Eastern Kanto Adventure Part 1 (Lavender Town, Pokemon Tower, Wild Pokemon Battle)

[Slimy]

Originals:

 

 

I original submitted this in 2014, but it got rejected. The judges thought the Lavender town section was boring, so I made it more interesting. Some judges also thought it was too long, so I made it longer. (Although I've cut it into two parts - this is the first.)

This is mostly a remix of Lavender Town, Tower, and the Wild Pokemon Battle theme, but it also has some elements of Route 3, and Route 11.

[Slimy]

First post now contains an updated version.

• Fixed the rouge clarinet velocity at 0:56.
• Raised the overall volume of the Lavender Town section.
• Added cello chords at 1:47 to transition into Lavender Town better.
• Adjusted the volume of the low bass rumble, and gave it some better EQ.
• Added bowed crotales to Lavender Town for effect.
• Fixed some of the sour staccato string notes in the Tower section.
• Minor stuff - made the bit at 2:30 longer, fixed the ugly brass at 3:39, made the snare sound more consistent, etc.

Is this technically a FireRed remix, since it contains FireRed SFX at the end?

[YoshiBlade]

How the hell has this been up for 11 days and not one outside comment ? Well I'm going to listen to this sum more, but for now the thing that sticks out like a sore simile, are the drums at the end. I went and listened to an earlier WiP of Lav Town (yes I tend to Soundcloud creep) and the solo snare and crashing cymbals seemed to add more energy than the drums. It breaks the flow of the whole track when BAM! drummer breaks in. But i went back and read the JD's and the pacing was the issue,from 1:30 to 4:30 it just reeeaaallllyyy slows down, which I like, but it tends to stay the same, without much change, I like the low rumble it's like pokemon in on a spacestation,  I guess the only thing I could suggest is to make maybe one part goofy scary (Danny Elfman-ish), and then the other part scary scary(Nightmare on Elm-ish)?...I don't know what I'm saying, I'm trying to give Prima facie feedback...I tried watching this with an episode of Pokemon on silent and it works as a silent film score.... I think I'm rambling now

[Slimy]

18 hours ago, YoshiBlade said:

How the hell has this been up for 11 days and not one outside comment ? Well I'm going to listen to this sum more, but for now the thing that sticks out like a sore simile, are the drums at the end. I went and listened to an earlier WiP of Lav Town (yes I tend to Soundcloud creep) and the solo snare and crashing cymbals seemed to add more energy than the drums. It breaks the flow of the whole track when BAM! drummer breaks in.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The ending of the current version doesn't exist in the WIP.

18 hours ago, YoshiBlade said:

But i went back and read the JD's and the pacing was the issue,from 1:30 to 4:30 it just reeeaaallllyyy slows down...

The song is going to slow down as long as it contains a Lavender Town section. Can anyone tell me why the song shouldn't have varying mood and pacing?

18 hours ago, YoshiBlade said:

...which I like, but it tends to stay the same, without much change, I like the low rumble it's like pokemon in on a spacestation, I guess the only thing I could suggest is to make maybe one part goofy scary (Danny Elfman-ish), and then the other part scary scary(Nightmare on Elm-ish)?

I'd rather not, I think it's plenty varied as it is, sorry. (Actually, the bass rumble was inspired by Eraserhead.)

Edit: I've made an update. I've improved a few of the chords in the Lavender Town sections, and added some chimes for flavor.

[Rozovian]

Oh great, six minutes. Why can't people just make it easy for evaluators (and judges) and make Protodomish 2-minute pieces?

eval:

There's some balance issues. Just before the slowdown, there's some really loud brass honks, before that, some bright and exposed percussion elements. 

I don't mind the slowdown of the Lavender Town parts, but that rumbling noise is annoying. It's ok to be subtle, you know. It also eats a bit of headspace.

There's a few notes and parts that seem off, usually in loudness, but sometimes articulation or timing. You should look into those parts: 0:45, 1:00, 1:06, 1:19, 2:03, 2:21, 2:31, 2:44, 2:57, 3:05, 3:30, 3:46, 4:21, 4:39, 5:27, 5:46, 6:00, 6:04.

