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Bavarian Kackle (DKC2 Haunted Chase German Polka)


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So in an attempt to challenge myself and prove my insanity, I took David Wise's Haunted Chase and somehow someway turned it into a German Polka. I threw in Grant Kirkhope's Creepy Castle from DK64 too. This WAS NOT EASY to turn from Minor key to a Major key. But I did it. Somehow. and now...in retrospect...I ask why?

I also made a music video...With puppets. That I built.

Music Video:

I also literally bought a German alpine VST just for this cover. HUGE THANKS to Luis Vasquez for Mixing/Mastering this stupidity.

This is really my first legit professional (?) remix. I DO plan to submit this to OCR.

Original Tracks:

 

Edited by General Grunt
Completed Review
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Arrangement update. Added a few more instruments/ changes to the arrangement to make it more German sounding. Still working on lyrics. Also, YES I built the Kackle puppet in the thumbnail. Still looking for a collaborator. Either with real instruments or male German vocals. (Yodeling or just singing in baritone German)

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Hey man! Fun song there!

I hear a lot of pumping though. It feels like you have a limiter on the master track that is really working hard to keep everything under control. The most apparent time it's happening is between 0:41 to 0:51, when the low brass (tuba?) is playing the melody. Every time it plays a note, the rest of the instruments just drops in volume. It's happening almost everywhere the tuba plays, but in other spots too.

If you're using FL Studio, the limiter shows when it's working. Just look at the white line, and when it goes down, it's limiting. No idea for the other DAW, though.

To avoid that, you could deactivate the limiter and lower the volume to avoid clipping. You'll lost a lot of loudness, but you'll be able to mix more clearly.

I also feel your drums lack presence. The kick is felt through the limiting more than it's heard, I think. The snare is also a bit thin, but it might be the genre, I don't know. Try adding compression on them to make the attack pop more, maybe?

Your 3D model is really impressive BTW!

I hope you find someone to work with you, I sadly have no Tuba/Accordion players in my contact, nor any Yoddeler.

Have a great day, and happy music making!

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+1 to the pumping tuba issues. Take a look at the frequency spectrum on your tuba channel, see what its frequency range is, then scoop out those frequencies from all other channels (low-cut filters will work for most, except the kick drum which may need more delicate work). That's a better way than reducing the volume, because you avoid muddying frequencies in the first place. Low-end is notorious for muddying a mix, so pay attention to anything that has a bass component.

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  • 1 month later...
  • General Grunt changed the title to Bavarian Kackle (DKC2 Haunted Chase German Polka)
  • 2 weeks later...

MOD REVIEW

Arrangement/Structure
The arrangement is fairly short, but it does keep me engaged for MOST of the way through. I think it could benefit from the below suggestions on making the instruments sound less mechanical / more humanized. It's fun to listen to, just gotta make it feel less repetitive one way or another, even though it's inherently part of the Polka style. Otherwise, I think it's an enjoyable transformation of the originals into a new, effective style. As far as reminding me of Polka but still sounding like DKC2, it does that job.

Production/Sequencing
When I consider the production, I'm keeping in mind that this made it on OCR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7NlqGwYVUk

One thing I'd be concerned about is the repetitive nature of the drums, because the snare sounds pretty much the same on each hit, and the drum pattern is very simple. I know that drumming style is in the style of polka, but maybe vary the velocities more so that not every hit is the same intensity. Maybe even slightly vary the sample choice on every other hit to add a bit more human element to this.

Also, I'd say you can add a touch more reverb to the oboe, accordion, and trombone/french horn. Not that much more, just enough to help move everything back in the mix so that it sounds less upfront/dry, and actually also more humanized (bonus!). As a result of adding this reverb, it would then also help to make the reverb on the snare a bit narrower (simply decrease the simulated room size) to compensate for adding reverb to surrounding instruments.

Overall

I would say to continue working on making adjustments to the drum sequencing to make it less mechanical, and add that slight bit of reverb to the oboe+accordion+trombone, etc. to make them sit better in the mix (narrowing the snare reverb a bit to compensate). We've gotten Polka on the site a few times before, and this isn't too far off.

END OF MOD REVIEW

Edited by timaeus222
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