Liontamer Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 pretty sure you know who i am. Earthbound Scaraba The song itself is titled "Scars". The remix features a bassline borrowed from an obscure live performance of the X-Japan song with the same name. In a way, it's my posthumous tribute to the colorful and much beloved guitarist who wrote that song. ------------------------------------------------ http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mo2 - "Bazaar" (mo2-098.spc) Props to Bound Together (and Mythril Nazgul especially) for giving this source tune the love it deserved wth "Da Black Market". Opens up with some nice synths effects before some synth geetar comes in there at :11. Bit fakey but nothing bad. Drum pattern arrived at :36 with some industrial overtones while the synths did a nice job of playing around the stereo field. Drum pattern was pretty plain and repetitive and the "Bazaar" melody at 1:11 was rather buried under the rest of the instrumentation. Would have worked better if it wasn't that one shrill line with such rigid timing. Little organic perc work thrown in there at 1:23, but didn't blend in well with the rest of the sounds; sounded stapled on top. Arrangement of the melody is basically just that one shrill synth playing the melody verbatim with some minor embellishments from the guitar, which was a letdown. Cool brief section with the voices from 2:11-2:22; great potential, but all too brief. Some new guitar writing at 2:23 looked like it was taking the arrangement in a new direction, except it turned out it was just a new part added into another iteration of the previous 2 minutes. Changed over at 3:23-3:47 into an arrangement of the chorus finally ("Right Now"/Van Halen-ish), though that drum pattern never changed. The change in tone of the whole piece was rather jarring in a bad way; felt like the idea was barely explored and didn't thematically connect with the rest of the song. The backing parts on cruise control became plodding; there's potential for a better-developed interpretation of the "Bazaar" melody, as it was definitely lacking here. This kind of track doesn't have to be bland, repetitive and underdeveloped; I can't imagine X Japan sounds like that. Sorry, Tim. I like your stuff, and I'm sure you're happy with it the way it is, but it's far from your strongest. NO (rework/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 Larry covered my main complaints. This really does seem to be on autopilot for most of the mix, relying on simplistic backing parts that have little to no variation. The intro before the melody comes in is too long considering the length of the mix. The melody itself is played pretty much verbatim, which isn't interesting. The break sections in between repetitions of the melody have simple chords following that bassline, but that's it. I do disagree with Larry that the change was 3:23 was jarring, but I agree that it could have been explored more and that the drums didn't fit. Less repetition, more interpretive material please. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted September 15, 2006 Share Posted September 15, 2006 Cool intro. The drums are excessively repetitive. Really after so long into the mix I just got extremely weary of the *Boom Boom Tap (echo echo echo)*. This would probably be great as BGM, but just not engaging enough to make me want to really LISTEN to it. 3:23 was such a welcome change, but then it lasts about 25 seconds, and we’re right back to where we started. I like the industrial sound of the drums, and the sweeping filtered pad, and the kind of rough-around-the-edges sound of the song, but it’s just not got enough substance to stand on it’s own. The source adaptation was extremely weak, IMHO. The lead (although obnoxious in the source) was decently adapted to the remix accompaniment, at least, the first time around anyway. It was definitely too quiet, however. Also, the riff repeated itself SIX times in the remix, and there was NOTHING new added. Six repeats with no variation is kind of a big strike against the ReMix concept. Bummer man. There’s a lot of potential there. It’s just too underdeveloped at this point. It’s not a bad song, by any means, and I'd highly dig with a little more work. I just kept feeling more like I was listening to a WIP, thinking of all the possibilities of what new additions the song might take on as the work progressed, rather than “Hey, this is a hella cool remix of this song!” Variation is the key to the success of this piece. In the drums, in the accompayment, and in the arrangement in general. I really would have liked to hear more attention to the 3:23 section. Again, the melody was too quiet there, and I think it was too short. NO(rework/resubmit) OMG1STVOTE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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