I'm not sure a traditionally panned rock kit fits into any illusion of an orchestra. You might want to put the rock kit in one place, rather than stretching as wide as the orchestra itself.

I'll let someone better versed in orchestral music complain about any orchestration problems. I think these samples could be made to sound better. The right reverb and reverb settings, the right panning, the right levels and eq... To me, it comes down to mixing, little things about loudness of notes, and I'm okay with just about everything else. Almost.

Pet peeve: sound effects. I'm not sure what the sound effects are supposed to do for the track. Haven't played any proper Pokémon in at least a decade, so I don't know remember what the sound effects mean in-game. Catching a pokémon? Here they don't fit the sound of the track, regardless of any meaning they might have to regular players (or those with better memory than I have). Imitating them with the orchestral sounds might work better. I'm not sure what to recommend. They stand out, that's for sure.

[Slimy]

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

There's some balance issues. Just before the slowdown, there's some really loud brass honks, before that, some bright and exposed percussion elements.

I can fix the brass honks, but which percussion elements do you find bright and exposed?

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

I don't mind the slowdown of the Lavender Town parts, but that rumbling noise is annoying. It's ok to be subtle, you know. It also eats a bit of headspace.

Could you please phrase that in a way that helps me? What about it do you find annoying, or un-subtle? Is it too loud? Does it need better EQ?

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

There's a few notes and parts that seem off, usually in loudness, but sometimes articulation or timing. You should look into those parts: 0:45, 1:00, 1:06, 1:19, 2:03, 2:21, 2:31, 2:44, 2:57, 3:05, 3:30, 3:46, 4:21, 4:39, 5:27, 5:46, 6:00, 6:04.

Can you elaborate?

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

I'm not sure a traditionally panned rock kit fits into any illusion of an orchestra. You might want to put the rock kit in one place, rather than stretching as wide as the orchestra itself.

What about the drum kit sounds "stretched as wide as the orchestra itself?"

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

II think these samples could be made to sound better. The right reverb and reverb settings, the right panning, the right levels and eq... To me, it comes down to mixing, little things about loudness of notes, and I'm okay with just about everything else. Almost.

Can you elaborate?

9 hours ago, Rozovian said:

Haven't played any proper Pokémon in at least a decade

I believe this may be your problem with the ending.

____

I'm really sorry if I'm coming off as an asshole, but almost none of these comments actually help me.

[Rozovian]

Quick response, don't have my good headphones with me. I'll elaborate on the things I don't need another listen for, and get to the rest at another time.

The drum kit's panning is wide. That's usually how drum kits are panned, but it breaks any illusion of being in the same space as the orchestra when the hihat is coming from off to the side and other elements are coming from the center or somewhere else. A drumkit that is physically as wide as an orchestra is ridiculous, and this panning suggests that's what you've got in the track. I realize I phrased that crit poorly. Should have emphasized that it's about the stereo panning. If you have a stereo widener, see if it has the option to reduce stereo width. Don't overdo it. I recommend using headphones for this.

Speaking of headphones, the bass rumble is horrible on decent headphones. I don't mind a subtle low end presence, but it gets way too loud for my liking. I recommend you find a standard listening level that you use both for the main mixing work, and for listening to your reference tracks. The effects of the low end are often not obvious on low listening levels, so make sure the lows in your reference tracks sounds good on the level before settling on it.

And speaking of reference tracks, those will be useful for figuring out how loud, bright and prominent percussion elements et al. should be. I know it's difficult to recreate the sound of a different orchestra, especially if you don't have the same sample library (or the real orchestra and venue and recording setup...). Still, for the relative balance between instruments and reverb, between instruments themselves, and the frequency balance of each element, good reference tracks are very useful.

When it comes to the many small timestamps, I think those might stand out more on the aforementioned reference listening level on headphones. Some of them stand out a lot, others just enough to bother me. I can list exactly how each of them bother me, but for your own critical listening development, it might be better to listen to the track yourself, on headphones and with appropriate level, and try to identify what I've pointed to. Your call.

