*NO* Touhou Kaumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil 'It Was Her Indeed!"

[DragonAvenger]

Contact Information

ReMixer name: AntFactory
Real name: Mikel Fernandez
E-mail address:
Website: www.soundcloud.com/ant_factory
User ID: 32158

Submission Information

Name of game(s) arranged: Touhou Koumakyou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Name of arrangement: It Was Her Indeed!
Name of individual song(s) arranged: U.N. Owen Was Her?

Comments about the mix:

It had already been a while that I'd been looking for some videogame music that would inspire me to make my own cover-remix-thing (as I usually refer to them), but, quite unexpectedly (because I never paid any good attention to any Touhou title before) for me, it was not until I listened to this song, being such a good one, that I felt a rush of inspiration and an urge to make something with it. So I threw the famous chorus' loop into my Sequencer and listened to it while I added drums and various sounds to make it more aggresive, more like Flandre had some kind of thirst of revenge/action running through her veins after being locked away for that long. Those Flandre Scarlet wallpapers that one can see around where she is making those creepy faces were definitely what I was trying to capture. From there I went on to add my own instruments (most of them I designed from scratch) that would replace the original loop altogether, and then proceeded to arrange the song itself in a way that would very much resemble the progression of the original work, to get the feeling that it could be heard as the actual background music during the battle, but with my own personal twists and variations.

Hope you guys enjoy listening to this as much as I did producing it!

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Edited April 6, 2016 by Liontamer
closed decision

[DragonAvenger]

The opening starts or somewhat similar to the original source, but there's some fun sounds used that I felt were a nice touch like at 0:28. The theme overall remains pretty similar to the original,I would have liked a bit more variation there. 1:12 has a really cool countermelody/solo that fits quite well. I'd love to hear more along those lines.

There's mostly original material from 1:41until 2:26 when the theme comes back in with more rhythmic variation. Again I wish there was more like that earlier on

Sound wise I feel like the synths are good, though at times the leads feel somewhat thin. The percussion also feels like it's missing some lower end frequencies. The kick especially could have more meat. The track suffers from a lack of humanization across the board, and I'd really like that to be addressed. Even if you just worked on the leads it would be an improvement but I think the percussion and backing could be touched up as well.

This is on the right track, and the latter variations you added plus your original wiring show promise.I hope to hear this again!

NO (resubmit)

[Sir_NutS]

Very high-energy stuff here.  Some production issues tough, the sound design is pretty vanilla with some very thin synth elements.  The sub frequencies get out of control in a couple sections (0:46 and 02:11), should try to reign those sections under control.  The kick lacks power and gets obscure pretty easily in the sections where the sub is overpowering everything.  This could be solved with some sidechaining, but the kick also lacks presence in the other sections so you may want to look into better eq/layer on your kick or perhaps different samples.  

The arrangement seemed fine to me, good structure with recognizable source usage while also adding your own original arrangement.  More interpretation on the main melody would've been nice but this works too.  I think this is close but the production is flawed enough to warrant some reworking.

NO (resubmit)

[Jivemaster]

Quite a minimalistic mix sound wise. I agree with the others that the chosen sounds are a bit generic. This can be ok for some sounds but a lot of instruments you have chosen are quite static and don't really change/adapt/evolve as the mix progresses. Even some simple filter/res changes can go a long way in changing up a sound, giving it more life.

For me this was a little too close to the original in a lot of areas of the arrangement and I felt more original materials could've been weaved in on top of those featured. The structure of the track felt very similar to the original piece, including it's tempo changes. This would have been mitigated somewhat had the sound choices adapted over time.

I enjoyed your drums here, although they were a bit dry. Actually most of the mix is a bit dry. Clarity over cloudiness is always preferred when it comes to effects, but each part felt a bit isolated from the others due to an overall lack of reverb. I also agree that your bass in the middle and towards the end of the track was a bit out of control, it was very big and thick and began to overpower your other elements. This could do with some dialling back.

Your track here IMO is better than the original. But that's also where I feel this falls short, as it sounds like an upgraded dancey version of the original as opposed to a significant re-arrangement. Some more varied sound design would have gone a long way in making this feel more like you. With the above mentioned challenges, I believe this mix can be strengthened. You're in a good place though.

NO