Sonic The Hedgehog 3 - Ice Cap Zone Dance Remix

[GCJ]

A dance mix of Ice Cap Zone (I know it's overdone, but I'm a little new to remixing and I wanted to start out familiar with Sonic songs I knew well) that I made not that long ago. I considered it complete at the time, but it isn't quite as good as what I'm making now.

[EDIT]: Revision 1: This is a fairly big revision, suggestions and criticism would be very appreciated.

[EDIT]: Revision 2: Okay so now I think I understand decent flow and sound design and think I have something much better, though I'm focused on other remixes at the moment so progress on this one is gonna be slow.

Current Version of Remix::

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sj93vytk0ncj09g/Ice Cap Zone Remix [Very Revised].mp3?dl=0

Oldest Version of Remix (Just to show the serious amount of progress I've made since then & record-keeping purposes I guess):

Original song:

Thanks in advance!

[Rozovian]

Well I can tell you this right away: it's not up to ocr's standards.

eval:

The sound design is all over the place. Some parts are harsh and loud, others surprisingly soft by comparison. I'm not sure where the arrangement is heading at any point, which is a little disconcerting. I think those are the three big problems here.

I'm normally not much for sound effects, but your sfx section is one of the more tasteful uses of them. Nice work. I'm not entirely sold on the idea because they don't integrate that well into the sound design, but that's more a sound design problem than anything else.

Source is obviously there. I don't think source usage is a problem, it's handled creatively enough. But there are elements that, for part of the mix, are used verbatim. As this is a source I've heard remixed so many times, those conservative bits aren't very interesting to me. That shouldn't be an issue with most listeners, but it's something to be aware of when remixing something like this.

A good arrangement gives the listener some idea of where it's heading, even if it takes some time to get there, or changes to head off in a different direction. It feels like the whole thing is deliberate. Here I'm haring variation after variation of the source, and not until the sfx bit comes in do I have some idea of the track nearing the end. And even then, the following part makes me doubt that guess. The softer bit around 1:10 is the kind of thing I'd expect before the last loud part, or possibly at the end of the track, so it gets a little confusing. Listeners, consciously or subconsciously, rely on things like that in the structure to feel where in the track they are, and when those cues come in unexpected places, it's confusing. I'm not saying you have to following predictable, established structures, but learning how to write and mix the thing to signal things to the listener is a very useful skill to have.

There's some really weird jumps in level, like at 0:20 and 0:32 and 2:02, that suggest that this was mixed without listening to the actual output. I don't know if that's the case, but it sounds like that's the case. I know a common complain on music is that it isn't dynamic enough, arrangement-wise or sound-wise, but this is the opposite problem. Work on the transitions.

The choice of a harsh bass sound in the 1:10-1:35 part is odd, because harsher sounds are usually used in the loud parts, while smoother sounds are used for soft parts. So that's weird as well. Overall, instrument placement doesn't seem to have been much considered here. EQ, reverb, level, pan; use them.

The record stops in the last loud part are a cool effect, but I think using it multiple times makes it more annoying than cool. It might be a subjective criticism, but it bugs me. When there's multiple stops like that, it suggests there's gonna be an iteration without the stops that is even bigger and cooler. But then it just ends. With just the first stop, it'd signal that things are getting big, and there's nothing bigger coming, which I think is a good signal. To me, anyway. It's subjective. But I thought I'd let you know how it works on me.

And the end is rather abrupt. I don't mind the sound effects, but the transition into it wasn't very smooth.

I hope this gives you an idea of what you can do to get this up to ocr's standards. I think it's mostly a production thing, because despite my problems figuring out the arrangement, I don't think it's a dealbreaker. The production, however, is. Get yourself a couple of fairly recent  (as in the last 10 years) reference tracks with a sound design you think fits this track, and compare. See what you can learn about instrument placement and level and sound design. It's helped me a lot. Good luck.