--

On one hand, you do come off as a bit rude. I get that you don't mean to. I think it's because of the terse responses, and the seeming unwillingness to take the feedback and try to understand it. My own attitude to feedback is to try to understand everything, and to apply what you agree with. E.g. why did I list 2:31 in the timestamp list?

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with asking for elaboration, clarification, specifics, further advice, and whatnot. It's easy to get caught up in our own understanding of something and to explain it in our own way. When we aren't being clear on something, do point it out. The goal is to give you good feedback. If we're not doing that, let us know.

[Bowlerhat]

I like the dynamic contrasts. Especially when the piece picks up the pace again at 4:39 it really comes out wonderful compared to the minimalistic and slow lavender town before that. Although, seeing that there are multiple sources involved it could be that the contrast between songs is a maybe a bit too much. It's a subjective thing, and i'm personally not a big fan of medleys, but I feel like I'm just listening to three different songs. The intro doesn't have any correlation with lavender town, and lavender town doesn't have anything to do with the outro. The individual source interpretations work great, and they really have been arranged in a way which makes the most out of the source. But that's just that. Three great orchestral pieces played after each other  You could consider mixing things up a bit. Throwing in some battle theme quotes at the beginning, adding some lavender town at the end. Whatever works for you. I think it could really make everything sound a bit more like one big piece, instead of three different pieces. 

There's not much to say about the writing itself. It's great. You give everything your own spin, while still keeping the source intact and identifiable.  

About the ending. I did play the games, but I'm still gonna have to agree with Rozovian. That last orchestral chord sound great, and really feels like a nice convincing ending. In my opinion, adding those sound effects at the end takes the whole tension you build up over those six minutes away. I personally think the piece is better off without it. But, naturally, since it's your song you should definitely keep it in if you yourself like it. 

[Slimy]

I've updated the file in the first post.

• Fixed the loud tuba honks at 1:15.
• Decreased the volume of some of the percussion at 0:42 and made the snare darker.
• Tried to make the drum kit less wide.
• Decreased the volume of the bass rumble, although it gets louder at 2:37.
• I made the FX at the ending in-tune with the last chord to hopefully make it less jarring. I still have the original FX fresh in my mind though, so it sounds a bit strange to me.

On 8/25/2016 at 8:26 AM, Rozovian said:

Speaking of headphones, the bass rumble is horrible on decent headphones. I don't mind a subtle low end presence, but it gets way too loud for my liking. I recommend you find a standard listening level that you use both for the main mixing work, and for listening to your reference tracks. The effects of the low end are often not obvious on low listening levels, so make sure the lows in your reference tracks sounds good on the level before settling on it.

My headphones don't have a lot of bass, so I'd appreciate knowing if the bass rumble if it's still a problem, or if it's too quiet.

On 8/25/2016 at 8:26 AM, Rozovian said:

When it comes to the many small timestamps, I think those might stand out more on the aforementioned reference listening level on headphones. Some of them stand out a lot, others just enough to bother me. I can list exactly how each of them bother me, but for your own critical listening development, it might be better to listen to the track yourself, on headphones and with appropriate level, and try to identify what I've pointed to. Your call.

If I have to guess at what might instruments might possibly be wrong, and then guess at whether it's the loudness, articulation, or timing that bothers you - then no, it feels more like I'm wasting my time.

However, there were a few spots you mentioned that I did notice, and have changed.

On 8/25/2016 at 1:43 PM, Bowlerhat said:

Although, seeing that there are multiple sources involved it could be that the contrast between songs is a maybe a bit too much. It's a subjective thing, and i'm personally not a big fan of medleys, but I feel like I'm just listening to three different songs. The intro doesn't have any correlation with lavender town, and lavender town doesn't have anything to do with the outro. The individual source interpretations work great, and they really have been arranged in a way which makes the most out of the source. But that's just that. Three great orchestral pieces played after each other  You could consider mixing things up a bit. Throwing in some battle theme quotes at the beginning, adding some lavender town at the end. Whatever works for you. I think it could really make everything sound a bit more like one big piece, instead of three different pieces.

