Gario Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 Required infos ReMixer name: AtmoSage Name of game arranged : Kirby & The Amazing Mirror Name of arrangement : Jazzy Condiments Name of individual song arranged : Mustard Mountain Additional infos Link to the original soundtrack : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ZCwramhCU Comments about the mix: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror really marked my childhood. When I re-discovered the soundtrack not long ago, I felt some sort of Jazzy/Blues vibe floating through ''mustard mountain'', so I decided to make this track(on FL Studio, as always), to make this vibe come to life.I still got a lot to learn, but I had a lot of fun making this, especially the last part Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 Nice, rich soundscape for jazz. I love that powerful, meaty bass and those crisp hats. I thought this was an odd choice of a source for a remix, but it makes perfect sense given your approach here. The kick is maybe a bit too beefy--it's really thick in isolation, and causes a little bit of overcompression when mixed in. There are a few other overcompression moments, too: The riser at 1:29, a little bit with the synth from 1:32-1:47, and the SFX at 2:39-2:49. The chimes at 1:02 and 1:06 and 1:48-2:10 are quite piercing. A few of the notes in the latter section are well into the discomfort range for my ears. The synth at 1:32-1:48 is harmonized strangely with the piano. I'm having a hard time identifying what exactly is clashing, but maybe another judge can point out where the dissonance I'm hearing is coming from. The playing is all quite mechanical. I found it most striking with the piano and the percussion, but I don't hear any instruments with any timing/velocity variation. The percussion especially seems to be on auto-pilot much of the time, which is especially problematic for jazz. I'm a little torn here. The arrangement is neat, and I love the overall feel. The production issues are nontrivial, though. I think this could be an easy pass with some fairly minor improvements to the levels and the humanization, but for now I'm leaning just on the side of NO (borderline, resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted April 14, 2017 Author Share Posted April 14, 2017 Interesting approach to the source - the arrangement really does take it in a new, interesting direction. The production on the track is definitely an issue, though. MW pointed out the mechanical instrumentation (which is definitely true - the sequencing of the instruments are definitely stiff), but a more consequential issue here is that the track suffers from a great deal of overcompression. There are quite a few instruments in this that take up all of your sound space (like that bass and piano), so when other instruments come in to compensate the compressor smashes everything to compensate. If you'd like to submit this again, fix your levels on the mix so that pre-mastering there's no clipping. Putting the music through a compressor does not remove issues that are present beforehand - it only causes different issues to crop up in their place. You'll also need to pay attention to how you humanize your instruments; using volume envelops for dynamics and adjusting the attack envelop for articulation can help give a lot more life to the performances. The arrangement is pretty sweet, so I hope we can hear this again with those improvements in mind! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 I think Gario and Mindwandered explained very well the issues present here. The performances feel overly mechanical and the instrumentation is at times too simple. I also have to agree on the compression levels, though it's evident they're prettty high I ran it through an analyzer anyways and I got -9 RMS on the busiest sections. That's quite a lot considering the style you're going for here. The synth elements used were also slightly out of place for me, I think they could be another point of improvement, making them fit along the other instrumentation. This needs an overhaul starting from the mix to get the balance of the different instruments right first before applying any mastering, and then several humanization passes.NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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