Gario Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Track: ReMixer name: Overkillius real name: James Wilkinson email address: uberkillius@gmail.com website: http://www.youtube.com/user/Overkillius userid: 33843 Name of game arranged: Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism (東方地霊殿 ～ Subterranean Animism) Name of arrangement: Dance of Decision Name of individual song arranged: Corpse Voyage ~ Be of good cheer! (死体旅行 ～ Be of good cheer!) Additional information: Theme of Rin Kaenbyou. Stage 5 Boss. Link to the original soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZoJLMuq_cQ Rin Kaenbyou Dancing in Hopeless Masquerade was the inspiration for this. This song is my absolute favorite from the Touhou series, and Rin is also one of my favorite characters, so I guess it didn't take much to push me to arrange it. I started making an NES chiptune, with no expansions or DPCM samples, that started vaguely as a high BPM dance-ish track, and then swiftly deviated from that into what it is now. I make extensive use of chromaticism, extended tertian harmony, complex meter, meter changes, and a little bit of polytonality (all within the realm of tertian harmonic structures) to arrange the material from the original piece. As I composed the arrangement, what guided me was the exchanges between the heroine and Rin in Subterranean Animism. Rin doesn't actually kick off the events in Subterranean Animism, but she is the one who initially gets the attention of the heroine. Rin fights the heroine to test if she is capable of solving her problem, namely that her friend is trying to take over the world. In the final stage of the game, Rin tries one more time to defeat the heroine to take her remains (because I guess that's her hobby or something) but fails. I find the scenario interesting; Rin is desperate to stop her friend from taking over the world, though she doesn't feel like she can do it herself. She's also desperate to gather the remains of the heroine before the heroine has the chance to die and disintegrate in hell, even though defeating the heroine would mean that the heroine couldn't deal with her friend. Not only that, she appears 4 times in total (most characters only get 1 or 2 appearances), and two of those times she doesn't even talk to the heroine; she obviously has issues with confrontation. I don't know how to describe it in words very well, but this relation strikes me on a personal level, kinda related to the essence of procrastination and warped priorities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted January 18, 2017 Author Share Posted January 18, 2017 It's pure chiptune (not talking VRC6, either; it's standard NES chipset), so I'm feeling this will have some contention. If the production wasn't 110% high quality stuff on its own, and the arrangement wasn't spectacular I wouldn't have inboxed it, but seeing that it's Shnab+ in execution, and the arrangement is superb, I think it's fair to discuss it. As far as I'm concerned, I think it could use a little spreading of the channels (like Rushjet1 did for his posted track) so that it fills the speaker space a bit better, and it would benefit from more use of the PCM channel to give it some more breadth of sound at times, either for stronger drums (like how Rushjet1 and Mario 3 utilize it) or for another instrument (like how it's used in Journey to Silius). I don't think it's entirely out of the question to post something like this with more minimal tweaks, however. I've got a HUGE bias on pure chiptune (it's a genre I listen to quite a bit), so I'll defer to others on here before giving a more definitive vote - I'd likely lean more in favor of posting something like this than not. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Nice source. I'm not familiar with the Touhou games, but their soundtracks continue to impress me. I don't have anything against pure chiptunes, either--I have plain ol' Mega Man and a few other NES games in my go-to playlist--but "breadth of sound" is definitely something this remix is missing. The soundscape is extremely thin, with virtually no presence in the low range. I think that alone is reason enough to send this back. It also sounded to me like a lot of it was off-key. For instance, at 0:20, 0:41, 0:46, 0:53, 1:06, for starters. Maybe these are just strange chords I'm not familiar with, but they sounded extremely dissonant to me. They're not in the original source. Moreover, the main hook is a really liberal interpretation of the source. It uses similar patterns and elements, and starts off the section with the same notes, but then goes off into original territory. My breakdown, using the linked video for reference: 0:00-0:12=A, 0:13-0:36=B, 0:37-1:00=C, 1:01-1:14=D, 1:15-1:38=E 0:17-0:37: A few notes from E at the start of each phrase, otherwise different 0:38-0:57: B 1:02-1:17: C 1:18-1:37: E 1:54-2:11: A few notes from E at the start of each phrase, otherwise different 2:11-2:27: B 2:38-2:55: Reminiscent of D, but not the same 2:57-3:12: C 3:12-3:30: E Total: 109/218 sec. = exactly 50%. If you count the few notes that do match from the sections I felt were too liberal to count, it has a bit more margin. So it's fine by me on this count. Finally, the ending is really unsatisfying, just sort of stopping without preamble, not even on the tonic. So, short answer: production is fine, pure chiptunes are fine, but I feel like this arrangement lacks depth of sound, and has a few other more minor issues that help hold this back. Lots of good ideas, though, and I think this would have a solid place on the front page with not a whole lot of work. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 18, 2017 Share Posted February 18, 2017 On 1/25/2017 at 6:52 PM, MindWanderer said: It also sounded to me like a lot of it was off-key. For instance, at 0:20, 0:41, 0:46, 0:53, 1:06, for starters. Maybe these are just strange chords I'm not familiar with, but they sounded extremely dissonant to me. They're not in the original source. It didn't bother me at much, but it wasn't just you. Some of those grace notes aren't working. I'd timestamp this too for my own edification, but the production quality is an automatic dealbreaker. It's basically in mono, and sounds distant. There's not much in the way of production choices, or clarity for that matter. djp elaborated on what makes for acceptable chiptune production in the judging decision for RushJet1's "Dark Depths of Wily's Castle", so I strongly recommend listening to that and reading that discussion. Right now, this needs to make more use of stereo and add in some high-end clarity. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted February 18, 2017 Author Share Posted February 18, 2017 Alright, with a few responses in tow, I'll weigh in with my thoughts, here. Harmonically, I found little issue with it. It's unconventional; it utilizes bi-tonality for some portions of the track (such as at 2:40 - 2:58), and some of the moments that MW mentioned (like 0:41) have an intentionally downtuned triangle wave which makes it sound like it's clashing. The track isn't going to be to everyone's taste harmonically, as it dips in and out of tonality periodically, but I can't immediately mark this as wrong, either. Much like Uboichi's arrangement, I can't say moments of non-tonality qualifies as 'wrong', here... but that's admittedly up for debate, and a less important debate than the production discussion. I stand with Liontamer's assessment that being in mono dampen's the impact. However, know that I brought this to the table to clarify and codify the standing on chiptune a little bit further. Rushjet1's track is great, but realize that his track utilized the VRC6 chip (the famous Konami chip that expands the NES sound capabilities), while this is purely native hardware. If stereo spread and possibly tweaking EQ levels a tad is all we're talking about in order to improve their production to acceptable levels (as Liontamer suggested), then that would be great to inform future chiptune artists who plan on submitting. If the density of sound was not up to production quality standards (like MW was saying) then that's a different beast entirely and should be clarified in a completely different manner. As I agree with Liontamer on this, though, I'll give it the finishing vote. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 So I think this COULD be rejected on arrangement alone... a little too repetitive, and the beat is relentless in a way that I didn't particularly enjoy. From a production perspective.... well, with pure chiptune, and in mono at that, what we expect is that the arrangement side of things compensates for all the production decisions that are being taken off the table - like panning, or DSP, or instrumentation beyond what the chip offers. We haven't been 100% clear about this in the past, but it's NOT that we have a blanket ban on chiptunes, just that getting one past the panel is harder - same deal with solo piano arrangements - because the set of production decisions has been significantly curtailed. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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