 

On 8/25/2016 at 8:26 AM, Rozovian said:

seeming unwillingness to take the feedback and try to understand it.

 

Oh boy.

I'm afraid you're listening to the first half of an 11 minute medley. No, I'm not changing that. I'm not going put the battle theme in the beginning, because there's no battle happening in the beginning of the song, if that makes any sense. And I'm not going to add Lavender Town to the end because that would ruin the mood, and it would be impossible to recapture the emotional tone from the middle right after that giant climax. (And I'm not going to add a "goofy-scary" section because I don't consider Lavender Town "goofy." Also because that would just make the tone confusing. Yes, the tone changes, but it stays consistent within each section.)

Basically, I really, really doubt I'm going to take any idea seriously that involves re-writing the entire structure of the song. I'm not re-writing the entire thing just because you just don't like medleys. To put it even more bluntly, and I apologize in advance - I don't think yours or anyone else's random ideas for the structure of the song is anywhere near as coherent as the one I've been working on for years.

(There's one possible exception though - I could write an entirely new part based on the Rock Tunnel theme, to give the intro of this some emotional context. I would have to write ~4 minutes worth so that it could be it's own separate part though, and that's pretty daunting.)

On 8/25/2016 at 1:43 PM, Bowlerhat said:

The intro doesn't have any correlation with lavender town, and lavender town doesn't have anything to do with the outro.

The intro is an interpretation of the route 3 and route 11 themes, which gets explored more in the 2nd half. After that, it actually is a remix of the Lavender Town theme.

[The Nikanoru]

On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 8:26 AM, Rozovian said:

The drum kit's panning is wide. That's usually how drum kits are panned, but it breaks any illusion of being in the same space as the orchestra when the hihat is coming from off to the side and other elements are coming from the center or somewhere else. A drumkit that is physically as wide as an orchestra is ridiculous, and this panning suggests that's what you've got in the track.

You are WAY more experienced than I am on the intricacies of mixing, compression, and sound quality, but on this particular point I don't think this point really matters for the purpose of enjoying the track. Many tracks on this site have drum progressions that would require at least three arms to play physically; but would that matter for panning too, to make sure you get the 'illusion' of two drummers playing so people don't think you collaborated with a three or four armed drummer?

I get that it matters where things are for panning for a sense of the 'real space,' but now the drums sound truncated to me and the rest of the orchestra sound seems to 'bleed wide.' In most orchestras I've been a part of, percussion spans the entire back row, compartmentalised into the corners for their generally greater volumes; entire drum kits generally center-left from the conductor's perspective. I've always thought that this was terrible positioning for them, as it makes the sound of the complete kit somewhat jammed in the corner, yet wide-spanning for all the other percussion in the orchestra. It didn't sound right to me then, and this doesn't sound right to me now.

I think the idea of realism for the drum kit in this case has cost something musically here, IMO.

On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 1:43 PM, Bowlerhat said:

I think it could really make everything sound a bit more like one big piece, instead of three different pieces. 

Curious, Bowlerhat - how would YOU do this? I think Slimy has done a good job of this already - I find the transitions smooth and fitting to the pieces they are moving into. And I LIKE the pace changes.

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 8:07 AM, Slimy said:

(There's one possible exception though - I could write an entirely new part based on the Rock Tunnel theme, to give the intro of this some emotional context. I would have to write ~4 minutes worth so that it could be it's own separate part though, and that's pretty daunting.)

I think changing out for the Rock Tunnel would go better with the Lavender Town theme mood-wise, but it would make the last part sound REALLY out of place.

You have a bit of dead space between 2:34 and 2:37 now.  Was this to deal with the bass rumble you spoke of? It sounds kind of ... empty there now.

Also, I didn't mind the old pokeball ending, but I admit the new tuning does make it blend better.

