Gario Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 (edited) NOTE: I know this has voice clip samples from Deus Ex in it, which are prohibited due to Square Enix rules. However, I let the artist know about this, and he has responded acknowledging this and stating he will send us a version without said samples. Please evaluate accordingly, giving this a conditional YES if it passes. - Gario Hello, My name is Vittorio (Remixer name "Mothership Loudspeakerz", forum name "mothershipl", userid 35025), following this link (it's my private cloud, so no file expires until I delete it) you can find my remix submission: it's a drum&bass remix of "Versalife" from the Deus Ex soundtrack. It's the first time I submit a track to your website, so if there's any essential info missing just reply to this email and I'l be hapy to provide. Regards, V. Edited January 21, 2019 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 Much of the instrumentation sounded very thin and mechanically-timed/sequenced, e.g. the keyboard at :12 & 8:12, the sequenced faux-electric guitar line at 5:41, the bowed strings at 6:31 & 7:47. Even when the DnB elements were introduced at 1:28, they had no body to them (except at 6:56, which was still thin but a more complete texture than anywhere else), so on a production level, this was pretty dead on arrival. Arrangement-wise, I liked the writing ideas, Vittorio, so it's a matter of putting meat on these bones with more sophisticated instrumentation, making sure the sequencing doesn't sound so fake, and making sure the textures are filled out. Make sure you're using the Workshop forums (both for production and specific arrangement feedback) along with other online resources to improve your production. To some extent, the issues lie with limitations of the instrumentation/samples you're using, but it's also about you needing to be able to get more out of your current sounds. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted October 9, 2018 Author Share Posted October 9, 2018 Listening through this, while I won't say this is without criticism I think Larry's assessment is missing the forest for the trees, here. The sample work isn't up to snuff (more on that later), but the synth work is great, and with more than 75% of the track being pure synth work I'm going to argue the samples were never really supposed to be realistic. The production is clean, and all of the synths (thin as they are) in combination fill up the space more than enough while remaining clear enough to hear everything. Coming back to the instrumental sample work, though, when the more acoustic elements are involved (like the samples at 0:23, the strings at 6:32, or even the e-piano at 0:13) they are dry and exposed, sounding amateurish in their use. While I can argue that the samples may never have been intended to be realistic, they don't sound intentionally fake, either, which puts them in an awful uncanny valley where the listener can only hear them as poorly sampled rather than intentionally fake. If you're going for a realistic acoustic sound, go all the way - give it some defined space, have the different note hits have different weight, phrase the dynamics better, etc. If you're going to fake them on purpose, cap those decays, harden your attacks, etc. - do things that make them really sound intentionally fake. For the record, the fake guitar work, while not great, wasn't nearly bad enough to sink the arrangement either. The distortion guitar, in particular, had a fake element that blended with the rest of the arrangement. Could be better, perhaps, but I didn't think they were distractingly bad. Glancing at the source and arrangement really quick, the source isn't difficult to hear in the arrangement. The samples are Square Enix property, though, so they'll need to go before we can pass this regardless of anything else. Otherwise, checks out on that front. I count about two minutes where the samples are exposed and rather bad out of a 8:42 track - I'm not sure if that's enough justification for me to outright reject this. Since the samples used mean that this is going to be a conditional YES anyway, though, I'd suggest the artist to take another pass on the more acoustic sample work and either put some purpose to it's fakeness, change the samples to synths of sorts, or make the samples much more realistic and less dry. It could easily take this from a pretty good track to a great one, if some time was taken to polish this up. I'll pass it either way, but those Square Enix samples do need to go - we can't have Square Enix samplin' in our posts, unfortunately. EDIT (2018/10/09): I'm hearing the sampled instrument at 1:03 that Nutritious is pointing out as well, which I agree is sampled from the game with effects overlaid on it. That will need to be removed and replaced with something that isn't Square Enix property before we can pass this, as well. YES (CONDITIONAL ON SQUARE SFX BEING REMOVED) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 I've been mulling this one over for a few months now. That generic e-piano makes a bad first impression, but the arrangement gets past it, for the most part. I think the electric guitar is fine, but the strings are pretty hard to listen to. I don't expect them to sound real, but they sound thin, like GM MIDI, and it's just not pleasant. Arrangement-wise, there are a lot of good ideas, although I did find it a little drawn out to fill almost 9 minutes. That compounds the voice sample issue, as they lie on top of the most bland segments of music. Right now that's as it should be--you don't want voiceovers on top of complex music--but it means that simply removing the samples will leave large stretches of empty filler. I think that if you took them out, the arrangement would drag even more than it already does, and fixing that is more than a Conditional. There's good stuff here, but between those couple of bland lead synths, the slow progression, and the voice samples, I have to give this a NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 Off the bat, the EPiano sounds stiffly sequenced and all the elements sound pretty dry and upfront (like the acoustic kit). This pretty much becomes a non-issue as it switches gears into a nice glitchy dnb style. Quote That generic e-piano makes a bad first impression, but the arrangement gets past it, for the most part. I 100% agree with MindWanderer here. I will agree, though, that some of the sounds are a bit bland/vanilla sounding. I wasn't really feeling the synth at 4:51, which is pretty loud, esp in the 2khz or so range. I actually wasn't a big fan of the guitar that followed as the fakey sample is pretty exposed with upfront it is. I agree the string stabs aren't really cutting it here, but they (and the piano near the end), could at the very least be helped by some reverb to soften the tones and help them blend better. Gonna reiterate that all of the sound effects have to be removed before we can post this, for which I also share the concern that they are being depended on at times to stretch the length of some sections. You may want to consider trimming a bit if this proves true. Actually, now that I write this, I'm also concerned that some of the synths used in this mix are actually sampled from the original, including the main bass synth used throughout. Warning, somewhat useless background info incoming So, back in the day, Alexander Brandon did his pc game soundtracks in a .umx soundtrack. This was true for Unreal Tournament and the original Deus Ex. I remember in the early 2000's using a Mod tracker to listen to and mess with the Unreal Tournament soundtrack, because it allowed you to access & isolate (perhaps even edit?) individual sounds used within the songs. In all, I'm pretty sure the main bass synth (used throughout) is sampled from :13 & 1:03 of the original. Also, the phased pad at 1:03 appears to be sampled from :01 of the OST. I Initially thought the synth at 2:45 sounds like it's taken from :38 of the OST, though it plays some different notes, so it's probably just a similar tone. TLDR; beyond the fact that Square Enix content needs to be removed anyway, it's worth noting that large portions of the track that connect to the OST are likely sampled from the original audio. NO Eino Keskitalo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 The mix on this track is really hot. Wish the bass was a little meatier. I think the sample-usage here is too much of an issue, and I don't think it's a simple matter of just pulling out the voice clips. Like Justin pointed out, some of the sections here really rely on the voice clips. More than just removing voice clips, there needs to be some trimming. It also sounds like the source track is directly sampled; that's a big issue. I feel bad saying NO on this because there are some baller-ass breakdowns that I am 100% on board for, and overall I love the whole texture and vibe of the track. I don't mind the fakey-sounding samples; I think it just contributes to the synthetic sound of the whole thing. But I gotta say no on the sample usage grounds. It's an issue that we just can't get around. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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