Rexy Posted September 20, 2020 Share Posted September 20, 2020 Original Decision Remixer name : jmabate Real name : abate jean marc Email : website : https://www.youtube.com/user/jmabate userid : 35644 Name of game(s) arranged : Mega Man X Name of arrangement : Run for Hope Name of individual song(s) arranged : Sigma Fortress 2 Composer : Setsuo Yamamoto System : Super Nintendo Original : Best regards jmabate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Being on the last vote I look forward to seeing how things turned out here. The brass seems a bit more under control now. The saxophone lead could do with being louder. The rhythm guitar adds some interesting balance. The stereo field is definitely cleaner now. Guitar solo at 2:21 is still too soft IMO. The solo at 2:47 has better presence. When the brass and the guitars play together in the last third, their levels are more complementary — I’d say the guitar could’ve even been louder there. Things felt best placed to end at 4:24, but it’s not a major problem. Overall things are better. With production being the focus, you’ve done a bunch here to level things out. I still think some levels are off — the guitar solo sections in particular, as well as your sax, could have gone a couple db louder to give them more presence, now that you have headroom. I think things are ok now though (unless of course you want to refine further with the suggestions made). To echo Emunator’s comments in the previous vote, you’ve certainly taken on an ambitious track here, I enjoyed the creativity. Nice job. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 23, 2020 Share Posted November 23, 2020 I'm fresh to this one, but I did a quick read over the issues from before. Absolutely agreed that this is an ambitious arrangement that has a lot of great styles and ideas going on. I do think the instrumentation doesn't match up to the strength of the arrangement, but I think it does squeak by here. I'm going to nitpick here, but do know that I think this is a pass. Just want to let you know things to work on for the future. The backing strings sound solid, but the solo violin should be a little stronger in the field, and add some vibrato in to humanize it more. The brass ensemble sounds muddy overall, specifically the articulations don't seem to quite match up so each attack feels fluffy. Similarly, the sax sample doesn't have a clear attack on a lot of the notes, so it feels like everything is slurred. That might be a shortcoming of the sample, but might also be fixable through velocities of the attacks. Doubling the guitar with the sax was a nice touch. Lead guitar after that sounds muffled, definitely can be brought up in the mix. The wall of sound section overall sounds pretty good. Lead could probably still come out a touch, but everything felt well placed overall. 4:06 guitar run is a little out of time for the first section, definitely sounds like a tough lick there, but would be nice to make sure those parts are clean. I think the arrangement really carries this home, and I hope to hear more from you! Good luck on the rest of the vote! YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted December 4, 2020 Author Share Posted December 4, 2020 I agree regarding the arrangement - of all submissions I had heard from you, Jean-Marc, it's among one of your most developed yet. You started with the recurring synth pattern in the source's B section for the intro, went straight through one loop while cutting all segments in half, then handled full versions of the A and B sections while also bringing in a rhythm guitar and lead guitar harmonies for the latter. You then had guitar improvs from 2:14 onward while using the B section's melodic fragments on your orchestration to anchor source use, handling a full loop from 3:04 starting with the C section, then relying on a calmer guitar-only variant on A to finish things off. That last third made me concerned about auto-pilot - and indeed, there was with the C section at 3:04 and the same one at 4:05 sounding identical. But the A section variant at 3:19 stood out with the added guitar textures, and the B section at 3:35 swapped out the saxophone lead for a guitar. I can't penalize this track for 15 seconds of copy-paste, and particularly when you handled the other segments amazingly well. While I wasn't there for the previous decision either, I did compare the mixdown for this and the original submission side by side. I noticed some very considerable cleanup, especially when bringing out the drums and rhythm guitars with their own defined space. That said, some minor issues caught my attention. As noted, the samples for your orchestrated parts aren't great, but the articulations and velocities are varied, and the elements themselves are carefully layered. The brass ensemble, in particular, could've been cleaned up further to allow the saxophone lead to take up more space, but both parts feel defined individually otherwise. I also definitely agree with Deia regarding the lead guitar in the C sections (3:04, 4:05) starting slightly behind time and would've benefitted from a re-record. Still, as they quickly re-correct themselves, they feel like no big deal, and the recorded guitars outside of those sections remain tight. It's not what I call a perfect mix due to the instrument palette's challenging handling, but the arrangement and improved mixdown easily outweigh it. Whether you want to enhance your humanization further with the samples you have or with real performers in future works is all up to you, but for now, I'd consider this a strong showcase of your development as an arranger. Good luck with the rest of the vote! YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 i didn't vote on the first decision. let's take a listen here. intro is really great. i love the opening riff on the violin. initial presentation of the band was just drums and bass, and the bass felt pretty top-heavy and had an odd tone. brass coming in around 0:59 was rough, but it sounded better when everything was in and playing. the sax lead was pretty well humanized which was nice, although it was a bit quiet. the addition of the rhythm guitar in the right ear for the second play-through of the melody was nice, although this section felt lopsided since there was more in the right than left. 2:15's dropout was nice, really cinematic. drums felt on autopilot when they came in again, but the fill into the next section was nice (the weird pad falloff wasn't as good). guitar solo was really fun, loved the extended drum fill under it. the melody recaps around 3:17ish, and putting the guitar in replacing the sax was a good touch. repeating the melody a second time here was definitely extending into "too many repeats" territory. the outro was unique for sure - i expected the strings to come back - but it showcased some fun writing (despite the parallel fourths which sounded funky). overall the arrangement is fun when the band is all there, and the mastering is clean enough to be able to hear what's going on throughout. i didn't hear a problem with 3:04 or 4:05 - those both actually sound very rhythmic and are clearly supposed to be starting off the downbeat. i don't think this mix is perfect by any means, but it's a fun ride throughout. i think this does enough to get over the bar. nice work to get a complex mix like this through on try number 2 =) YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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