Rexy Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 THIS IS FROM THE ALBUM PROJECT "Golden Sun: A World Reignited" - Didn't know how to do the warning Your ReMixer name: Lucas Guimaraes Your real name: Lucas Guimaraes Your email address: Your website: https://twitter.com/Thirdkoopa - knew nothing better to link for this Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile: http://ocremix.org/community/profile/33965-thirdkoopa/ Name of game(s) arranged: Golden Sun Name of arrangement: Hope in Eight Name of individual song(s) arranged: Venus Lighthouse Other people that helped: Jake Kargl, wolfman1405, Matheus Souza, TSori, Nathan Madsen, DS Music, Damian Nguyen Doing an awesome remix of a song I value dearly was already a hard feat, but when my mind started to mix Swing Jazz into it, I knew this arrangement would be one of my most difficult ones - both for me arranging and all performers involved. Luckily, I had some pretty ace performers by my side to bring this to life and surpass my expectations. The weirdest thing about primarily making arrangements/compositions is when I work on them, I want to make them sound as good as possible on MIDI. This one was one that sounded so good on the MIDI that I had a hard time imagining the final arrangement to be honest. -Lucas Guimaraes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted October 5, 2020 Share Posted October 5, 2020 Piano, sax, violin all sound a bit dry compared to the drums. The change in rhythm works well here. Good use of instrument panning. The violin and trumpet exchange at 1:09 was quite nice. The short fill at 1:37 was a nice touch to break things up a bit. The sax solo at 1:56 was well done, with instruments getting out the way as needed. More soloing occurs past the mid-point, the violin has its turn at 2:57, with the guitar getting a go at 3:16. Things return to normal to send us out, with a short and sweet outro to close stuff off. The arrangement contains a good amount of variety, and while it sticks with a fairly consistent base, there are a number of instrument exchanges and solos to keep things interesting. Production is clean with instruments having their own place. It would be nice for some of the parts to receive a touch of reverb to make them gel more together in the mix (they feel a bit separated), however it's a relatively small nitpick. Well done. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted October 8, 2020 Author Share Posted October 8, 2020 What a creative arrangement! You guys took a tense final dungeon theme, then transformed it into a smooth 5/4 jazz jam session. A setting like this runs a risk of source unfamiliarity when reaching the one part with all the instrument solos (1:56). Luckily enough, 1 - the A section's chord structure held the foundation down for a good 80 seconds and kept that familiarity, and 2 - source melody is present everywhere else. You have a clever call-and-response between the violin and trumpet, your countermelodies elsewhere kept adding color, and how the leads cycle - particularly during the jam section and climax - keeps the soundscape nice and refreshing. Yet, that mixdown got me in two minds. The recording quality, balance and timing between performers are tremendous and precise, and they've all got their places in the mix to stick out. Though, I felt curious about two things here. Firstly, the mixdown feels as dry as a bone - as if the performance happened inside a cramped booth. That's something that slight amounts of reverb, particularly to your leads, could've helped mitigate. Secondly, when the drums start rolling initially, the snare feels boomy and congested in its tone, so it's not as sharp as I would've liked - but ultimately, it gets masked once the other parts get going. Ultimately, the pros of this submission outweigh the cons. It's a fun jam that takes the source in a unique direction, all with effective co-operation between your performers. Lucas, your growing social network is showing no bounds! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 whoa, what a style change. arrangement is clear and over the top in terms of fulfilling the guidelines. there's a ton of attention paid to ensemble work here. i especially liked the call and response portion early on. a common issue we find with jazz tracks is that it'll be a great adaptation of the head and then ten minutes of ramen before we get back to the melodic content, and that's not the case here. there's a ton of examples of melodic content throughout, and it's showing through in the solo work. a few of the solos are a little less directed than you might want but overall the quality's high and the instrumentalists do a nice job playing their instruments and recording them in a way that sounds decent. props to the soprano sax player making the palm E at 2:43 sound like a real note that was in tune and not a death screech. i did find the piano playing to be pretty blah after a while, but that's fine because it's way in the back and was essentially just a fancy rhythmic pad for the duration of the song. the production is definitely a bit of a sticking point. the live instruments themselves all sound pretty good, and the spacing is done well. i like what the bass is playing, but found it very difficult to hear - the tone is much more of a rock sound vs. a brighter, dry sound i'd expect to hear from an electric bass playing jazz. i'd recommend listening to pastorius or some of those guys to get an idea of just how bright and alive a jazz bass tone should be. you can barely here this one ultimately, and that's too bad since it's playing some real fun stuff. the drums are definitely too roomy as well, and don't fit into the soundscape defined by everything else. you kept them back more though which was needed. ultimately i think the productions good enough, but a more realistic mastering of the drums, and some clarification on the bass would have really helped it out a lot. this is a fun track with great ideas. the mastering of the backing parts isn't great but the overall track is fun and quickly recognizable as the original. great job here. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Just a quick co-sign to clear this one out. I love the arrangement and instrumentation to death and your boldness in adapting such a dramatic sounding source into this genre. Bravo for the concept and execution! Mixing is not quite as tight as the actual performances, leaving this sounding more like pre-mix demo without much attention paid to compression or reverb. Improving at this will come with time and practice, and it's hard to hold this too much against you when the end result is strong in so many other ways, but a splash of reverb would go a long way in the future to glue your different instrumentalists together. Also seconding Brad's critique that a more present bass would have been much appreciated, but again... not a dealbreaker. All in all, definitely a passable product that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite the underwhelming mixing. Looking forward to hearing you level up from here! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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