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Duck Tales (NES) Amazon -- a semi acoustic country rendition


Lie Mf B
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I just made this remix ... Basically it's finished, but I'd love to hear what you people think about it -- if it would stand up to the scrutiny of the judges. Anything I should change, add, improve...?

It's the Amazon level of Duck Tales for NES, with acoustic and electric guitars, a Dobro, an electric bass, a fiddle soundfont and a simple front-porch-stomp kind of drum track.

mp3 here: http://www.update.uu.se/~lidbjork/nintendo/LieMfB_-_I_en_stulen_Amazon.mp3

More of my remixes (mostly '70s funk-rock-oriented) are here:

http://lidbjork.homelinux.org/nintendo

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Haha, this song sounds more like it should belong in the ducktales bayou than in the amazon.

Overall, I love this piece. It's great.

Your e-guitar is wonderful.

This mix overall is a little too muddy though...

You need to widen your sound spectrum a little bit, because everything is running into everything else in the mid-range. Or you could work on turning down some instruments a little more when you are focusing on something else, or another instrument has a solo. People can go through a song knowing a bass is there even if it isn't really emphasized more than once in the song. Once you establish a feel, they can pretty much follow.

What I'd do is eq the acoustic guitar just a little, but let it and that e-guitar mainly take the mid ranges, and bass needs to leave the mid-range. The bass seems a little bit too overbearing as well, as it seems to make it harder to listen to other instruments. It's a great bassline running, but I think it can be eq'd or turned down or both.

Your string instrument has a nice solo, but I think it should be separated from the mid-range as well, it feels too heavy, thus it doesn't come out of this arrangement to shine as much as it could, that well when the solo comes around. EQ it up, because it sounds too much like everything else (range wise) Also I think it could be humanized a little bit more in that solo. (crescendo/decrescendo) more where it could count.

Just experiment with your instruments via EQ and see how to make this song sound less lo-fi... I don't know if you can re-record to make anything less muddy, but I think you can remove some useless ranges via EQ.

I like your panning, the e-guitar could be panned a bit less though, if you could find a way to balance everything right beforehand. The same with your string instrument. I see what you are doing with it, it's a nice thought for balance, but if everything sounds less muddy overall, you may not have to do this as much.

The arrangement is excellent though. The only thing that suffers in this mix at all is production-wise. I hope this helped. I'm not the best at technical advice, but I hope you understand what I am trying to point out.

p.s. the drums are okay, but I think you could let that highhat ring or at some more unexpected moments, and it could do with a little more sizzle. Also, the bassline is pretty much muddying up the kick entirely. I think a slight roll at 1:57 before that highhat hit could help with realiism too. Also, what, no cowbell? :J

Anyway, good luck. This is really cool.

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First, let me say Thanks a lot for a very helpful response that made a lot of sense. EQ, panning, volume, mixing in general is a big interest and a big challenge for me and love to get constructive advice like yours.

Second, my production values are still a bit "1971" if you get my drift. Think Iggy Pop, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones from 35 years ago... So what many people would consider "muddy", I actually see as "funky" and "organic".

But I still want to do a good production and nothing too extreme, so comments like yours are, again, very helpful.

You're also probably right regarding the crowded mid-range. My recordings tend to get pretty mid-rangy, both because of my instruments and recording equipment, and my mixing. I do think a lot of modern rock musicians tend to forget the midrange, but I still think I'm doing it too much myself sometimes.

So I will try to lower that bass -- make it more bassy. (It actually plays the melody during the chorus, so I think I wanted to bring that into the front before, but to hell with that...) I've also noticed that the bass is what really changes between people's sound systems... Just going from speakers to headphones can make a lot of difference. So it's kind of difficult to balance, and I really appreciate people's critique.

Regarding the acoustic guitars, they're already very mid-rangey, especially the regular acoustic has been EQ'ed a lot. So I think that rather than moving those further to the middle, I'll focus on getting the bass out of it all, and the fiddle...

Funny that you mentioned the cowbell, when a friend of mine begged me to put one into the song. And I tried, but didn't think it really fit. Will try again, though. :)

Again, thanx for the advice!

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Heh, I guess Monobrow hit it directly. Yeah, I think this could stand up against the judges if it was a bit cleaner, but when you compared the production to 1970s artists (especially the ones you used), I got your drift. This is pretty awesome, I have to admit. The fiddle solo was awesome, too. :>

|GX

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