Gario Posted November 8, 2017 Share Posted November 8, 2017 Previous Decision Your ReMixer name: JohnStacy, Juan Medrano Your real name: John Stacy, Juan Medrano Your email address: Your userid: 33075, 4685 Name of game(s) arranged: Super Mario Bros. 3 Name of arrangement: The Journey Never Ends Name of individual song(s) arranged: Ending Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. I submitted this track in the middle of August. After getting rejected by the panel, I let the track sit for a while. After reading over the criticisms I opened the track again. When reworking the track I wanted to see what I could reuse from the same file to minimize having to rerecord the brass instruments. The criticism really revolved around two basic things that fed off each other, the drums and the arrangement. I cut out something like a minute from the arrangement by cutting the first "verse" with only rhythm section and solo horn. By starting in what was the 2nd "verse" it seemed to flow a lot better. Most of the original recordings I recorded were used, keeping the ensemble as 2 trumpets, 1 solo french horn, 2 section french horns, a trombone, and a bass trombone. The rhythm section was changed a lot, however. Enter Juan Medrano. We were talking in discord and he offered to do drums for me, and later bass. The bass help was not more than running the existing midi data through a much higher quality bass vst, and also a little bit of optimizing for that vst. The drums were a complete rewrite. He did those himself and used his soundsets for that, making a much more solid drum track. After adding in the new drum and bass tracks, the mix tightened up significantly. While working on the mix this time around, I also noticed a track that was essentially muted minus being fed into the reverb bus. It was a warm pad and sine wave track just sustaining chords. I can't remember what the purpose of this track was, but after removing it completely, quite a lot of space in the track opened up. His contributions in writing for rhythm section and mixing were extensive in enhancing the track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted November 8, 2017 Author Share Posted November 8, 2017 Ah, I remember this from the first time around; I wasn't sure if I would give it a pass or not since it was amazing yet static (as the other judges said prior). I must commend the amazing brass work that went into this - John's got some insane skills to put something like this together. The lead horn work in the lead is really, really good, I've gotta say. I really do like the arrangement of this. The balance of the instruments seems noticeably improved, with the bass and piano being easier to hear in this. The drums are more subdue'd (perhaps a little too much so), but I can see the work that went into giving them more life with those fills and different patterns. Gotta give some real props to Sixto for that. The track is about a minute and a half shorter, but I virtually didn't notice the difference. I think trimming this down was a smart move - the drags on for far less than the previous version. The last thirty seconds of this track is silence; we should cut that out prior to posting this, if it passes. I was a close call prior to this version, and this one brings along a whole lot of improvement. I think it's an easy pass for me now; awesome work on this! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 I didn't hear the first sub on this, but what I'm hearing now is fantastic. Performances are excellent. Parts are very well balanced in the soundfield with good use of tasteful panning to widen things out a bit. Source usage was both clear and creative. Minor gripe, I wasn't a big fan of the way the broken record effect cuts the audio at the beginning. I totally understand it's an intentional effect and style choice, it's just that many audio cuts kinda threw me a bit on the intro. I'll second the trimming of silence (I let John know about it). Great approach, great song. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 I'll ditto Nutritious's distaste for how the intro was executed; there are ways to get that old-timey choppiness without it sounding quite so much like a hard cut. But that's my only concern here. The performances, including the new drums, are great, and the arrangement explores new territory enough to stay interesting without ever losing touch with the source. Trim out that silence at the end and this is good to go. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 9, 2017 Share Posted November 9, 2017 Just needed to make the drumwork more varied and creative, and that's done. Trimming things down also helped, but the drums were the main issue. Let's go!YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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