[Gario]

Just quietly (or not so quietly, as is the case here) taking this off eval, for the moment, as the track has had an eval, and more importantly is changing quite a bit over a short period of time. Tough to know if what's present is what's planned for submission, or if the tag just wasn't removed. No worries, but just poppin' in for that.

For what it's worth, I listened to it and thought the orchestration was bitchin'. Dynamically it's rich, though I think it would benefit from just a little limiting on the master track for those few spiking moments in the track, as it's pretty quiet all around - might be able to get 2-3 dBs without sacrificing a noticeable amount of quality. I can't try for myself since it's a soundcloud track, though.

The arrangement is pretty slick. It's a medley, but that isn't necessarily an issue, as long as the parts are arranged in a clever manner, and the track doesn't sound like a few different songs slapped together or the parts don't transition well. I think you'll be alright, there.

This isn't an eval, so I'm just giving a general feel for the track, here.

[Slimy]

Minor update:

• FX at the ending has better tuning now
• Made the quiet bits slightly louder overall.

 

10 hours ago, The Nikanoru said:

*snip*

I think the idea of realism for the drum kit in this case has cost something musically here, IMO.

I'm not experienced enough when it comes to drum kits to really have an opinion on this. If anyone else agrees/disagrees, I'd be interested to hear it.

10 hours ago, The Nikanoru said:

I think changing out for the Rock Tunnel would go better with the Lavender Town theme mood-wise, but it would make the last part sound REALLY out of place.

I think you misunderstood - I was talking about making an entirely new "song" to go before this one, since this entire song is currently a part 1 of 2. Part "prologue" could potentially contain a hint of the Cerulean City theme, the Route 9/10 theme, and then the Rock Tunnel theme. Basically the journey before you get to Lavender Town.

10 hours ago, The Nikanoru said:

You have a bit of dead space between 2:34 and 2:37 now.  Was this to deal with the bass rumble you spoke of? It sounds kind of ... empty there now.

Did I overdo cutting back on the bass rumble? Can someone with better headphones confirm this?

6 hours ago, Gario said:

Just quietly (or not so quietly, as is the case here) taking this off eval, for the moment, as the track has had an eval, and more importantly is changing quite a bit over a short period of time. Tough to know if what's present is what's planned for submission, or if the tag just wasn't removed. No worries, but just poppin' in for that.

I think it'll be ready for submission when the above issues are worked out.

6 hours ago, Gario said:

For what it's worth, I listened to it and thought the orchestration was bitchin'. Dynamically it's rich, though I think it would benefit from just a little limiting on the master track for those few spiking moments in the track, as it's pretty quiet all around - might be able to get 2-3 dBs without sacrificing a noticeable amount of quality. I can't try for myself since it's a soundcloud track, though.

Ok, I've limited the peaks and re-done the compression/amplification. The quiet parts should be slightly louder now.

[Gario]

9 hours ago, Slimy said:

I think it'll be ready for submission when the above issues are worked out.

Don't worry, just re-tag it when you feel ready for another eval; I just wouldn't have been able to tell if you wanted another one if I hadn't deliberately removed the tag, and didn't want you to think I was tampering with your stuff all sneaky-like. Re-tag when you do the fixes you want and one of us will eval it again.

[The Nikanoru]

On ‎8‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 11:12 PM, Slimy said:

I think you misunderstood - I was talking about making an entirely new "song" to go before this one, since this entire song is currently a part 1 of 2. Part "prologue" could potentially contain a hint of the Cerulean City theme, the Route 9/10 theme, and then the Rock Tunnel theme. Basically the journey before you get to Lavender Town.

You're right, I did - but that is a much more awesome idea.

Wouldn't you need Vermillion City in there somewhere? I remember that you need 'Cut' to get to route 9... not that I want to push that potential remix into 10 min territiory...

On ‎8‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 9:13 AM, Gario said:

didn't want you to think I was tampering with your stuff all sneaky-like.

Oh, you ARE sneaky, Gario! LOL