*NO* Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 'Hey Saria, There’s a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest'

[Gario]

Hey OCR Judges and other OCR peoples! How are your days going? Well, they’re about to get better! 

Here’s my recent remix of the Kokiri Forest theme from Ocarina of Time. I recently participated in my college’s Pitt orchestra for the performance of West Side Story, and it made me really itch for some latin jazz. I had to get it out of my system. So I made this. I tried to take into account some issues I think I had with my last mix, such as bringing out the high end and keeping the low end in check, smoothening transitions, and spicing up the percussion. The first and last part of the mix reek of elevator music, but when the solo section hits at about bar 34ish, it goes full 1970’s spy action show. Though the arrangement is quite liberal from the original source tune, it’s got a lot of character and would be an awesome addition to the OCR library. Whatever your decisions may be, enjoy the mix!

ReMixer Name: Ridiculously Garrett
ReMix Title: “Hey Saria, There’s a Fiesta Down in Kokiri Forest”
Name of Game ReMixed: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Title of Song ReMixed: Kokiri Forest

Whatever your decisions may be, enjoy the mix! Special thanks and a great job to Bowlerhat for performing live flute on this track!

 

Edited July 8 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Gario]

Man, this is some top-notch jazz interpretation we've got going down, here, and the recording quality is something to be admired. I admit, I enjoyed this all the way through, but the liberal nature of this is concerning as far as postability goes. I'll give a timestamp to see if this hits the bar, concerning source usage. Cutting a few seconds off of the end since it's silence, we get a track that's 260s long, so we're looking for about 130s of material in here. I'm hearing source (either directly or loosely) at 0:12 - 1:10, 2:33 - 2:48, 3:09 - 3:28, and 3:38 - 4:05, which leaves us with 119s of source. That's not going to cut it, I'm afraid, and of the bits I'm counting as source a lot of it is a pretty loose interpretation of it that not all the judges are likely to agree as such. Best case scenario we've got ~46% source representation, here, and among that it's a tough call to call it source usage.

Love the arrangement, but I don't think there's enough VG music in it for us to be able to host it. Thanks for sending it to us, though, it's really a cool track!

NO

[MindWanderer]

Yeah, I'm afraid that while the beginning and ending are clearly derived from Kokiri Forest, 1:10-2:33 definitely is not (and I personally wouldn't count it until 3:08, although 3:28-3:38 is close enough for me).  The original content in the middle is very high-quality and goes with the rest of the arrangement very well, but there is indeed a lot of it.

That said...

The 50% source we look for is a guideline, not a hard rule.  Being 11 seconds short (or even 16 seconds, which is what I'd count) out of a 4:18 arrangement doesn't have to be a dealbreaker.  IMHO, the source material is still what I'd call "dominant".  The interlude, while somewhat lengthy, doesn't obscure the fact that this is a Kokiri Forest arrangement.  I'd rather not miss the forest for the trees here (nyuk nyuk).  This is fine by me.

YES

[Sir_NutS]

I LOVE THIS

Yes there's a but.

But, as Garret himself pointed out, this is a very liberal arrangement.  I feel like the meat of the arrangement is just a bit too far from Kokiri forest.  If at least something, any clear reference to the original would've been included mid-way through the track I would've been onboard, but sadly that doesn't happen and in the end I just end up feeling I heard a really enjoyable latin jazz track that kinda sounds like Kokiri forest, in some sections.

We have a measurement for source usage and what qualifies as enough, but that's not a hard rule, and if this song had more kokiri spread out in that middle section, I would've given my thumbs up even if it didn't meet 50% usage.

Again, this was super good and it just bums me out that I don't feel like I can pass this.

NO

[Liontamer]

The 50% rule is what I go by (i.e. recognizing the source tune being referenced/arranged for at least 50% of the duration of the track). That means for a 4:25-long piece, I needed to make out VGM usage for at least 132.5 seconds for the source material to be both "identifiable and dominant" according to OCR's Submissions Standards.

:11.75-:36, :40.5-:47.5, :51-:57.75 ("Outset Island" cameo from flute flourish at :54 of that song), 1:01.5-1:05.5, 2:30.75-2:35.75, 3:08.5-3:16.25, 3:18.5-3:25.75, 3:27.75-3:29.75, 3:36.75-3:43.25, 3:46.5-3:55.75 = 77.75 seconds or 29.33% overt source usage

I may be short-changing this some due to some variations I'm not recognizing, as well as not counting any source usage gaps longer than a second, but I tried to be as generous as possible. Even some interpretation and freestyling originally grounded in the source seemed to veer way off, so I wasn't even anywhere near the looser timestamping Gario had. The entire middle not having any VGM references was silly (in the context of the arrangement standards); it couldn't have been hard to integrate some other references to the Kokiri theme or other Zelda themes.

