Rexy Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) Remixers Name - Blue Metal Machine Game - Godzilla Monster of Monsters_NES Console - Nintendo Entertainment System Composer - Masatomo Miyamoto Song - Earth (Level 1) Arrangement Name - 3rd Planet From the Sun Growing up as a Godzilla fan the NES soundtrack was unbelievable to me. An easy first pick for my first remix. As with most of the wonderful NES music theres need to extend the song. So simply added a prologue and epilogue around the original song. The intro I provided a spacey type feel, allowing a lingering build up to the energetic feel to the song. I wanted to provide a close representation of the meat of the song, but for the progression I drop the beat with a smoother bass line than the original. I resampled the main riff for intro and breakdown, adding a standard Waha effect for the breakdown and allowing it to ride out from there. A true joy to cover this song and plan on doing the whole OST. Edited September 12, 2020 by Emunator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted July 23, 2020 Author Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) First of all, well done on your first arrangement! The initial step is hard to pull off, but the satisfaction is indeed immense. However, I will caution you in that we won't go easy in assessing this and hope our feedback will help you improve for your next work. What impresses me more is that you picked a complicated source to arrange due to all the tempo changes thrown in and two distinct tempos. What you mentioned is what we get - a spacy prelude that uses the A section's melody as the basis, two straight run-throughs of the theme, and an ambient final third that added a gate to the lead. The clashing of styles makes it feel more abstract than expected from a more traditional sub, and that's not a bad thing at all. However, note that I said that you went through two run-throughs of the theme - and they're both identical in terms of notation and textures. Rather than repeat a previously introduced idea, consider writing it differently while still keeping that beat. You can find useful examples of this throughout the soundtrack to Banjo-Kazooie, to name an example - a very different game in terms of style, but the "multiple variations" aspect of the various music cues can spur some ideas. The mixdown is also very loud - and it clips at 1.1dB, with the biggest culprit being the main riff section at 0:46-2:16. It pushes through the ceiling, plus there's also a lot of pumping that happens just from the impacts of the kick and crash cymbal. See if you can bring down the sound levels for all of your instruments. The pads are also way louder than they need to be - they're supposed to settle underneath the lead instrumentation, so see if you can bring them down into the mix. And another idea to get the kick and snare to cut through would be to make notches in the EQ respectively for your bass and lead, as well as doing a low-mid EQ cut among your higher-pitched pads. Since this is your first arrangement, it'll be more of a good idea to add an EQ effect to all of your tracks, experiment with the settings, and see what works. Among the "first arrangements" I've seen, this one is a more unusual one thanks to its framework and source choice. Copy-paste is a concern, but the production values need significant improvement. Have a go at giving the mixdown another pass, lower all instrument volumes, and experiment with the EQ effect to provide all of your parts their own designated space. Feel free to check out the workshop, too - it can be a handy place to build up future work. NO Edited July 23, 2020 by Rexy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted August 30, 2020 Share Posted August 30, 2020 Sounds like we have a bit of clipping here. This is initially apparent on the SFX during the intro, but occurs throughout the mix. After a brooding intro we’re met with some guitars. I like what you’re going for here, however the guitar lead is not quite hitting notes to time. This issue continues throughout the duration. A tighter, more confident performance would greatly benefit the mix. The 2:17 break is abrupt and doesn’t fit very well, the reverse notes sound a bit off, with continued timing issues. This section abruptly ends at 3:40. The mix ends abruptly not long after. There are some good ideas here as a starting point but I recommend re-takes to construct a tighter performance. As far as production goes, when starting out there is a steep learning curve to get your head around. Your overall production needs attention, there should be no clipping. It’s a bit too much to go into here, but I recommend a YouTube search on clipping, for a solid foundation on what it is — this should then lead you to a range of tips to resolve the issue. Don’t be tempted to layer on a bunch of plugins that claim to be quick fixes to solve the clipping problem. Less is more here — start with a master compressor and limiter and don’t push into it too aggressively. The less in your master bus, the more you’ll get to know how the tools interact with the sound. You’ll come out with a clearer strategy going forward. Good luck. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted September 12, 2020 Share Posted September 12, 2020 There's some really creative ideas going on in here, and is a lot more unique than we typically see from first-time submissions. This shows a clear level of ambition that I think is absolutely commendable! There are definitely a few areas of concern that need to be ironed out on the production and performance side. First off, the mastering on this track is painfully loud at times. For example, the synth SFX that is used continually throughout the intro has a high resonant frequency at around 8kHz that spikes WAY louder than the rest of your track and is painful on the ears. That absolutely needs to come down in volume and have some EQ cuts applied to minimize the harshness of that sample. Overall, I think Rexy and Jivemaster both did a great job of breaking down the issues with the overall master - you need to bring the levels of your instruments down across the board to leave a bit of breathing room in the mix - right now it's just too loud and overcompressed. The drum sounds and the guitars don't mesh together from a mixing standpoint. Your guitar tone is more on the ethereal side, but the kick and snare drum are fairly dry, and the cymbals sound like they were recorded in an entirely different space. Overall, it sounds like you're routing through a completely different mixing chain for all of your instruments and even the different components of your drum kit. While this isn't inherently a bad thing, one approach you might consider is creating send tracks for effects like reverb or delay, and routing each of your instruments through that bus at different levels to give it a greater level of cohesiveness, then you can go back and add creative effects as needed. Compressing your drums together could also help glue them together. Across the board, there seem to be issues with note timing on this arrangement, which I'm not going to retread but I will fully support what Jivemaster wrote. If you're not already playing with a metronome or backing track, I highly recommend doing so, since right now the performance is way too loose to fit properly. Please don't be discouraged - I genuinely appreciate your approach to this remix, and it's clear that you are both talented and creative, but the technical side of things definitely needs some refinement. Best of luck with your future submissions! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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