Undertale Dating Fight

[YoshiBlade]

Well Bunch of Johnny Come Latelies I am, to the Undertale party. Well this was done months ago, but I've been dragging my heels and haven't posted anything in the workshop in awhile, so I figured I'll put this up for notes, then consider going back to work on it. I've had a hard time watching the play through with out ruining the game (Full disclosure: I've yet to play it) and the one consistent track that offers no spoilers was this one. I liked how the fights were stop and start-ish ( I think quirky is the overused word to describe it), so I tried to captures that in the track. Thank You for the listen and all feedback is welcome!

Remix- https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B80H6SsEW90wc1pVZGIyeXZQYjQ

Original- 

 

[Eladar]

Hey YoshiBlade, nice work so far on this. I enjoyed the Undertale soundtrack quite a bit, though this track wasn't necessarily one of my favorites, so it's interesting to hear what you've done with it. I think overall I like the first half of it better than the second. Right away I enjoyed that you went very chill and somewhat ambient with the intro, with some pleasant bell-like synth tones - quite different from the original. And I like that gradual tempo increase you have going around 0:37 as the song begins to pick up.

There's some neat, unique percussive sounds too, with pops and clicks and rolls that echo in the relatively sparse soundscape of the early parts (around 0:46 and 1:01). The lead synth progressions starting just before 1:07 and continuing up through 1:55 are great too, I thought they presented some engaging deviations from the original and had some nice articulations (pitch-bend etc.)

It's more around 1:56 - 2:22 that I start losing interest, this part of the remix is more faithful to the original - not necessarily a bad thing in premise, but it didn't engage me like the earlier parts of the song. There's also a pitch bend on one of your melody lines around 2:17 that I wasn't a big fan of, the note you're transitioning to sounded a bit off-key to me. I found 2:23 - 2:52 more palatable, with those breaks in the beat that add some extra interest, and the stuttering slowdown at the end is a good way to lead back into the more ambient side of the mix again.

From 3:00 onward though I feel like a lot of the melodic/harmonic content is somewhat meandering and less-focused (particularly 3:00 - 3:55), and I found myself wanting more solid, expressive progressions like you had in the beginning. I fear maybe the lead synth is wearing out its welcome a bit by this point too. I'm not sure exactly what the latter parts of the song are in need of yet, but my impression now is that you have a good start but the second half lacks focus and identity. Looking forward to an update!

[Just Coffee]

Very nice intro. I kinda wished you kept that tempo mostly because I thought it was going to be a chillout track and it kind of set that tone. Good spacing too(I could never quite get the hang of making my tracks wider). The lead seems a little too thin later on when played together with the other fuller channels. And maybe it's a personal thing for me, but I felt like I couldn't focus on it because the tempo shifts made it little too jarring for me. But your drumwork is awesome and it's something that I've taken a liking to when I first listened to your other stuff. Overall, the track is pretty solid but I feel like it needs better structuring. Awesome stuff!

[Rozovian]

eval

This game has got some really nice tracks. Haven't played it myself either, we'll see when that happens, but I like what I've heard of and about it.

Digging the atmosphere+chip aesthetic. Cool stuff.

Eladar put it quite well, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of his points, positive and negative. I use ocremix stuff for background music when I do other things, so I don't particularly mind meandering or boring parts that much, at least for tracks like this that rely a lot of atmosphere. It gets repetitive, sure, and the little deviations and embellishments alone aren't enough to alleviate that, but I don't think this is a big problem, either.

Source is everywhere in the track, and there's plenty of room for more deviations from it. It might help with the aforementioned repetition issue to swap to a different set of chords and different harmony or do other things to break it up more, but while that might be welcome, I'm not sure it's actually necessary. I find it different enough from source, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Have you panned the drums? There's something in the stereo soundscape that feels uneven, which is really annoying on headphones. Unless my ears are acting up, this is something you need to address, because few things are as annoying as a slightly off-center set of drums making you question your ears. Hats and other high-range percussion are usually panned, as can toms and other drums used mostly for fills be, but the primary drum elements, kick and snare (usually) should in most panning philosophies be dead center.

There's something about the mixing that bothers me. The lead is simultaneously too loud and ducks under the drums. So the drums are probably too loud. But everything seems a tad too loud. You could probably relax the lows a little, too, which might give you the headroom for everything else. But this is a subjective criticism. Compare your track to some well-mixed tracks of similar style for some ideas on how to balance it. Be okay with a slightly softer track if that retains headroom and dynamics, because those matter.

I suspect this would pass the panel, though it can still get better. Nice work.