Gario Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 (edited) ReMixer Name: Ridiculously Garrett Real Name: Garrett Mandeville Email Address: Submission Information Game arranged from: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Name of arrangement: The Boss is Back in Town Name of song arranged: After the Battle Edited May 5, 2017 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 It's always challenging to try to work with such a short source, but you do a pretty good job here of keeping it from getting old. It only repeats a couple of times each time it comes up, and evolves each time it returns. The section from 2:20-3:07 goes on for longer than I'd like, but not egregiously so. There are some strange chords that don't match the rest of the arrangement at 1:40, 1:52, etc., but to be fair, the source makes some strange chord choices as well, and I think you actually do a better job with some of them than they did! I don't think this will be everyone's cup of tea, but it seems to meet our standards for production and arrangement, so good job! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Hey, I have worked with this source before! I love this source. TP is one of my favorite games of all time. I can see this vote going either way, because it really won't be everyone's cup of tea, for several reasons. The source is very well represented, and I love the chord choices you used here, very creative and gives the melody extra moodiness. The arrangement is sort of odd, I wish there was a middle section to break things up, but ultimately the arrangement is good enough. I love the creepy intro. I LOVE how you used the game clips, vocal and otherwise. I'm totally into tasteful use of game clips. You are really milking it in the outro, though, hehe. I still like it. The mixing could be better, though. The grunge guitar backing is too crispy and too narrow/centered, and the sine leads are too simple/plain and too loud and I don't care for the panning of the leads. Drums and percussion (trap hats!) can all be louder. Kick isn't cutting through well. Bass can be louder and more present. At 1:57 you have some very cool sfx that are mixed dead in the center; to me that is a missed opportunity to do some wild panning and stereo tomfoolery (automated filtering and autopan ftw), and at the same time you have simple, loud, panned leads. Imo you have the wrong things centered and the wrong things wide or panned. Also at 1:57, you have a screechy synth that is directly conflicting with your backing sfx stuff (panning or stereo widening the sfx will fix that). This track could really be something special with just a few mixing changes. As Larry often says, I wouldn't die if it got posted like this, but I will be the girl who throws it back for the extra coat of gloss. NO (please resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 Definitely a unique take here. Not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but you've got some fun ideas here. As Kris and MW said, the chord choices are fun if unconventional which gives the track a little bit of extra personality. For me I feel like there's more work that could be done here. Kris mentioned the sine lead, which was the first thing I noticed; it's super plain both in how it plays the melody and how it's sitting in the track. Along with that is a lot of repetitive aspects that I found to be too much. The drum loops are pretty unchanging, then later that kinda screechy synth. I'd like there to be more variation overall in those things to keep the track moving. I agree that this can go either way, and I'd say it's close, but some extra revisions would bring it that step up IMO. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 Have to agree with Deia here. I don't like how the lead is sitting on the track, it feels very exposed compared to the rest of the elements going on, another element that seems to not be sitting very well on the mix were the guitars, most notably around the first minute. I think they get some help from the synth pad later, as it complements them and the rest of the mix well though. The hard wubs threw me off, and they don't necessarily sound bad, but again it seems to me that they're failing to sit well with the other elements in the mix, specially with the leads. The arrangement itself was fine, albeit the track felt short due to the extended intro, but I think this needs another pass on the mix side so that the instruments chosen sit better in the mix and don't feel as exposed as they feel now. I do think this is close, but not quite there yet. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 I thought that opening synth was pretty generic, but I did like that you tried to change the tone around :36. There was a soft, but noticeable pop in the right channel at :34; not sure what happened there. That synth lead at :47 sounded kind of like a grade-up version of Tim Follin's phased music on Agent X, so that's a fun little style callback for me. I agreed with the others on the lead at 1:03 just sounding really plain. DragonAvenger did have a point on the drums being repetitive from 1:34-on. Do see if you can employ some additional subtle variations to the pattern, but IMO the arrangement felt well-developed for the second half, so this wasn't a major issue. MindWanderer also mentioned some potentially odd chords at 1:40/1:52, and I hear what he's referring to, but everything there resolved fine. I liked the wacky faux-industrial vox stuff thrown in at 1:57; it added something really cool to the texture, and clicked nicely with the synths before taking over in the foreground at 2:20. It got a little repetitive due to being used for so long without a break, but it was a cool idea and used well, so I personally didn't have an issue. For something that no one else brought up, that synth at 1:03 couldn't have been more blocky-sounding; it's strange because for certain lead tones, the blocky feel seemed sloppy (1:03-1:57) and sapped the track of energy, but once the vox/SFX fuckery arrived, the blocky timing of the lead wasn't an issue; it could be from: 1) having something more energetic and less mechanical surrounding it (e.g. 2:22); or 2) because you used doubling under the melodic synth at 1:57; or 3) because you also used a different tone for the melodic line at 2:22. Either way, I don't know. Feel free to run that by other people and see if they agree at all. To me, I'd really like to hear the synth at 1:03 in particular sound more expressive. The changeup at 3:07 didn't really make much sense to me, but that could be because I haven't played Twilight Princess. It was abrupt and broke the flow, but I'll live. Chimpazilla had some good criticisms of the mixing/panning that would definitely improve this, even though that stuff didn't affect my vote, since the part-writing was clear/discernible enough, IMO. Pretty close stuff here, Garrett, and the arrangement aspect of this seems like a pass already. There are just multiple smaller production issues adding up to hold this back (but not by much, IMO). See if you can take the advice of the Js to get the production on more solid ground. Definitely don't drop this one! NO (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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