Liontamer Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Here we go! There she be. Closer in many respects to a much older style of music that I have been known to produce (lately I've been doing a lot of orchestrated stuff, so this is something of a breath of fresh air). I hope you enjoy your trip back to Sonic and Knuckles with this mix... take care! -Wintermute Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 There are some good ideas here on the sound design and arrangement end of things, but overall this sounds really unpolished. The synths are all pretty loud and they don't mesh well together. More importantly, everything is pretty dry - use more effects to "sweeten" the mix. Also, try using less aggressive sounds and more sustained patches (besides the choir). The changeups to the original progression are appreciated but I feel like more could be done there, as you basically simplified the source by a bit. Try to get your variations to fit more cohesively together. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 13, 2006 Author Share Posted November 13, 2006 http://project2612.org/download.php?id=61 - "Lava Reef Zone 1" Opening is already pretty old school with these sounds. The soundscape was thin, loud, and defaulty. I agreed with zirc about the lack of polish with the various sounds not meshing well together; the beatwork/claps and some of the synths (e.g. 1:17, 2:39) were too loud compared to the other sounds. The sound balance could be reexamined. The arrangement seemed a bit scattershot, especially with the Lava Reef theme shunted way in the back. While the source tune taking a back seat to the louder beatwork and original ideas isn't a total dealbreaker, it's still a somewhat odd approach when the focus, at least in terms of the standards, should be a bit more on the source tune and not just building original stuff over the conservatively arranged original (i.e. 2:39-3:27). You have to listen to the various other parts to see what other connections are there. Sometimes (:56-1:10) the interpretive connections are more obvious, sometimes it seems like (beyond the conservative usage of the source melody in the background) there's nothing really having to do with Lava Reef. There were some sections where the melody was arranged for whatever sounds, but the progression was basically the same as the source and not interpretive. Overall though, while relatively conservative, the arrangement went in the right direction in terms of trying to fuse original writing and liberal arrangement ideas with the conservative renditions of the source. I'd move a bit away from the more verbatim renditions of the theme in the background. Keep at it, Dan. NO (rework/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 Everything is quite loud and in-yer-face sounding, more balance is needed in terms of instrument levels, the high hats that are added throughout the mix are examples of where things are coming in too loudly. There are parts where the background sounds are louder than the melodic elements, crowding them out. At 2.40, I really didn't think that synth works for this mix at all, and again, it comes in much too loudly. I like the choir ending. NO (Resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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