LoZ Skyward Sword: The Lumpy Pumpkin [Remix]

[Juke]

 

I realize that I posted a different track earlier, but I just finished this one today and I feel that it's probably a better suit for Overclocked Remix.  I used themes from Lon Lon Ranch and Kakariko Village; this was partly inspired by the tavern in Link Between Worlds, where the musicians there would play themes from different area's/games.  This idea for this piece is that you walk into a tavern playing the Lumpy Pumpkin Theme, but the players also mix in elements from other games as well.

If this site has a rule against Soundscape elements (ie, tavern background, beginning and end), please let me know; it's too easy to remove it.

Enjoy, and let me know if it has potential to be submitted here!

Original:

-Juke

[Flurry of Flames]

Hey Juke! I listened to your remix, and I enjoyed it! Here are a couple things that I'll suggest to make it better or stuff that I thought you could expand upon because I really liked those parts. First thing is that from my perspective, there were a lot similarities from the source tune and your remix which isn't a bad thing, but at times it seemed too similar even with the instruments added such as the violin at the very start. I think its that the primary instrument is the same and I didn't feel anything new coming from it. This might be my inexperience as well, but having the same sort of genre that the source tune doesn't do you favors in terms of trying to be original as it feel more like a retread than a remix. Now to the stuff I did like, I loved the the singing. The oos were really pure and made me love that part even more. Maybe you could incorporate that more. Another thing that I liked that took me by surprise was the pan flute. I loved the embellishments you gave to it which made me think have the pan flute be the melody and maybe think in that aspect. This is only my opinion, but I really liked the singing and the pan flute, and I thought everything else was too closely tied to the original. If you want to elaborate even further then msg below, and I'll try to explain myself further. If you go further with this remix, I can't wait to hear it.

[Juke]

Thanks for the reply!

About being close to the source material in instrumentation, that's definitely a bias for me and I'm waiting for judge to let me know if its too much for this site.  I love OCRemix, and have subscribed to them on different accounts for a few years, but my biggest grievance is when I click on a remix of a song that I know and love, just to find out that the remix hardly sounds like the original at all.  Sometimes it feels like remixes are trying to use the video game music platform to push their own original music, as opposed to using their own talents to make beautiful video game music.  My favorite remixes, consequently are of remixes that sound close that what I love in the original but have a sense of uniqueness to them, be it instrumentation, implementation, etc. 

My current style is to make the first iteration of a vgm loop close to the original, and then expand with new themes or instruments later in the song.  That being said, I completely understand why you might find that boring or unoriginal, and why a potential judge might think the same.  I'll have to make sure future submissions unique then.  Thanks again! 

 

[Gario]

Well, I'll say this first (before listening to what we've got) - if your style is to make something very conservative in the beginning, then expand on it later after establishing your material, I'm all for it, and so should the rest of the judges. Of course, pending on how much you expand on it, how long it remains on the very close source material, etc., counts toward whether it's stylishly different enough from the source for the panel, but that's what the eval process is all about.

As for the rules for or against the sound effects, the only hard rule against them is that we can't take anything with Square-Enix sounds in it - everything else is all good. Another more obscure consensus is that SFX shouldn't alone constitute the source reference in an arrangement. Though rare, that issue does pop up periodically. Neither of these issues apply to this track, though, so no worries.

That all being said, let's get this thing goin'!

EVAL

As far as production goes, this is quite good. The overall soundscape is clean, the mixing is solid, and there's no clipping/limiting artifacts/overcompression that I can spot. You've got some production chops that I can respect.

As far as the arrangement goes, I do hear some differences coming in past the 1:30 mark (some nice counter-themes in the background - I think I hear some Zelda's lullaby there, even), and the addition of the pan flute was perfect. The material past 3:18 was particularly good, and blends with the original source quite nicely, to boot - wish there was more expansions like that in there. Aside from that, though, the similar instrumentation, the otherwise close adherence to the source and the similar pacing do still make this a pretty conservative arrangement. It's not a STRAIGHT cover, but it's still quite close throughout.

It's a tough call, since there ARE some cool directions taken on this later in the track I think the combination of the same overall style and themes would still push this into the 'Too Conservative' category for OCR, as it stands. It's very close to what we'd be looking for, though - past the first iteration of the source (to keep with your mentioned style), if you integrated more of the Lon-Lon Ranch and Kakariko Village themes into the body of the arrangement, or added your own flourishes to the Lumpin' Pumpkin theme past that point that would push this past that conservative mark.

It's still a great arrangement, and I'd argue it's close to being something you can submit, but it's still on the conservative side. Hope that helps!