"Polluted Paradise" covering Aquatic Ambience (DKC) and Kremlantis Submerged (DK Land)

[BloomingLate]

REQUEST: please listen to at least 30 seconds of the track to increase the play counter. This way I can tell someone has actually listened to it, rather than being left wondering why this post has so many views that doesn't result in more plays.

I've been working on a new remix for some time and think its about ready for a first feedback round.

I've created an alternative version of Aquatic Ambience (Donkey Kong Country) to go with the polluted version of the underwater stage. It includes bits from Kremlantis Submerged from Donkey Kong Land and I wrote an original ending to it. I went for a more dark and dramatic mood in the harmony while retaining most of the original melodies and sound FX. The whole thing kind of happened by accident when I was playing around with chords after trying to figure out what David Wise did with the original to make it so awesome sounding. I'm quite happy with it, but this time I want to go beyond where I usually give up, so I'm asking for feedback on these specific areas:

* Overall mixing levels (any problematic areas?)
* Transitions (do they work well enough?)

Feel free to remark on any other important areas that I missed.

I've spent a lot more time learning about and mixing and EQ-ing and stuff, but I'm still finding the whole thing difficult

Anyway, here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/bloominglatemusic/polluted-paradise-aquatic-ambience-from-dkc-cover

Enjoy!

Source tracks:

Aquatic Ambience:

Kremlantis Submerged:

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by BloomingLate
Added request to play track for at least 30 seconds and included source track videos

[BloomingLate]

Soooo... more than 1000 views within 18 hours, but only 10 plays (2 of which are probably mine). Is the Soundcloud player even showing up? Is the thing so horrible that people drop out within 30 seconds? What gives? I don't understand the Internet...

Update: more than 5000 views and the play count hasn't changed between yesterday and today. I've PM'ed djpretzel and DarkeSword asking to investigate This better not be some bot artificially boosting the view count.

Update 2: upon further investigation it turns out more people have had their post "viewed" thousands of times. Seemingly random posts (perhaps also the sticky posts on the rules) appear to get targeted by a bot that creates an insane amount of views. The plot thickens!

Edited July 4, 2020 by BloomingLate

[Souperion]

0:00-0:05 Ah, more Aquatic Ambiance. This should- (the F# at 0:06 plays)... oh, my, this going to be good. And it is. The subtle dark twist to this classic is exquisite. I did note that your melody lead (first introduced at 1:17) seems to crowd the other frequencies when it hits the lower notes, shouldn't be too hard to fix. 
Well done with this one, and here's hoping to a resolution to this mass-views situation.

[HoboKa]

11 hours ago, Souperion said:

. The subtle dark twist to this classic is exquisite. I did note that your melody lead (first introduced at 1:17) seems to crowd the other frequencies when it hits the lower notes, shouldn't be too hard to fix. 

Yeah, make sure that anything that isn't a bass has <125HZ reduced and maybe check out the 250 and 400 bands.  

The dissonant vibes are an interesting new development and add a level of unease.  Loving that Sonar-like blip sound.  Reminds me of some ps1/n64 under water levels lmao.  Nice work with the portamento on that bassline.  It's touches like that that make the bass feel more organic obvious observations 101.  Love the way the strings fade in and out.  (edits) I'm feeling that the percussion is a bit of a low-fi quality.  I'm guessing that the Low-Fi hybrid with modern-ish sound is what you're going for?  Not a bad angle imo.

I can't speak for the Panel, but I just wanna say I like this remix a lot lol.  

Edited July 6, 2020 by HoboKa

[BloomingLate]

14 hours ago, Souperion said:

0:00-0:05 Ah, more Aquatic Ambiance. This should- (the F# at 0:06 plays)... oh, my, this going to be good. And it is. The subtle dark twist to this classic is exquisite.

I'm glad you enjoyed my subtle dark twist! I initially tried to just recreate the original with updated sounds, but then that chord happened and I was like: "Oooo, I like where this is going :D"

14 hours ago, Souperion said:

I did note that your melody lead (first introduced at 1:17) seems to crowd the other frequencies when it hits the lower notes, shouldn't be too hard to fix.

I hadn't noticed! I'll have to look into that. Thanks for pointing it out!

 

3 hours ago, HoboKa said:

Yeah, make sure that anything that isn't a bass has <125HZ reduced and maybe check out the 250 and 400 bands.

Thanks for your additional advice! I'll snoop around and see what I can do. I find the low end to be consistently troublesome in just about every project. I know this is a common thing, but I also suspect my hearing isn't all that great, giving additional difficulties fixing those issues.

 

3 hours ago, HoboKa said:

The dissonant vibes are an interesting new development and add a level of unease.  Loving that Sonar-like blip sound.  Reminds me of some ps1/n64 under water levels lmao.  Nice work with the portamento on that bassline.  It's touches like that that make the bass feel more organic obvious observations 101.  Love the way the strings fade in and out.  (edits) I'm feeling that the percussion is a bit of a low-fi quality.  I'm guessing that the Low-Fi hybrid with modern-ish sound is what you're going for?  Not a bad angle imo.

I can't speak for the Panel, but I just wanna say I like this remix a lot lol.

Glad you liked it! My wife was a little concerned that people wouldn't like how I took such a relaxing song and turned it onto...that. :P It was kind of new territory for me as well, but once I accidentally hit that first scary chord I knew I had to pursue this.

Not sure what you mean about the portamento on the bassline. I don't think I did anything special to it 0_0; *checks*

The percussion is low-fi by choice, yes. I applied the radio or telephone preset from FL Studio's EQ plugin. When we get to the second round of the main song I transition back to normal fi for variation :)

Thanks both of you for your comments! I'll post an updated version and hope to submit it for evaluation soon!

[BloomingLate]

Okay, so I've been working on making those improvements but I have to say, the more I listen to it, the less I start to like it. There's actually a couple of other problems:

1. The overall thing is a little too loud for my taste. This makes it very hard for certain things to get through.
2. The kick/snare feels soulless. Even with the right EQ-ing and some compression it just feels "bah". Actually, I feel that way about all the different kits I have available. It just puts me off.
3. The bass plucks are starting to annoy me, and I feel they have a rhythmic clash with the drumline. Finding a sound that works is tricky, and I may need to transpose the whole thing up a few tones to get the bass out of the weird low territory.
4. Overall, the track feels like it is lacking body (except maybe the part where the main melody plays). Maybe due to some stereo separation? Lacking low end?
5. Delay effects tend to get lost in the noise.

I did a few experiments that enabled the kick/snare to come through well enough, but then point 2 becomes more obvious. They tend to drive the total dB up to -3, whereas the rest can sit comfortably on -6. In other words, the kick and snare really start to stand out.

I'm considering swapping out the kick/snare for the percussion I used in my other DKC remix ("Swamped with Nostalgia").

The thing is. If I want to maintain the "low-fi" feel of the drumkit, then that means the kick is almost completely lost. So boosting the kick would basically just undo the effect.

In another experiment I set every fader lower. That made it sound much more comfortable to my ears, but then it is on the soft side (-6). And of course, all the other problems remain :D

I'm including the first experiment in the attachment. I'm aware that the water FX are too soft and the strings too loud at times. I'll continue working on it.

RX-13b_PollutedParadise_FL64--mixed-01.mp3