Gario Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 (edited) Hello. I'm relatively new to the OCR forums, but I'd like to submit an arrangement of a piece of videogame music to the OCR Judges for inclusion and use on the OCR website. I have attached the audio file of the arrangement in this email. The relevant and requested information is below: ReMixer name: BenEmberley Real name: Ben Emberley Email address: Website: www.benemberley.com Userid: 35011 Game arranged - Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Name of Arrangement - Floria in Nature Individual song arranged - Lake Floria Additional information - Original music by Koji Kondo, Hajime Wakai and Shiho Fujii. Original Soundtrack can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7irrTXr2tsk If there is any more information or anything lacking in this submission, please let me know. Thanks, Ben. Edited November 6, 2018 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 When the theme kicked in at :31, the texture and structure were pretty much verbatim with the source aside from no percussion, so there wasn't a substantial enough difference compared to the source. There was some accenting instrumentation going on, but this was still very similar to the source until 3:01, which was nearly halfway through. For the arrangement/interpretation standards, this needs to stand apart more from the original source tune much sooner. Pretty fake-sounding strings, perhaps throwing back to A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time in some respects, but I don't think it works. The attacks and decays for the strings from 2:01-2:54 (especially from 2:17-2:23) just sounded awful and greatly exposed the samples too much. Then the strings and brass at 3:27's more forceful section were also very exposed. You've got to make sure the attacks sound more realistic & human; it's silly at that point. The writing there was otherwise energetic and more interpretive. When you have more instruments in play, the fuller textures did mitigate the sample realism issues some, but the parts still sounded thin and exposed, so you'll want to see where you can thicken up some of the parts for a richer, more realistic sound. Decent base here so far, Ben, and it's a very nice theme choice to arrange. Do what you can to make the first half more interpretive, and you absolutely need to improve both the humanization and fullness of your instrumentation; if that can't be done, it's a dealbreaker. While the production needed more attention to detail, you showed some good arrangement ideas in the second half; even though that half was also structurally conservative, you managed to have it feel more grandiose than the original song in terms of your part-writing. See what you can do to make the first half more distinctive and different from the original as well. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 We've historically passed arrangements where the first half is a close cover but the second half is substantially interpretive, so I'm okay with this on those grounds. The first half isn't quite verbatim, there are some small changes, and the orchestration in the second half is rich and expressive. More than enough to carry the arrangement IMO. But those samples and humanization are well below our bar, as Larry described. The lead strings in particular aren't adequate for what you're trying to do. It's possible to do orchestral with free samples, but not these free samples. There are free samples better than this. I really do like the arrangement, even if it could benefit from some more interpretation in the first half, but I think you need more practice working with orchestral instruments. Try taking this to our workshop forums and see if you can get some more detailed advice there. I do hope you can polish this up, though--I like your style. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted November 6, 2018 Share Posted November 6, 2018 I wasn't too impressed with the humanization of the instruments right from the get-go but, it seemed passable as I can definitely hear some detailing went into some of the parts, as the flute parts show that some care went into the dynamic range and articulations. However, the rest of the instruments sounded really blocky. This is displayed very clearly at 2:03, where the lead strings sound overly artificial, with very abrupt release gates and not a lot of humanization on the articulations. With regards to the arrangement, I feel this was too safe. The first section is pretty similar in structure and arrangement but not entirely verbatim, which is fine, while the second section expands a bit more on that. My biggest gripe arrangement-wise is that this remix doesn't really offer that many new ideas compared to the original. It has the same feel and style, and the bump in fidelity isn't huge, and the original parts aren't breaking from this form or offering something entirely new. I think you can do better by making this remix your own and really go the extra mile with your interpretation. NO (Resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts