Gario Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Hi everyone! Your ReMixer name: ThePlasmas Your real name: Mauricio Castro Your email address: Your website: theplasmasvgm.bandcamp.com / facebook.com/theplasmas Your userid: 30081 Name of game(s) arranged: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse / Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Name of arrangement: Baño de Sangre Name of individual song(s) arranged: Nightmare Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc.: It was made specially for Viking Guitar's Danse Macabre 5 album, an album with a dark, spooky, terrorific tone. I love Castlevania 3 and Circle of the Moon, where "Nightmare" appears on both of them in very hard stages, those ones are my favorites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 Quick and dirty vote. Rocked out, loved the arrangement. Was initially concerned at the theme being quiet and de-emphasized at first when it came in at :20, but it eventually took the forefront at 1:40 for the rest of the arrangement, so no issues there. Great energy and loved the title too! Looking forward to the next one, Mauricio! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted September 7, 2018 Author Share Posted September 7, 2018 Well I can definitely hear Larry's issue with the source being primarily in the background of the track in the first half of the track. I'll never criticize a track for having the source in the background rather than the foreground, but I will point out the weak, almost GM-like quality of the instrument carrying the source at that point. The instrument quality is even more apparent when it's exposed at 1:40 - it's just thin, and it doesn't blend well with the relatively high quality instrumentation of the rest of the track. The performances are pretty darn good, and the arrangement is solid, for sure. I can say outside of the strange choice of source carrying instrument throughout the first half there are some great, haunting SFX that are used to great effect. Production quality on this one is a mixed bag. The first half, while having some concerns with the actual sample quality is mixed well enough, de-emphasizing the source for effect (which was kinda cool). The second half of the arrangement has some mixing problems, though - portions where the lead should be popping out (like at 1:58-2:14) are getting buried behind the rhythm guitar, and the doubling at 2:45 makes the lead sound like a muddy mess. There's definitely something here that would be amazing with some polishing up, but there's just too many things going on at a time that hold this back to justify me giving this a thumbs up this time around. Upgrade the instrument carrying the source in the beginning of the track to something more appropriate to the quality of the rest of the track, and clean up the mixing & muddiness and I'd give this a clean pass. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 I suppose I'll add some more comments then. I didn't mind the GM-quality of that synth until 1:40, but it being obscured helps it (a lot); no issue criticizing it, although I'd say the mud actually helps downplay (not eliminate) exposure issues. The little string stabs first used at 1:00 were also pretty fakey. Production-wise, it is imbalanced, but the perfect is being made the enemy of the good. On balance, much more works with this arrangement as is, and I can live with the mixing not being ideal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 I've listened to this for a while, and I've gone and read the other Js comments on this one before putting down my vote because I'm pretty undecided here. On one hand it's a very dark and heavy sounding remix which doesn't have the best mixing to make it shine. There's quite a bit of mud and everything seems to fuse into the rhythm guitars at some points. The low quality of the instruments is both problematic and kinda cute in a way. It makes sections like 1:09 sound really amateur-ish, but I also kinda love it at other points, i.e. 1:48 where it almost sounds like a nod to the original source's sample quality. I agree with both Larry and Gario on their reasoning for their votes. Overall I think this just makes it above the bar, but just barely. It's kind of bittersweet to give this a thumbs up because the issues are very apparent and probably easily fixable, but not enough for a rejection IMO, so it just leaves me thinking what the track would've sounded like with just one more production pass. YES (Borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 Really don't understand the complaints about that SNES-style vox. It sounds great with the melodic line it's on and for me, it evokes the music from the five towers in the opening act of Terranigma, which is great. Performances are great, lots of energy and variation. I'm good with this one. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 I held off on voting on this one for a long time, but ultimately I don't think the issues are substantial enough to hold this back. It's muddy but not severely so, and the vanilla synth is not just adequate, but thematically appropriate. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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