Rexy Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) Contact Information ReMixer name: SilverFox Jams Real name: Marianne Markham Email address: Website: I don’t have an up-to-date website of my own, but I frequently upload a lot the music I create at https://soundcloud.com/sfjmusic; both original and remix arrangements. I also upload and share my music on the Newgrounds site at https://silverfoxjams.newgrounds.com/ OC Remix Forum User ID Number: 31871 Submission Information Name of game arranged: Darius Twin Name of the game’s original arrangement: Narukini Name of remixed arrangement: Narukinians at War Extra information about the game: Super Nintendo (SNES) game, a spaceship shooter 2D side scroller, published in 1991, developed by Taito. The game music was composed by Hisayoshi Ogura and Shizuo Aizawa. Link to the original game soundtrack from the archives on the OC Remix website: https://ocremix.org/chip/6407 My Commentary About This Remix I was inspired to create this remix, soon after getting a good Newgrounds.com review on my first Darius Twin Remix; of the main boss theme. I titled the remix “Killer Hijia.” It’s a cool listen in my opinion. It’s available to listen to on my SoundCloud and Newgrounds pages. The track has an alarm siren, with reverbing my own voice as a combat commander’s voice while putting in a male robot voiceover part for the pilot’s lines for the very beginning. However, I’m going to eventually maybe redo the remix, since I went overboard in places in the composition. “Killer Hijia” was just not good enough to submit to OC Remix! This one, “Narukinians at War”, is better put together, well paced, and mixed better. In fact, I think it sounds better than the original. I’d consider this both a remix and remake. I surprisingly got this done within about a week, instead of a month as it usually goes! Maybe because it's just easier to compose a track on Rytmik Ultimate than on Acid Pro. I'm not sure, but I know I was very picky about the lead melody, the brass and male vocal harmonies, and the drums. (I couldn't imagine straying from those military sounding beats.) The gritty, distorted and growly basslines weren't too tricky to figure out. Keeping a reference video of the original music track open also helped some in laying out the basic structure of the composition. I remember the brass part and the main lead by memory for the most part. When I was a kid, I played those two together on a Casio keyboard. Although it never hurt to double check! Around the middle of this track, the second time the more original framework from the original Narukini theme starts, I mouthed out a "wow" when I came up with the arp melody to go with that bass! I think that sounds amazing! I've surprised myself when constructing and inserting my own melodies to go with the original ones. I didn't want to stray too far from the original energy and heart of the song. I just could not do it with this track. It wouldn't have felt right. Professional style mixing is one of the things I enjoy the most about Rytmik; the easy to use volume and panning adjustments. Towards the end, it was very cool and fun to just mix things up apart from the first and second rounds of the original game music’s structure. I love this track to bits, and I find this one to be great enough to upload onto the Overclocked Remix website. I'm excited about it. Edited October 10, 2021 by DragonAvenger Closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 the opening is pretty rough. the snare sample is super electric and sounds pretty weird being machine-gunned like it is. the bass has a fun tone but it's panned and also has a ton of sub-bass, which makes it sound muddy (and it'll sound worse on a big-sub system). the kick is also panned oddly and is mostly beater sound without any bass, which is an odd sound. the pitch-shifting of the snares is an interesting idea, but not shifting the formants as well makes them sound kinda odd when they get farther from their natural pitch. at 0:41, there's some of the melodic content coming in. the synth work here still features too much bass, but i liked the block chords idea (they're still a little spare and an octave too low IMO). the lead synth is a fun tone and clearly delineates the melodic content, so that's good. there's an obvious loop point, and we go through the build-up to the melody again, which comes in at 2:20. i did like the glide synth for the arp, and that was a neat change, but other than that it felt pretty much the same as the first time through the same material with no break in between. at 2:55, there's a synth-only part that noodles around some bits of melody that builds back up into the rest of the groove. it was a nice break from the original idea, but i started to get tired of the lead at this point. the song noodled some more around the initial riff of the melodic content and then sorta ended. overall this one needs a lot of workshopping from the synth and instrument choice side, i think. the drums sound strange - they feel like they're in an electronic song but you're using them in a classical fashion, and it doesn't do them any favors i don't think. the synths are mostly static throughout - some shifting timbres and new instruments part-way through would help relieve some of the oppressiveness of the repetition. beyond that, i'd think hard about putting a hard EQ on most of your synths so they don't sound so muddy and bleed into sub-bass range. this one isn't there yet. NO CalloftheJay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted September 28, 2021 Share Posted September 28, 2021 I'm actually on board with the instrumentation, because it's going for a specific aesthetic, which I think it nails. In fact, without being familiar with the source and without looking at my playlist, I initially thought it might be an overly-conservative remix of an Axiom Verge track. I will come down on it for repetition, though. 1:38-2:55 is a repeat of 0:00-1:33, and then 3:21-4:00 and 4:27-end are repeats of the second half of that section. Altogether, over half the track is direct repetition, and some of the rest is variations on the same elements. It's far too much. I'm not going to go too far in depth on production, because I think that's close at worst, but the arrangement needs more development. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 My first thought after listening through is that this one definitely goes on for longer than it should without some new content going in. There's definitely areas you can trim here so that the mix doesn't get to repetitious. I'd also look into maybe doing some melodic variations to add a different spin to the mix and give it some more personalization. I'm with Brad here on the bass being too muddy overall. It's also got a pretty strong buzz to it that gets very tiring on the ears over time, and when it does drop out later in the track a different synth comes in that is about as harsh, so there's no break. I'd love to hear something less tonally harsh to give the track a dynamic range. I think the overall idea for the soundscape is promising, but currently it's not working. Definitely see about massaging the sounds to let the track breathe a little more, and trim it down so there's less repeating overall. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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