*NO* Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild "It's So Chilly"

[Emunator]

RebeccaETripp
Rebecca Tripp
http://www.crystalechosound.com/
ID: 48262
Game(s): Breath of the Wild
Song Title: It’s So Chilly

Songs Remixed: Cold

Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGLbMVh59z0 

 

It's the theme that plays when you step onto the kitchen floor with bare feet during winter (at least if you live in Canada).

 

Source: 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Emunator

[prophetik music]

even for rebecca this track is way, way too quiet. peaks are nearly 5db too low, and realistically this is closer to -12db. i get that it's an artistic decision to be minimal, but there's too many tutorials around how compressors work for her to not be applying a default to these tracks.

this is a really minimal original. i'm interested to hear how rebecca handles this.

there's some inaudible stuff going on at the beginning, but the initial presentation of 'melodic' material is immediately recognizable. the overall panning is too aggressive (reducing it by half would be appropriate in nearly every instance) - for example the rainstick is exclusively in the right ear and it's used constantly. the violin harmonics are pretty, but they're really obviously looping and sound odd as a result. they also don't fade to nothing like strings should be able to, so the cutoffs not matching the other backing instruments also sounds weird. the added percussion though is (as expected) fantastic, and there's a ton of nuance going on with what they're adding.

this is a tough one for two reasons. first of all, there's simply not much in the original, so calling this arrangement transformative is difficult. there's certainly a lot more here, and the added percussion, string tremelos, and other nuances make this a lot more fleshed-out. ultimately i do think the arrangement is pretty good considering what's in the original, so i think that part's fine. the mastering and execution of that arrangement is not well handled, however. this delicate of a soundscape leaves a lot of room for inconsistencies to show up, and we hear that in several places - the heavy panning of several instruments, the various pad instruments cutting off at different times, the obvious looping of the violin vibrato. they are very distracting from what otherwise would be a really neat piece. that's all aside from that you can't hear anything without turning this track up far too much. the claves/toka/stick hits push the max db up far too far - this needs a compressor with a very fast engage and a quick disengage to allow for the track's really interesting sound design to be heard around those unpitched instruments.

i'm interested to see what the other judges say but i don't think i can pass this. the execution of it has too many issues that really impede the listening experience.

 

 

NO

Edited September 29, 2021 by prophetik music

[Emunator]

I'm finding myself in agreement with Brad - at first, I wasn't even sure how you'd attempt to arrange this, but I left my first listen pleasantly surprised at how you kept things recognizable and explicitly tied back to the original BOTW theme, even with so little to work with. I'm always impressed with how brave you are to tackle sources like this

From an execution standpoint, I just don't feel like there's enough going on here. The soundscape is very thin and therefore exposes all of the imperfections in the sequencing. There's almost nothing in the way of low-end frequency for much of the arrangement until we get to the end of the arrangement, so everything sounds very skewed on the high end and the end result is not very lush. The high harmonic violin is also very shrill when it doesn't have anything to balance it out in the rest of the frequency spectrum, and Brad also correctly identified that the decay on the strings cuts off unnaturally. 

I think this functions well for what it is, but the soundscape is just too barren in my opinion to really maintain interest outside of a purely ambient/foley piece. I think there's absolutely potential to arrange a source like this, but I do think the instrumentation and tonal balance needs to be fleshed out more in order to achieve that.

NO

[MindWanderer]

I think it's important to take a step back here and consider what this arrangement is trying to do, rather than shoehorning it into what we'd expect from an "average" ReMix.  This source is incredibly minimal, so I don't think rejecting an arrangement of it based on it being to "too barren" is really warranted.  And I feel like an unbalanced soundscape is fine considering the approach.

The source consists of basically just two(!) sweeping notes, some sporadic percussion, and a whole lot of silence.  Counting the silence as part of the arrangement, I think source usage is obvious from 0:00-1:00, arguable from 1:00-1:40, loose at best from 1:40-3:10 (and there's 9 seconds of silence at the end that can be trimmed).  That's just over half.

Sure, the sequencing isn't perfect, and the silence exposes every flaw, but I don't think it's all that bad.  In fact, for how exposed it is, I actually think it's quite good.  We pass worse.

This does have the usual Tripp mastering issue, but bump this up by a flat 4.5 dB and I think it's fine.

Overall I think this was a tremendous challenge that was, by and large, met.  It's not close to what we usually look for, but it isn't trying to be.  From a standards perspective, I think this does everything we require, plus it's bold and original.

YES (requires a loudness boost)

[DarkSim]

With such a minimalistic source, it’s difficult to expand on it whilst keeping the original recognisable. This ReMix attempts to enrich the original with some additional percussion and expanded melodic ideas on woodwind and strings.

We begin with some very light tambourine, some woodblock, and then the chords from the source can be heard with similar instrumentation to the original. Some nice harp begins to differentiate the ReMix, and some more percussion elements join in around the stereo space.

Choosing a similar style to the source is a risky move, but thankfully all the instrumentation has sufficient quality to stand up to the minimalistic approach to the soundscape. For me, though, the inclusion of so many rest periods, as is present in the source, are to the detriment of this ReMix. It’s not necessarily silence, and I do appreciate the areas of expansion built around the foundation here, but I feel like the ReMix only really gets going after 1:40, and even then the momentum is broken up by a long rest period from 1:58-2:05. There’s a lovely progression from 2:17-2:34, with a wonderful resolving chord that feels like the end of the piece, even though it barely began.

I’m torn on this, as my biggest criticism could well be that if you’d told me this was the actual BotW soundtrack, I probably would have believed you. By keeping the similar style, and developing it very slowly throughout the piece, it gives it a very conservative feel that doesn’t quite differentiate it enough from the source material for me. I really like the expansion, and commend you for tackling such a sparse source tune, but I would have liked more of the stuff from 1:40-2:44, and it to get there quicker.

NO

[Chimpazilla]

This is a tough call for me.  As familiar as I am with this source material, I'm questioning whether it meets the criteria to be considered a song.  To me it's more of an ambient soundscape, almost more of a sfx than a song.  As for the remix, it is mastered way too quietly which is an ongoing problem with Rebecca's arrangements.  This mix is maxing at -5db which is incredibly quiet.  I have no problem with the instruments, they sound clean and natural enough to me, but I don't really feel this is a "song."  I can't find anything in the OCR standards about the source material or remix needing to be a proper song, and I'm open to having my mind changed, so it's just my opinion that this mix isn't quite OCR material because it feels sparse and disconnected rather than being a proper arrangement.

NO