Rexy Posted February 1, 2021 Share Posted February 1, 2021 Contact info Remixer name: Lashmush Real name: Rasmus Sorber Email: Website: lashmush.newgrounds.com User ID: 20246 Submission info Name of game(s) arranged: Prince of Persia (SNES) Name of arrangement: "The Hourglass Ritual" Name of individual songs arranged: "Jaffar's Theme", "Final Battle" Additional info: Originally composed by Toshiya Yamanaka, Tetsuya Nakan for the SNES port of Jordan Mechner's original Apple II title, Prince of Persia. Original soundtrack: https://cirrusretro.com/listen/1183-prince-of-persia-super-nintendo (Playable online) Comments: This project started as a simple training exercise to do psytrance effectwork. I've spent a few years listening to various artists to kind of reverse engineer how they create their sounds and atmospheres. I also had the idea for a while to remix the Final Battle track from PoP into a harder kind of techno thing so I used that idea as a foundation to get better at electronic genres in general. (So much automation... oof.) I realized though that the Final Battle doesn't really have much to work with so I chose to bring in the Jaffar theme that plays whenever you run into him throughout the game. It's an imposing sting and works really well. I also wanted to add a nod to the Sands of Time and subsequent titles by having a lot of time related effects like the slowdown ticking effect at the start as well as how the melody reference to the Final Battle that comes in a bit later on keeps playing a bit, then sort of reversing back and repeating, much like the gameplay as you use your dagger to reverse time. These time references also fall into the general idea of casting the hourglass spell that condemns the princess to die in 120 minutes (60 in the original Apple II game) unless she weds Jaffar. I spent quite a lot of time on this as I'm not very well versed in these genres but I'm happy with the result and hope you enjoy it. It might be a bit long and perhaps as psytrance is not always a very melody-heavy genre a bit empty of structural references to the original works but I'm hoping they come across well enough. That's up to the judges to decide. Happy (belated?) halloween. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 6, 2021 Share Posted May 6, 2021 interesting ost choices. there's not a lot there and this is a track that's over 8:30 long. looking forward to seeing how it's applied. the first minute is great. so much creativity and goofiness noodling with the themes. the feel at 1:00 is exactly what i expected to hear in terms of effecting and style as well. nice work playing melodic content around 1:50 or so when you start to bring it back in. around 3:00 i was starting to wonder where we were going, and at 3:09 you answered with the first big breakdown. there's some fun non-traditional stuff going on here and i liked the inclusion of orchestral and choral elements. i also liked the introduction of triple meter with some of the synth work, and sticking with it - nice way to add change and a new perspective. 4:07 we get the kick back in, this time in 12/8. it again takes about minute before we get melodic content, but when it comes in it's obvious where it's from again. the continued usage of acoustic drums through this part is interesting and kinda sounds weird next to the heavy synthesized backgrounds, but i get where you were going with it. 5:50 is another break very similar to the earlier one. not as long, though, and it's got a more intense build back to the main melodic content and backing. 6:50 definitely feels like the payoff, you've got a lot of melodic content spinning around each other, and even after nearly seven minutes of "kick with spicy noodles" you're still creating interesting synth lines and a background i want to listen to. there's some natural wind-down in the background and then a nice filtered outro that's pretty clear. this is a great track. neither of these sources are very significant in terms of melodic content, and you did a nice job making an arrangement that's both recognizable and consistent. i'd say that this genre doesn't lend itself to conveying melody, so i don't mind the two or three times that there's nearly a minute without melody since that's still not close to breaking the 50% barrier. nice work. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 Interesting indeed. Short sources lend themselves well to trance, since trance is supposed to be pretty repetitive anyway. For being 8 minutes long, it doesn't outstay its welcome for the genre. What's even more interesting, the 12-second theme serves as the main hook, transformed in a number of different ways (e.g. breathy chanting and bass pads). It is quite liberal in this interpretation, though. I'm not really willing to give credit to the chant as being source material. The frenetic boss music is clearly hard to use, but I can catch motifs from it used periodically. I started to timestamp this loosely, but stopped when I got clearly over the mark. I had to pay close attention, though; some of the connections are pretty subtle. As for the arrangement and production, they're just fine. Without knowing this was a game ReMix, it comes across as perfectly serviceable (if somewhat creepy) trance. I don't have any concerns. