Doom 3 Title Re-Something -- "Red Blood, Red Sand"

[VertigOcelot]

So, I've been replaying Doom 3 in anticipation of the fifth one coming up, and at some point I decided to try playing the basic riff from the menu song on my guitar, which I quickly realized was much easier than it sounded.  And what better way to spend the 13th of a month?

The idea in my head at first was just to create a version of the song, mostly from memory, which wasn't as mangled by compression artifacts as the in-game version.  Quickly realized while I was planning that I didn't have a latin choir easily available for the section after the first refrain so I would have to do something else in that part; when I decided on a snarly sorta metal vocal I decided to add a few more small vocal bits through the song so those bits wouldn't seem as out of place... things snowballed, I got carried away and extended the song by almost two minutes with an extra chorus in there, plus some shoutouts to both "waltz of the demons" from the original doom and "harbinger" from doom 4 (itself a remix of the same song :D), a bit based on the little loop that played on Doom 3's pause menu screen, and a bunch more extra stuff.

Despite all that I am not sure if this is enough of a reinterpretation to qualify as a ReMix by the standards of this site, since the new parts are only really extensions of what the song in the game suggests.  That's the specific "review" I'm looking for here.  If the folks here think there's enough new stuff going on for it to count as a ReMix I'll consider submitting it officially.  If you guys don't think so, then I won't.

Red Blood, Red Sand

One more thing to mention is the track took a good six hours to render to audio.  While I still could be open to changing something I'm not looking forward to having to sit and wait through that again.  ...if you do suggest a big change, and I decide to actually go ahead and do it, expect it to be at least a couple days before I get a new version up.

Edited July 14, 2019 by VertigOcelot
somehow spelled my own title wrong :o

[VertigOcelot]

Since it's getting close on 6 months without anyone replying to this at all, I'll just assume you guys decided it doesn't meet your standards and move on to other projects. 

Cheers and happy new year.

[Souperion]

Don't give up if your track slips through the cracks. Send one of the evaluators a PM, and you'll probably have a review in a few days (https://ocremix.org/community/topic/42695-what-is-evaluation-and-when-do-i-use-it/ for contact info.) I think your piece has enough variation to classify as a remix, quite a bit of impressive stuff going on here. 

 

 

 

[Julien Mulard]

Hello VertigOcelot, and welcome to OCRemix, were a lot of people post their tracks, but so few actually take the time to review other's ^^

You forgot to include links to the sources in your post, which may explain why no mod actually reviewed your track.

Regarding your arrangement, it's stylistically close to the original, but with less brutal, yet darker ambiance. I like the direction you took, but it has some issues on the production side, in my opinion:

• The main riff between 0:50 and 1:28 lack both stereo and bass. You have this really nice guitar tone, but it's right in the middle of the sound space, with no foundation. You could try double tracking this part, and add a bassline to it ? This problem is constant each time this section is played during the track, except at 2:32 where the bass finally comes in to fill that space. To double track, play the same riff twice, with slightly different effect chains on each take, and hard pan one to the left and the other to the right. It'll fill so much more space!

 

• Your drums sounds a little weak and robotic:
  • Regarding weakness, you should probably use a bit of compression (ideally, if your drum plugin enables you to do it, process each individual mic separately, compress kick, snare and toms, but let the overhead alone). I am more on the heavier side when I arrange, but I managed to get some really nice results with OTT, a free plugin from Xfer records (OTT is for Over The Top, and it's a really accurate name, it can really mangle you sound, so be careful when using it, maybe?). If your DAW let's you do it, you could also add a little of side chaining on your guitar sound from your kick. The idea is to quickly drop the volume of the guitar (and maybe other elements) each time the kick hits, to let the transients of the kick take a LOT of energy. I don't know what DAW you use (1 hour to render makes me think maybe you are using something else than a DAW ?), but you should find relevant tutorials on Youtube regarding side chaining. Don't overdo it, just cut a few dB.
  • Regarding roboticness, try changing each drum note velocity a bit, so you get a slightly different sound each time. Do that on repeating patterns. You could also displace each note a little off the grid to humanize it. It's tedious, I know, so don't burn yourself, do it on some parts first, where the drums is more important, like fills.

 

• Overall, you could try to play more with the stereo regarding the sound effects. The reverb/delay you are using is a nice stereo ping pong, but you could also drop your effect more on one side or the other. Try stuff

 

• I noticed a bass note sounding off at around 2:32

Okay, so I focused a lot on what seemed off to me, so let me state that again: the overall track is great, and I like what you did. But it has some problems that need addressing. For me, in order, correct that bass note, double track your guitar, add some more bass, and see where it gets you! The drums may need some love, but it's not that critical right

Or, you know, start something new if you don't feel like it. It's okay to let tracks alone and start another one. I just hope that my feedback will be of some help to you You'll get better and quicker the more you produce, so keep going, whether on this track, or another!

Have a great day! Hope to hear about you sometimes!

 

 

[Julien Mulard]

And I forgot to ask, but how come it took you one hour of rendering? What software are you using?

[Rozovian]

Oh look, the forum notifies you when someone replies to the thread you're replying to. Neat. From what I can tell, everything Julien just said is true. The good and the bad.

My quick listen suggests you could work on the mix and its sound a bit. Frequency balance. Levels. Find a good reference track, same style, same sound as what you're going for, and mix accordingly. The crashes sound especially dull, and things are panned so much that there's little energy in the center.

I'm not an evaluator anymore, and I'm not sure what's public information and what isn't, but I think I can share that there weren't enough active evaluators for the workload, so there's probably a lot of tracks that have been waiting for an evaluation for months. Nothing's stopping you from asking evaluators or forum regulars directly, submitting directly to the site to get judges' feedback (if it's good enough to make it to the panel, which I think it is, but not yet good enough to get posted, which I also think is the case). Also, commenting on other people's mixes here can make them return the favor.

[VertigOcelot]

For the hour of rendering, I'm running FL Studio which, for some reason, takes a long time to render soundfonts.  All the percussion instruments on this track come from a few very large soundfonts.  That being said the new version which I upgraded to a few weeks ago seems to be a little faster.

The guitar is already double-tracked, in a way, though it uses the same audio clip on both sides, just with some stereo processing and a channel split to make it feel a bit more separated.  I've been experimenting with using slightly different eqs on the left and right channel in the months since I recorded this... suspect trying something like that here could get me a result closer to what you say.  If I have enough free time where I'm not working on something else (I work in health care and writing my own songs is one of the few creative outlets I have time for, so it tends to take priority over covers and remixes) I will certainly take a closer look at the mix and see what I can do with both your guys' suggestions.

I actually have done sidechaining with my guitar tracks on other songs, though usually my source is the snare drum.  I don't think I really thought to do that here but it would certainly be worth trying.  Maybe I'll be... kicking... myself for not thinking of that sooner XD

And lastly I apologize for just dropping this thread and kind of leaving it here.  This past summer was a busy time at work, and I was also working on several music tracks for two very different game mods.  As a result of all that I kind of forgot about this for a few months, and it's totally on me for not sticking around and seeing what others here have to offer.   I'll see if I can make time for that sometime soon.

 

Also the email notifications don't seem to be working for me, since I didn't get notified for either of your posts... seems I'll have to check on my overzealous spam filter yet again.

Edited January 9, 2020 by VertigOcelot