying so heavily on piano and little else. If you want to add dance elements to your piano track, you need more than a very sparse beat. A bass that truly drives a rhythm will help move things along. If your goal is to make dream trance remix, I do recommend checking out the classics such as Robert Miles' Dreamland. By analyzing it you can find how to make this idea work. But the biggest thing I would like you to take away from this review is that you need more reinterpretation on your track. You're trying to make tribute to a great soundtrack, so make the arrangement your own, explore it, and give back something new that pays honor to the original. This is, I'm afraid, not differentiating itself enough from the original, with several mixing issues on top. Also, your idea of having a single hook that repeats throughout the track is not unheard of and can work under the right circumstances. However I advise on expanding your interpretation of the original around it and working on getting a cleaner mix.NO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Hmm, this sounds pretty darn close to the source. The piano (and even it's effects) sound ripped from the source, with nothing but added drums for the first half of the track. The middle sounds like the melody of the other source was just put there - if another source is to be added, some integration between sources is ideal. Right now it just sounds slapped in the middle, which doesn't cut it. There are some added harmonies later toward the end, but it sounds more like you're trying to improve the source rather than make it your own. While on their own covers are fine, it's not what OCR is looking for in submissions. The entire track sounds both too loud and too empty all at once. There's not enough actually filling the soundscape, and yet the instruments that are there are all overcompressed, causing significant distortion throughout. The piano's high delay causes a good deal of muddiness on it's own - the delay is clashing with itself. Turning the delay volume down would help a lot. At 3:15 the extra high bass EQ just takes away any sort of headroom you could have otherwise - you could instead have a wind SFX or something to achieve a similar result without creating a messy EQ that the other instruments need to fight with. I'm afraid this track doesn't pass due to considerable production issues. The arrangement, while not inherently bad in and of itself, isn't something that OCR can consider due to the standards of the site. I highly recommend giving the tracks that are posted a listen, to have a clear idea what levels of quality and originality are acceptable to the site. There is a workshop with plenty of musicians who would be more than happy to help you with any track you are working on, giving you feedback and advice. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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