OCR04312 - *YES* Tales of Symphonia "Perfect Day"

[Rexy]

Remixer & Real Name: Michael Hudak

Game Arranged: Tales of Symphonia

Name of ReMix: Perfect Day

Song Arranged: Dry Trail (wow, what a boring title)

Link to Original:
 

 

Hello judges, hope you're feelin' fine. 

 

I've been obsessed with bass arps for years now, with finding cool sounds and writing parts for them. I have a ton of remixes in the synthwave-ish style of this one, but most I don't do anything with. With this ToS submission, I wrote a busy bass part first, and tried to wrap the rest of the song around it. Maybe a risky move to not have anything panned center for over a minute other than bass and drums, but it allowed me to really dig into the bass with multiband processing; mono subs, very small width lows, distortion on the mids and chorus on the highs. Hopefully it's interesting enough to not have the center sound too empty with everything else panned fairly far apart during the first buildup. Some of the white noise distortion on the snare crackles out now and again, but I feel like it's a nice touch, and not too distracting. As I tend to do, I arranged it like an 80s dance track, but treated it like a rock song in terms of panning and compression, because I think it's fun to replace guitars with plucks, and big airy chord stabs as crash cymbals (the intro has the synth plucking panned right but the reverb panned left, which is something Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen did a lot with their guitars). Little bit of real guitar at the end, though. Mid-side processing to *really* open it up, which gives space for all the reverb to move around. Chords and melody are mostly the same as the original. 

 

"Perfect Day"...you can rarely predict when they happen, and when they do, you don't want to them end. They come and go almost in a flash. Like this song, in my mind. What was a perfect day you had?

 

Thanks, as always.

= Michael =

[prophetik music]

some interesting techniques described here. i hear the 80s dance concept right away. the intro's got some fun synth work where time's just a suggestion, and while that's not my favorite i get what the remixer was going for. the heavily explained bass arp comes in at 0:42 and has some really fun FM-y vibes on it. the melodic content is pretty clear, and the tom fill at 1:22 is a great mixup.

the original is really interesting because the melody isn't in the most prominent instrument (the arp), it's in the sustained lower chords. that trend is repeated here, and the transition to 4/4 is solidly done overall. there's a guitar-ish synth at 1:50 that sounds like the b section of the original's melody - i can't say i liked this synth sound that much, this felt really bland compared to the heavy sound design applied to most of the other synths in the track.

this is followed by a nice bell tone during a break, with a big recap at 2:35 that sounds really fat. there's a big blow at 3:00 and the aforementioned 'real guitar' chugging towards a very relaxed ending. the bass seems to end on a non-chord tone, but that might just be because so much of it is in the sub at that point and it's hard to hear the pitch.

this is pretty fun. it's a much more straightforward arrangement than i expected but it's very listenable. i really enjoyed the design and attention paid to most of the synths. the original track is in this pretty clearly, even if the 'melody' of that track isn't always clear. nice work.

 

 

YES

 

[Liontamer]

Cool idea altering the rhythms of the various fragments of the source tune. Very lush soundscape, and great dynamic contrast throughout. Extremely well personalized, that's for sure. Always loved this theme, and this was something you wouldn't immediately connect back to it, but I love and respect the extreme transformation here. Nice work, Michael!

YES

[MindWanderer]

Nice to hear something more traditional from Mike.  Nice, solid synthwave.  The middle (1:50-2:17) is a little bland and meandering, but overall this is just highly competent.  It's an easy

YES

[Gario]

I do love me some synthwave, so I do enjoy the direction that was taken here. The source is pretty tranquil, so it's a neat idea to transform it in such an aggressive manner.

The arrangement, while understandable, doesn't feel balanced. The melody is pretty hard to follow, only really becoming prominent at 1:51, which is halfway into the track. I do hear something that can function as a melody prior at 0:42, but once the other texture comes in at 0:56 it becomes hard to hear as such. Because of this the arrangement feels lopsided - half being bridging material that uses cool textures that eventually lead into things that the listener can hook onto, but by then half the song is over.

The mixing in this comes in two flavors - piercing and muddy. There are moments where everything seems to be mixed in the same way which makes it hard to follow any individual element of the arrangement, such as at 0:56, and other moments where there's something that pierces through the track in a distracting manner, such as at 1:51 with that melody (great that it's distinct, but it really stands out against the rest of the arrangement). Give your mix more focus, with a clear background and foreground when there's mostly a textural blend, and when the melody comes in at 1:51 bring that mix down for that melody so that it doesn't stand out so much.

I really like the break given at 2:18, and when things really come together at 2:36 it sounds pretty great. The striking chords could use perhaps less dense chords; the timbre of that instrument is harmonically rich, so it sounds almost dissonant when it strikes. Taking out a note would probably make those strikes cleaner and clearer, and would help the mixing out in that section to boot, since it does get muddy when that instrument hits.

Overall I think there's a pretty cool track to listen to in this, but I don't agree that this is ready for the front page. It needs some TLC on the mixing and the melody needs to stand out better at the beginning. Cleaning up the section at 2:36 would help elevate this track quite a bit, too. It's okay, but it needs some polish before I feel it's ready for the front page.

NO

[DarkSim]

Synthwave is my jam, so it's always nice to hear a ReMix done in this style. Great job on converting the source tune from 3/4 to 4/4, it gives it a whole different character, and the high tempo injects a lot of urgency into the piece.

A couple of points to consider in this one - firstly, the bass. You mention that you took extra care with the sound design on this, and I can hear the subtle chorusing that you mentioned, however I felt there was a little more you could have done to help it stand out. A subtle sidechain with a 1/4 note bounce works wonders on these 1/16th arpeggiated basslines. Also, I'm not sure if you're already notching out the dominant kick frequency, but it looks like your kick has a peak at around 47Hz and your bass gets in and amongst it quite often. Adding a small reduction in your bass EQ at 47Hz will help mitigate some of the muddiness that is creeping in there. Also while we're on it, I'd say to tune your kick sample up or down a semitone. It's sitting at F# right now, and it may sound nicer at F or G. Tuning drum samples is definitely worth experimenting with!

The synth at 1:51 sounds too exposed on its own, and it's also not the most interesting synth you could have chosen there. The real guitar towards the end was a nice addition, although it sounded to me like the high-cut was taking away too much of the instrument's character. I did like how it slowly faded into the bass though.

Overall it was an enjoyable listen, although not without points for improvement. It's a yes from me, but hopefully there's a few things you can take on board for next time. Thanks!

YES