Ocarina of Time ReMix Mashup

[Ridiculously Garrett]

I feel as though I've completed this, but I have not had any official feedback, so I'm gonna leave this on ready for review right now. I've been working on this for a while and I finally got around to "finishing" it per say. I really like how it turned out because I haven't done anything this extensive before. I think it turned out pretty good, of course it probably has its flaws. I'm no master at production, so I might not be able to point those flaws out, but maybe somebody better at this can. Overall this was just real fun to make either way. 

The remix comprises of the Title Theme, Hyrule Field, and Zelda's Lullaby from Ocarina of Time. At the end, I threw in a little bit of the Astral Observatory from Majora's Mask underneath Zelda's Lullaby, because why not? 

This is the most recent version: 

 

[Smooth4lyfe1987]

I actually really like this!

I love how you switched up the main theme into a hip hop-ish like beat

I would try and find more realistic sounding instruments especially for the saxophone in the background. I would also bring the drums out more especially the hi hats, and lower the bass a little bit.

[Ridiculously Garrett]

Alright, thanks for the input! As for the "saxophone," that's actually live trumpet you're hearing, so that's about as real as it gets xD.

[timaeus222]

I don't hear realism issues with the trumpet. Actually, it's more an issue that its stereo placement is oddly narrow. I thought the section at 1:46 with the lush pads was a much needed breakdown. I do think that the drums sound fine, though the bass seems a bit too heavy (I would make sure the kick is sidechained with the bass). Maybe the overhead drums (cymbals + ride + hi hat) get overly phase-y and a bit abrasive, like at 0:55, but they're clearly, well, present. Especially at 4:20 though, there is overcompression in the loud parts.

Btw, the video has 38 seconds of silence at the end.

[Ridiculously Garrett]

Ok, so the bass should be something changed a little. I appreciate your enthusiasm in showing my flaws as a musician xD. That trumpet did give me some editing issues. And I've played around with compression, maybe I'm not listening for the right thing, but I really just don't hear anything except for a volume difference, but I know there's more to compression than just volume. But I just can't figure out. The drums probably get too abrasive because I did up the treble a little bit to make it stand out more, so that's something I can easily reduce. And I can fix the silence at the end xD. Personally, I do think that the soundscape gets a bit crowded, especially during the latter of the Hyrule Field segment, I could take out some stuff but then I'm afraid it'd be too barren. I dunno.

[timaeus222]

Haha, well, I appreciate your open mind to it! It's a good trait to have.

Yeah, the trumpet placement in the stereo field is kinda hard for me to describe. It feels "small", having less reverb than the elements around it, and as if someone took a stereo enhancer and used it to sum the left and right channels. It's not a huge deal, but I guess @Smooth4lyfe1987 might have thought that was a sequencing quirk. I'm not sure what's currently in the mixer for it, but you might be able to help it by adding some subtle ping-pong delay at a low feedback time (less than 15 ms) to widen it (that would echo it to the left and right, and 15 ms is the limit for the human being to be able to hear left/right channels distinctly from each other).

The critiques I had earlier were just for improvement though; I did enjoy this overall, and it's a neat style I don't hear often.

[Ridiculously Garrett]

I actually realized during editing that for whatever reason, I had the trumpet panned left and I don't know why I did that xD. I could definitely add an echo like you described, nothing too big. It's the first time I've worked with live instruments that don't go direct, so it's brought its issues to the table. But, it's a learning experience, that's really all I'm doing these remixes for. I don't want money or anything, I just wanna learn, you know? But I digress. I fixed some of the compression and part of that overcompression I think is because for whatever reason, the samples I used already had a huge default amount on them. So I reduced it.

[Rozovian]

eval:

Definitely compression issues. I would recommend a multiband compressor for this, but I would try to avoid pushing it too hard anyway.

One way to create headroom is to high-pass every instrument. Most instruments have lows they don't need, and some have lows not needed in the mix even if it makes them sound rather thin and weak when played solo. High-pass that stuff away. Another is to compress background tracks together to keep them from interfering with the foreground tracks as much. Yet another is to mix soft, and use parallel compression to raise the overall levels. Yet another is to spend hours automating track levels. The most effective, though, is to be aware of how loud things should be, and mix levels accordingly. I use all of these techniques. It's taken me a long time to learn them, but I think I'm finally getting a good grasp of that stuff, enough for my hobbyist level anyway.

It's loud enough, so every bit of headroom you create should go towards making it breathe more, not making it louder.

There's a fairly high-resonance synth lead here that seems a really odd choice. I don't like it, I don't think it fits. There's a more brassy synth lead used too, which works much better. Most other synths fit well with the jazz stuff, even if the levels could probably be adjusted. That one synth, at least when playing higher notes, is something I'd replace.

Like with your Mario track, I'd watch the timings of lead instruments. The synths in particular seem to have some weird timing flaws. That includes both when the notes start, and when they end.

I'm a long-time Zelda fan, and for much of the track, I had a hard time identifying tracks. The title screen, and the astral/lullaby combo were obvious to me, but the rest took a few more listens. Source is there, used creatively, so no complaints there. It might be that the track is too much of a medley for ocr, but that difficult to say.

Mixing levels and compression issues, note timings, that one synth lead... I can't identify any other flaws. It's an enjoyable listen, and definitely worth subbing once you've dealt with the aforementioned issues. Cool stuff.

[Ridiculously Garrett]

@Rozovian I really appreciate your honesty! To say that I'm a professional would be such a false statement in every way, I don't know anything about production, so I'm trying to teach myself. I'm not sure as though I'll have any opportunities of official education on this stuff. But that's no excuse, really. Looking at it, the mixing is pretty bad xD and instrumentation could use some work, and especially on this one, I do feel I tried to do too much at once. Although, I really appreciate your input and advice on making this better, I can't thank you enough for spending the time to give an amateur like me the time of day to try and make this better. I will certainly take into account the information that you have provided me.