*NO* Mighty No. 9 "Like an Anime Fan on Prom Night"

[Gario]

 

Hello, djpretzel and the OC Remix Community!

I hope this e-mail finds you doing well. My name is Chris - or to use my producer name, ichordic - and I'm director of the Sounds Department at Kronotiq Media, a multimedia company in Orlando. We just released a remix of Mighty No. 9 that we'd been holding on to for a minute, and we wanted to share it with the OC community. It's our own take on the main theme song, which was originally produced by the Mega Man-composing legend Manami Matsumae (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8aXhQFFmQ). This remix takes those feelings of hope and anticipation that the original gave us back when the Mighty No. 9 project was first announced on Kickstarter, and brings them to all-new heights (perhaps we should say regardless of the game's history).

The link is below. We also created an account with OC (Kronotiq Sounds - user id 35482), so we'll be sharing this on the forums as well. We hope you enjoy!

 

Best,
Christopher "ichordic" Paul
Sounds Director
Kronotiq Media
kronotiq.com
Check out Kronotiq Sounds:
Spotify | Google Play | iTunes/Apple Music | SoundCloud | Bandcamp

Edited September 5 by MindWanderer

[Rexy]

Well, this track certainly surprised me.  Going by the length, I almost thought this would be a straight cover - but the original writing at 0:56 caught me off-guard!  Your synth lead has subtle uses of glides and modulation, the bit-crushed sweep at 2:03 is a nice touch, and the source is dominant despite it only being in the bookends.

But some issues are holding it back and here's what stood out for me.

First and foremost, the source sections (0:00-0:56, 2:07-2:49) are way too straightforward and follow the A and C sections note-for-note.  There's nothing wrong with conservative arranging, but when there's nothing new underneath them, it makes them a tough sell.  New parts can come in the form of a countermelody, new rhythm sounds, and any new pads if you're bold enough.  Even your pre-existing backing can get changed up while still leaving the melody and chord structure intact.

Secondly, the soundscape feels thin - especially when the source is present.  In those sections, the frequencies here mostly occupy the low-mid range with only higher-pitch percussion filling any frequency higher than 1kHz.  It does improve during your big original part at 0:56 with the synth solo and the choice of pads, but it's not even around for more than half of the entire track.  Nevertheless, picking instrumentation to fill out these empty spaces also goes hand-in-hand with the subtractive arranging changes I mentioned earlier.

Going over the master as well, it feels too quiet.  Technically it does peak close to 0dB, but if you mute the kicks, this value won't go any higher than -6dB.  To make the kick sound more consistent with the rest of the instrumentation, I can see a few ways of remedying it.  One idea is to apply a sidechain and let the kick soften up the piano and pads when triggered.  Another approach is to find the kick's tonal frequency and place an EQ cut on the bass at that value.  Even something as straightforward as applying a high-pass onto your non-bass instruments can roll off any unwanted boom.  Consider looking into these techniques and seeing how you can use them into your work going forward.

Also, the white noise at 0:42 sounds like it doesn't belong here.  I'm not sure why it's there despite no live instruments.  If it ever pops up in a future track, either re-render it or apply high-frequency EQ cuts on the offending part.

It's not a bad idea, and you got the grasp of the arrangement part.  If this ever gets reworked and sent back to the inbox, I'd like to hear it with a more refined source interpretation and resolutions to the production flaws.  I'm assuming this is your first sub, so well done on making it to the Judges.  Let's see you (hopefully) take it one step further next time around.

NO

[Liontamer]

Cool theme choice, Christopher; maybe they'll make Mighty No. 10 and have a hit game down the line.

Very quiet mixing; you'll need to bump the volume up some. The arrangement for the first minute was essentially a quieter, less impactful, super straightforward cover of the source tune with slightly different beats, but basically the same tone. Not much here to distinguish it from the original. I did like the bassline tone, and if you turn the volume up, the instrumentation's pleasant.

Hiss got introduced at :42 and lasted all the way until 1:52, though I'm not sure what it was tied to; figure out what part is responsible. Not sure what was going on with the writing/comping from :56-1:24, followed by some glitching/stuttering effects from 1:24-1:53; in a vacuum, there's aren't inherently bad writing ideas, but there's no direction or flow to this at all.

Chorus arrived at 2:07, again super soft, with very thin textures and a very lackluster ending. It's like a sandwich of cover-original writing-cover that doesn't flow. Rexy's correct that the sections arranging the Mighty No. 9 theme are way too straightforward and by the numbers for the arrangement/interpretation standards here. You'll have to do more with that, and also give more direction to your original sections.

NO

[MindWanderer]

I agree with the above, for the most part.  I would suggest that, in general, conservative sections punctuated by original material are fine as far as our interpretation standards go.  However, this is pushing it, partly because of how simple and minimal the source treatment is, and partially because, as Larry said, there's a lack of flow between the source material and your original writing.  A big part of that is that the original writing is very avant-garde; it comes across as directionless, which can be pulled off but everything else has to be in place.

Otherwise, ditto to the above.

NO