So just short and sweet, the track is a vacuum is enjoyable, well-performed, and well-mixed. But I was also coming up very source-light when it came to the source usage. Unless I'm missing a metric ton of other explicit, A-to-B connections that can be pointed out to me, I can't pass this on source usage grounds. Again, cool track by Garrett and Jorik, but going this liberal falls outside of the Standards.

NO

[Nutritious]

What a fantastically produced and executed track.  Great performances, very clear production and good balances.  Darn it, I wish there was more source in here.  Improv is a centerpiece to Jazz music, but somehow this would need these extended sections anchored to the OST.  Overall, there's more original stuff than Zelda stuff.

This song is awesome.  I wish I could pass it.

NO

Edited June 6 by Nutritious

[Chimpazilla]

I can't imagine anyone here loves Zelda more than I do, and OoT is my all time favorite game.  I do love this mix, but I don't hear enough source.  I'm not one for timestamping, but if I listen to a mix and halfway through I actually forget what song is being remixed, that's a bad sign.  Just not enough Kokiri here.  Very fun listen though!

NO

[Jivemaster]

Jumping straight in, your unpredictable genre choice works well here. You’ve added an interesting amount of movement over the original. The flute has a nice tone and does some great work with the lead portions. The section at 2:11 felt a bit too random time wise. The bass solo afterwards provided a nice break from the arrangement. By the time we hit the 3 minute mark, I feel ideas are beginning to rehash themselves and not bringing significant value to the arrangement. Despite swapping the lead duties between instruments quite regularly, we are not treated to any major departure from the main progression, nor is pacing altered in any way. Great ideas, great execution of those ideas in isolation, but somewhat repetitive throughout the course of the 4:32 duration. Source usage is not as strong as it should be, with good instrumentation distracting from the core requirement of overt source usage. As the others have mentioned - this is where the mix falls down, but things could be easily remedied with a revisit focusing on some tweaks to each section to strengthen the ties to the original source material.

NO

[Rexy]

Production-wise Garrett, you nailed it.  You've mixed your instruments appropriately, Bowlerhat's flute sounds crisp and clean, the framing is well structured, and the samba groove here is top notch.  The only gripe I have production-wise is that the mixdown is on the quiet side and would benefit from getting normalized up 2 decibels, but it's no deal breaker in this case.

The arrangement, however, had fallen into the same pitfall as your previous Wind Waker submission in that there's not enough source material present.  Here's what I picked out:

0:02-0:31 - Vibraphone referencing source chord progression, with flute coming in for melody A in the source
0:37-0:39 - Use of vibraphone for a single bar in the same way
0:41-1:01 - Vibraphone chords with flute using melody C
2:59-3:40 - Vibraphone and flute melody A return, leading up to them playing the same down-scaling riff
3:47-3:55 - Flute referencing melody sections A and B

With less than 40% source detected, I'm afraid I can't pass this as it is.  Here’s an idea to solve this problem - without touching the structure of your mix, try adding in some backing melodies that reference to either the source or other Zelda BGM.  You have a solo section from 1:11-2:49 for example that is great for putting this idea into practice, and I’m excited to see what you can do to fill those gaps.

Seriously, this is a delightful piece of work.  If you can make the arrangement fixes, I will be more than happy to accept it.

NO (resubmit)

[prophetik music]

what an enjoyable tune. i thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish!

first of all, what a great flute tone Bowlerhat's got! full-bodied and consistently recorded (which is so hard when the instrument's as mobile as it is!). it made the few times that they either wasn't fully confident or just right on the mic very noticeable. the section at 0:40, for example, really stands out as the performer not being as confident there as you were the rest of the track. they did some very creative soloing later, so i'm guessing this was either an attempt at dynamic contrast that wasn't mirrored by the group or something they weren't sure about. either way, a second take on the whole first part would have been worth it.

beyond that, the flute solo from 2:16 to 2:25 consistently felt out of time. there's a great history of complex polyrhythms in this kind of solo - especially in repeated rising patterns like they're using. they have to be intentional, though, and that didn't sound like it was. what's more, it made the (absolutely great!) exploration of the flat 9 done immediately after sound incorrect, even though it was on point. 

lastly - and this is the most critical part, as it's the reason that ultimately i can't pass this - there's just not quite enough source. if this was just a track in a live concert, i'd love it and it'd be a great selection. however, since multiple soloists go by without referencing even the melody of the original for more than a passing phrase, this doesn't reach the 50% mark, even if you stretch it due to the genre. rexy does a great job breaking it down in her vote, so i won't repost the same numbers. when soloing in a famous track like this, sing that melody out! by the time they get to the middle of this piece, people have heard several polyphonic instruments playing their noodles. so shout out the melody to ground the track, and play with your chord extensions from within that, rather than just doing lick z from solo x on track y. make it really an intrinsic part of the arrangement that people think of when they think kokiri.

i love the feel, the performance, the recording job, and there's a lot of skill represented here. however, it just doesn't fulfill the criteria for a remix on this site due to a lack of source usage.

NO