*NO* Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time 'With Barely Enough Time'

[DragonAvenger]

ReMixer Name: Blue Eyed Fennekin
Name of Game: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky
Name of Arrangement: With Barely Enough Time
Name of Original Track: Dialga's Fight to the Finish!
Song Length: 2:53
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Edited June 23, 2017 by Liontamer
closed decision

[DragonAvenger]

Great soundtrack, always enjoy me some PMD love. Your track has a lot of energy here, and the fast pace helps keep things moving. The synth choices are overall a bit generic, but I think they don't feel worn out or overused. I would have liked some changes later in the track, especially to the lead synth.

The track starts out ok here, the lower key was a good call, because the synths would have been pretty shrill in the original key, and still are a touch grating at the beginning. I do think that everything sounds fairly mechanical and could be humanized more, especially the leads. When 0:38 comes in the call and response is good, but each time uses the same rhythm and the response is very similar each time. Even though it's only about 20 seconds of time, that section feels longer than it is because of the minimal changes. 

The arpeggio at 0:51 is a really nice touch and works really well here. The 1:14 counter-melody also starts out pretty well, but around 1:24 or so some of the sections start to clash, and at 1:36 or so the notes are definitely not working together. Similarly, the trill after that does not sound like the correct notes and does not fit. 

Glad that the next section at 1:43 is different from the source structure, was going to ding you for sticking close to the original on that but the return of the 'main' melody helps break away from the original. After that we have the call and response section again, which suffers from the same as before, and in fact may be the same as it was the first time.

The ending feels like you ran out of ideas. The track vamps for a bit, then just kinda ends. Feels very anti-climatic and overall is a letdown compared to the rest of the track.

I think you've got a good start here, but there's definitely some work to be done here. A lot of it for me is based around altering the arrangement to get more interest out of what is going on and to fix up the countermelody section mentioned above. Good luck!

NO (resubmit)

[MindWanderer]

The remix starts off great, building into a nice energy level, but then it sort of peters out.  The rise going into 0:37 promises an explosion of depth and energy, but then it doesn't really deliver.  The percussion is very thin, distant, and limited.  There's also a significant lack of bass presence, just a simple pad in the mid-low range, used throughout.

The highs, on the other hand, get very complex and busy: 1:15-1:27, for instance, has what sounds like four different synths, all similar in timbre, competing for a very narrow range of frequencies.  They're crisp and don't step on each other as badly as they might, but they still fight for the listener's attention--and that's not counting the percussion, which is also stuffed into the same spectrum.  They're a little shrill in general, and you only use a couple of different leads (the saw and the square) the whole time, which is fatigue-inducing.

1:34-1:39 doesn't sound right to me either.  Sounds like there are some clashing notes in there.  It sounded unusual but OK to me up until then.

The arrangement is a lot of fun, and while it was a little conservative there was more than enough additional accompaniment and riffing to make it interesting.  Spread those frequencies apart, go somewhere a little more interesting with your synths, come up with a better ending, and fix that clashing section.  Sounds like a lot, but you have a lot of strong work here that actually has you most of the way there.

NO (resubmit)

[Gario]

Pokemon!

Good choice for a source, and a great choice for the direction to take. The source seems to have a more ominous, epic feel to it, while this is more intense and in your face. To be honest, I think your track would be a better fit for something like a crazy intense battle.

This is a very dense track. The overall production is quite loud, to the point of having mild clipping and some limiting errors throughout the louder sections. Every synth seems to be fighting for space, and none of them really win out past the 1:02 mark. Production-wise, this needs to be redone from the ground up: turn off your compressors and limiters, rebalance the mix so clipping doesn't occur and so that the leads are always clear (but not overpowering everything else). Then one can boost the volume using a limiter or such, but even then be careful not to create issues in the process.

The drums sound quite generic, and do not come through at all throughout the mix. When balancing the mix, be sure to give some special attention to the placement of the drums in the track. Some special attention should be paid to the reverb in this as well for every instrument, since everything sounds very oversaturated, and is likely contributing to the overcrowding that's occurring throughout this arrangement.

I don't think the notes in the arrangement sounded too off, save for a single note at 1:27 and 1:38 sounding a half step too high in the melody (either that, or the harmony is carrying a clashing note). If you're going to raise the lead for the sake of a cadence (as the source does), make sure it doesn't clash with the backing texture or harmonies. Listen to the source again and check to see how they handle it, as it's definitely in the source.

The arrangement works well enough even with the vanilla synths, and despite the production and mixing issues there is a certain amount of energy that the source is lacking. I think it's a good approach, but you've got a lot of cleaning up to do on this. I wish you the best!

NO