Rexy Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) Contact Information: Your ReMixer name: Chalis Your website: https://soundcloud.com/36_99 and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCShxV9_h4iNCBxw0VaO6TXA Your userid: 32914 Submission Information: Name of game(s) arranged: Undertale Name of arrangement: Chill Dude Name of individual song(s) arranged: Bonetrousle Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdeZwAk6ULE Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc: I've always wanted to do a chill jazz-inspired remix of Bonetrousle in 3/4 time, and I only felt I was ready to do it recently, so I took it on. Edited August 19, 2020 by Rexy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 (edited) Definitely not a direction that I would have expected Bonetrousle to be taken in. You're definitely onto something here with this concept, I liked the arrangement for the most part (I'm sure some of the more music theory-adept judges can speak to the chords/rhythms and verify that everything is lining up right - the harmonization at :15 between the organ and the rhodes sounds potentially problematic) but there's aspects to this that leave this remix feeling incomplete. Far and away my biggest gripe with this track, and I hope this doesn't come across as rude, is how sterile everything sounds. There's almost no bite or texture to any of the instruments, with the exception of the saxophone, which actually sounds pretty lush! The rhodes and organ are ultra-clean to the point of sounding like you filed everything down with a fine-grit sandpaper. I would love to hear some subtle saturation and reverb to give this a bit of warmth. This should be addressed on an individual track basis as well as on the overall mastering. You could also try adding some very subtle delay or distortion on the organ and rhodes, or even layer some subtle vinyl crackles in the background - nothing that will compromise the chill jazz vibe, just a little something to add texture and color to the mix. To illustrate this, I pulled a screenshot from my frequency analyzer showing how the track looks overall - there's almost nothing going on above 3kHz until about 1:30. The lack of high-end causes this to feel imbalanced and ultimately not fleshed out. Your drums could probably be mixed a few decibels louder, but any of the above techniques to bring out more of the harmonic content in the high end will help. What's going on at 2:03-2:05? There's a lot of pops and clicks for a couple of seconds that don't appear anywhere else in the mix. Definitely something worth looking into. Lastly, the ending is abrupt and leaves things unresolved, so that alone would be a dealbreaker for me. You need to have some sort of resolution for this to feel like a complete musical statement. Not a bad start, but there's still some work to be done on the production end in order for this to pass muster. NO Edited August 15, 2020 by Emunator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 Opened up extremely thin with super fakey-sounding instruments, but maybe it has that 90s PC game charm, we'll see. Hmm, then live sax in there at :28; no synergy there at all, IMO, because the sax sounded more expressive than everything else (though it lacked power), while the sequenced and keyboard-based stuff sounded really loose and bland. Aside from the cymbals, the drums had no life to them at all. Emunator's right that everything just lacked body and presence; let's beef this up so this doesn't sound so dry. Flat notes from 1:04-1:07; may need to just redo the comping there. Snap, crackle, pop Rice Krispies stuff all over the render from 2:03-2:05 that would need to be removed, so double-check what happened in those spots. The ending had absolutely no resolution, so it was flatter than a pancake; just betrayed a lack of ideas for the conclusion and felt like you gave up. Cool concept, Chalis, but lacked polish and richness all around. This won't be the track that makes it, but definitely ask around our forums if you haven't already for more production advice and feedback so that you can improve upon things going forward. Hope to hear more from you, especially given the uniqueness of going jazz with this tune. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 Like the others, I enjoyed the direction you took with this one. There was an interesting time signature at play here, but it was extremely difficult to get into, feeling like the instruments a lot of the time were doing their own thing at different rhythms. I could feel timing being held in some ways, but there wasn’t the cohesion there I’d expect from a performance like this. I wasn’t as disappointed with the sounds, I thought the electric piano bouncing pan worked well. The organ on top made things a little messier though, Arrangement wise more variation would be beneficial, and there is no outro to speak of, which needs to be resolved. A good idea overall, but there are a few things here that still need refinement. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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