Donkey Kong Country 2 - Forest Interlude (Semantic Remix)

[Zoda]

Hello guys,

because Donkey Kong Country 2 is one of my favorite SNES games, i tried to make a remix from my favorite song called "Forest Interlude".

I'm not completly happy with the result, so let me know what u think about it .

 

UPDATE:

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Zoda

[Souperion]

Ooh, I like this new take on Stickerbrush Symphony! I think you've got a good foundation here, the piece flows nicely, your instruments run together smoothly, and it has a consistent feel. The bouts of ornamentation were appreciated as well. Your arrangement is fairly solid all in all, though I suppose one could argue that the baseline and the percussion were a little repetitive. At the same time, It wouldn't be wise to make them too varied, lest it detracts from the melody and such. All in all, you did good, keep at this one!

[Black_Doom]

Wow, this is a really neat idea for a remix!  I absolutely love the retro-ish/synthwave style you're aiming for, but this track still sounds a bit... quiet, I think? I mean, it definitely reminded me of some of Sir_NutS work, like this track. I guess the beat could be more punchy and... That's it? The rest of instrumentation doesn't bother me that much, but, again, I'm not a musician at all, so I hope you get a bit more useful feedback from someone else  Keep it up, man, and maybe you could even submit this one at some point, eh?

[Zoda]

Thanks for your great feedback, that helps me a lot. I will try to improve my work with the things you mentioned :).

[Zoda]

Hey Guys,

i've a little update for you, i worked further on this track and i added some new details to it.

I think i've to work more on the percussion and stuff.

Let me know what you think about it :).

 

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Zoda

[PadreMulk]

i like the overall feel, the ostinato from the start til about 1:44, stands out to me as needing some variation, filter sweeps or a difference in articulation, somehting along those lines. This is all IMO ofcourse. What i liked in the original track (and most of the DKC tracks for that matter) is the clever use of filters to change the timbre slightly over the course of the track.I like your choice of instruments and your mix is nice and clear. Another personal preference thing, like Black_Doom Mentioned the drums could be beefed up a bit. maybe some stronger hihats at 16ths for that DRIVING SYNTHWAVE ENERGY. Then you could messa bout with kicks on the 1 and 3, then switch to on each beat for emphasis. with a sidechain compression swell. it'd be swell.

Sorry i digress, cool track man, just needs a little more variation.

 

[Zoda]

Hey PadreMulk thank you for your very helpful feedback, i added some more variation to the percussion, but i want to keep it more decent.

So, I think i'm almost done now.

What do you think, has it enough variaton now? How it sounds technically for you, should i improve anything (more bass or something like that)?

I would be grateful for feedback as always ;).

 

 

[Emunator]

Hey there!

I love the glassy, breathy texture in the intro, I would have liked a slightly cleaner fade-in so it's not starting so abruptly, but that's not a big deal. There's some great synth sounds in here that work great with the Forest Interlude melody. I liked the drum break at 3:03, that was a great transition that hooked my attention!

There's a few areas of concern I wanted to point out that would help improve this and get it up to OCR standards:

• The mix could definitely use some sidechain compression to clear some of the space and give more of an implicit sense of rhythm to your track. I'm not sure what DAW you're using, but this is a good resource to understand the concept of sidechaining regardless of what program you're in if you're not familiar with it already: 
   Basically, you set up your mix so that your kick drum (or any other element, really) will proportionally "duck down" other parts of your mix so that your kick hits harder. One good place to start with this would be sidechaining your kick to your bassline - right now, as others have pointed out, the bassline sounds repetitive and doesn't have enough dynamics to sound interesting. This will not only help your beats cut through the mix better, but more importantly, it will give your bassline some extra movement. It sounds like you've attempted this effect by changing the velocity of the bass notes (apologies if I'm wrong here!) but this would be a more precise, organic way of doing that. I would also consider doing a more subtle version of this effect on other instruments like your strings and pads to clear out space in your mix.
• The drums still sound a bit flat to me overall, mainly from a sample perspective. The kick drum sounds fine to me, but the snare gets repetitive. One thing I like to do in my own mixes is include multiple snare samples and have a different snare drum hit on the 2 beat and the 4 beat, or layer them differently throughout the song. The tambourine also doesn't really work for me, it just seems like a weak sample and isn't dominant enough to carry the 1/16th note rhythm. Some accents would be fine, but I think you need a sharper, better-quality sample for your hi-hat rhythm.
• The transition at 2:54 is weak - some sort of sweep effect, cymbal crash, or anything else along those lines would help that chord change have more impact. Some sort of transition effect is definitely essential there to go along with the writing.
• I thought you ended the remix at a strange point - it cuts off right in the middle of a melody and doesn't offer any sort of resolution. Maybe try playing around with something similar to your introduction, but gradually break the track down to its simplest elements, or even add some original writing of your own, which leads me to my final point...
• Although you did a lot to change the sound design of the original into a more synth-heavy direction, all of the writing is still more or less direct from the source material. If you're just looking to make a cover of the original with no intention of submitting to OCR, that's totally fine and you can ignore this critique, but if you were to submit to the site, this would definitely be brought up on the judges panel that the remix is too close, melodically, to the original Forest Interlude song, and you would need some additional changes to the structure or the melody of the song. Take this feedback for what it's worth, depending on what you intend to do with this track.

I hope you don't find this feedback discouraging or unwanted - I enjoyed the foundation of your remix very much, but I still think there's a lot of room for improvement if you're willing to pursue it, especially if you planned on submitting to the site. Good luck, let me know if I can clarify any of this or provide additional feedback

[Zoda]

Hey Emunator,

thank you for your great and very helpful feedback :).

So, i tried directly to fix the points you mentioned (still not all yet).

I removed the old samples, like the hihats (i dont know why i used that).
Next i played a little more with the sidechain effect, i used it before, but definitely not in the way it should be used.
So great thanks for that nice tutorial, that helped me a lot i think.
I don't know if i use it correctly now, what do you think?

At least i added more details to the background and changed the ending, but with that i'm actually not really happy, maybe i got i nice idea in the future.

So thank you again for your feedback, this is exactly the the feedback that i want :).
I think i want to submit this someday, but i'm not really sure about that, because it's not easy to change this nice original melody ;).

What do you think, am i on a good way or not?

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Zoda

[PadreMulk]

Dude this has improved quite a bit. Good Going! Love all the little details and flourishes. The bassline is a touch repetitive,maybe some small changes every once in a while to break up the DRIVING SYNTHWAVE ENERGY  ever so slightly.

The mix sounds like it could do with a bit more top end to me, but thats subjective.

As it is, i'd happily play it alongside the original