Chimpazilla Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Laarx (http://www.jonkelliher.com) Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back The Wrath Of Tiny Tiny The boss battle against Tiny in Crash Bandicoot 2 definitely scarred me as a kid. While he was one of my favourite video game characters, he was also the hardest boss i had encountered in my youth. I remember hearing the music repeating over and over to the point of insanity, so I felt it was only right to depict the battle as an epic "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace"-esq fight scene. I found that since the original source is pretty schizophrenic it was a challenge to get the sections to flow well into one another. However, by adding some original melodies in the choruses I was able to at least give the song some sort of loose form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 The instrumentation of this source and the remix are as different as night and day but the arrangement is conservative enough to hear the source throughout. Wow, what a change in feeling with this source in orchestral! I think you did a great job of adapting the "schizophrenia" of the source into the orchestral soundscape. The added DnB beat starting at 2:22 is terrific and fits right in. The sequencing here is pretty natural, the long brass notes could use a little more humanization but this works well enough. I feel like the overall mixing/mastering is low-heavy, with some of the highs appearing to have been rolled off. The drums are quietier than I'd like, especially hats and crashes, which would have added some more excitement with a little more volume. I'd love a little more sparkle on the overall mix, some mid-highs and also some high "air." Aside from that mixing crit, this is good to go for me! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Crash Bandicoot re-imagined as Star Wars Duel Of The Fates? I need to hear this. The choir seems a bit upfront at the beginning. Wouldn't hurt to push them back a bit and add some reverb, which would give it a more epic feel and also smooth out some of the artificial articulations. Nearly off the bat, this one sounds pretty loudly mastered for an orchestral piece. Haven't heard distortion or overcompression yet, but will see as it goes on. Given the really wide stereo separation for the orchestra, the breakbeat & orchestral percussion sounds oddly centered/mono-ish. Not a dealbreaker, but I would've liked to hear them presented in a more similar sonic space to the other elements. Very cool adaptation. Tons of energy and I'm definitely hearing the source connections and inspirations throughout. More a personal preference, but I would've liked to hear a bit more volume out of the beat and a bit less of the orchestra. Can't really count it as a crit, though, because I've heard plenty of pieces go with the same approach with a somewhat subdued beat behind the orchestra. Starting to hear it push the limiters a bit at 1:30 and moreso at 1:50. The various low elements are all competing for space in this section and it's sounding crowded. Fortunately, these only occur for a limited time overall. There is room for improvement here, but I think as an overall package this gets the job done. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 I wasn't a big fan of the production here, it sounds too busy and low end-focused for an epic orchestral piece, the dynamic range is squashed quite a lot, specially for this genre. The drums are obscured and hats and cymbals are being heavily effected by this. The humanization on some of the instruments left a lot to be desired, like the choir at the start or the strings at 02:30. Overall, I would've liked to see more clarity in this mix. I think the adaptation is terrific though. It's not always easy to and adapt a song in a completely different angle. So I liked that very much. I also liked that there was some originality in the interpretation, it wasn't a straight-up orchestral arrangement. Overall this is just a tiny step over the bar for me, given that the production quality wasn't that great. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMonz Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 On 8/3/2016 at 3:30 PM, Sir_NutS said: [...] just a tiny step [...] Hohohoho! Ahem. I agree that the humanization needs quite some work in order to make this really believable, especially the intro choir, the strings and the drums. And that xylophone run near 0:28, hot damn! That sounded robotic to me. Hi-hats velocities seemed particularly mechanical when it gets excited near 2:10. I also agree about the production being low-heavy and getting blurred during the busier parts, but it didn't bother me as much as the humanization issues. Other than that, definitely a super awesome arrangement that easily makes up for all the issues, for me. Source is still very recognizable, and I'm loving how the structure was elaborated to adapt the style. Room for improvement on humanization and production, but still definitely over the bar for me. Nice work! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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