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 2, 2021 Share Posted December 2, 2021 The track was 8:41-long, so I needed to identify the source tunes in play for at least 260.5 seconds for the VGM to dominate the arrangement: :00-:47, :51.5-:59, 1:50-3:08, 4:19-4:57, 4:58-5:49, 6:14.5-7:23, 7:24.5-7:35.75 = 301.25 seconds or 57.82% overt source usage I know I undersold the connections, but I was just timestamping this quickly to verify for myself that the source tune usage was there for the majority of the arrangement. Interesting approach with more subtle and understated references of the sources. Since the Final Battle theme isn't super-melodious, the key to the arrangement lies in building around that theme with interesting, well-mixed ear candy and well-executed changes in the textures and dynamics, as well as techniques to keep the track evolving and flowing. It didn't feel like a near-9 minute piece and didn't drag out. All of the Jaffar's theme usage fit nicely here as well, and the stuttering/gated vocals at 6:14 in particular were a creative touch. What a fun ride to take, and a really cool arrangement outside of Rasmus's past material. Nice job! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 To say you’ve not made much psytrance before, this is an impressive offering. The intro is super dark and atmospheric. The whispered vocal chanting sets a creepy tone, and the tension keeps building as you introduce the swirling plucked arps that build and then deconstruct themselves (both in pattern and tone) to give texture and emphasise the twisted nature of the track. It’s only when the pulsating beat comes in at the 1-minute mark that we realise this kind of dark intensity is going to be present in the whole track, and it’s not just a build. The track’s length doesn’t bother me, particularly for the genre, and each of the 3 main sections of the track are distinct. You’ve got the establishing first section, which is the longest, and serves to set the tone. The second one experiments with triplets to keep things fresh, and the final section is the busiest, to stand out as the finale. The sound design is excellent throughout, and let’s face it - it has to be to keep the listener’s interest for over 8 minutes in a traditionally repetitive genre. There’s evidence of automation absolutely everywhere, which you note in your submission email, and the effort was not in vain. I already mentioned the arps in the intro which have loads of detail, but there’s a part in the triplet middle section where you’ve got some kind of acid arp filtering in and out, then some detune increasing as the high-cut decreases, meanwhile a riser is coming in behind it. That bass riff that comes in every 8 bars after 1:07 sounds awesome, and has some really nice filter and stereo automation on it - flanging too maybe? Definitely a highlight. The importance of automation can’t be overstated really - it’s one thing to have good sound design, but in order to keep interest, those sounds must keep evolving, and continue to sound good as they do so. You’ve done a great job for the most part on this. I’m struggling to find any constructive criticism other than there were a couple of synth patches I felt could have been a bit more interesting. There’s one that is filtered in from around the 2-minute mark and persists for over a minute. It sounds like a thin pulse pluck and doesn’t work too well to my taste in quarter-notes without any layering to beef it up. Also the patch at 4:58 sounds a lot like one of the Garageband presets, so I’d have tinkered with that a bit more to get something a bit different out of it. Those are extremely minor points for improvement though on what overall I thought was a fantastic take on a pretty unremarkable couple of sources. There are tons of details in the background to keep your ears alert, and the way the sounds evolve through each section of the track ensures that it never feels too repetitive. It’s got a solid foundation in the low end, with a clear mix, and the minimalistic approach to mid/high-end content serves to keep the mix free of clutter, even though I’m sure it was tempting to add some more layers. I hope you keep experimenting with electronic genres! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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