Liontamer Posted October 17, 2019 Share Posted October 17, 2019 Original Decision ReMixer name: Michael Hudak Website: https://soundcloud.com/user-513303599 Name of game arranged: TLoZ - Skyward Sword Name of my arrangement: Takeyabu Resort Promo Package, 1991 Name of song arranged: Bamboo Island Link to my arrangement: Link to original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shibvkpyb8E Hello there! I'm submitting a second version of this because the first was probably a little too weird for the judges' (very reasonable) standards, and not quite traditional vaporwave-y enough to qualify as vaporwave, which I touted it to be. Hopefully this new version is. I degraded it even more, but added some more groove and vocal samples, as well as a second verse. Just trying to get a vaporwave track on OCR, and Bamboo Island is the perfect track to use, I think. A takeyabu is an unkempt bamboo thicket in Japanese (as opposed to a chikurin, which is nice, fancy one), and this song is essentially the background music for a promotional video advertising a corporate retreat hidden out in the wilderness somewhere in late boom-period Japan. Specifically, 1991. The singing samples are of me, and the laughter is the great fairy from Ocarina of Time (wrong Zelda game, I know, but she had the best laughs!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 22, 2019 Share Posted October 22, 2019 (edited) i remember this one! the dystopian elevator music description fits this one even more, actually. i see no problems with the arrangement, there's creativity in the presentation of the melody, it doesn't clip, and there's variation in the track so it's unique throughout despite using essentially the same few instruments. there's a lot more going on during the track as well. i still don't think it's vaporwave - it's still essentially really out-there nu-jazz - but there's so much silliness with timbres and audio clips that it comes out on the other side of bad-weird to be strangely charming. there's arguably not a lot of procession or forward drive, but the style - vaporwave or nu-jazz or Space Jam or whatever you want to call it - doesn't seem to call for it either. ultimately if that's the hold-up i think it's not enough to keep it back. if this was on an OST for a game, there'd be someone out there who said that this is their favorite track. i'm calling this a yes. will i ever listen to it again? probably not. but it does what we said remixes are supposed to do, and i am not going to let my personal opinions influence it. YES 11/19 edit: ＶＡＰＯＲＷＡＶＥ Edited November 19, 2019 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted November 19, 2019 Share Posted November 19, 2019 (edited) Compared to the previous submission, this is a substantial improvement. The aesthetic is still there, the source remained dominant, and the instruments remain clean. The bass drop-out at 1:07 got reworked as a breather, and the revised groove and added source permutation at 1:32 added reasons to hold back. That second section alone added more meat to the framework for sure. Not only was it different enough from the first variation, but the groove's progression felt different. There's the vocal sampling, the stutters, the non-static presentation for the percussion, and that pitch shift at 2:00 that threw me into a loop. The only thing I feel that's missing is a hi-hat sequence, but when brought into a lo-fi direction, they would've been hard to hear anyway. Much like prophetik, I still don't quite see it as vaporwave as the second half went into more experimental pacing territory and emphasized the glitched effects. If anything, it quickly turned into the musical equivalent of a shitpost - which is fine, as the arrangement and presentation values have set out to meet a clear goal. Based on this, I believe the track can get onto the front page in its current form - a mix that emphasizes creative drive, but it won't be a popular one based on style alone. Michael, if you are to get a debut, let this track be it! YES Edited November 19, 2019 by Rexy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 Yeah, it's not traditional vaporware, but that doesn't matter. As I said last time around, the source usage checked out from the get go, and the arrangement's creative. It's still arguably too lo-fi, but it still works for the genre, and it's not like it's poorly produced. Last time around, my vote definitely wasn't that it's too weird; I thought it had a lot of potential, but for being so short, it was relatively underdeveloped and ended up losing steam a little over halfway through. Now it has more detail work in the writing along with a brighter, fuller sound, all without losing any bit of the character this had before. Whereas this really dragged on after 1:31 last time around, there's more substance and variation to the leads and textures along with good SFX usage to keep things interesting and not feel like the vision was compromised at all in the effort to flesh this out a bit more. Really nice subtle step up to lift this over the line, Michael! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted November 20, 2019 Share Posted November 20, 2019 I enjoyed the ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃｓ がぁち here. It didn't sound much like vaporwave at first but after the bass and beat were introduced at 0:41 it started sounding like something from Floral Shoppe. It does have that feeling of being retro while sounding somewhat wrong. I think the atmosphere was thin at times, and I personally think this would be better if it had a smashed mastering (or at least, more truthful to the genre), but I think this works, and the adaptation of the original is clear. Overall, it was pretty creative of you to listen to the original and hear how it would lend well to a vaporwave remix. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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