OCR04472 - *YES* Undertale "Toriel's Pain"

[Emunator]

• Your ReMixer name - Charlie Atom
• Your real name - José Carlos Peláez Lazo
• Your email address - 
• Your website - charlieatom.tv
• Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile - 37354

• Name of game(s) arranged - Undertale
• Name of arrangement - Heartache (Charlie Atom Remix)
• Name of individual song(s) arranged - Heartache
• Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site) - I got more than 2.5 million plays on spotify, played as DJ in EDC twice and toured on China. My songs got support by big djs like KSHMR, Don Diablo, Blasterjaxx, Breathe Carolina and more.
• Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xflkF-sqNaM&ab_channel=Misaki
• Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. - I want to make EDM gamer music, im trying to promote my name this way now.

EDIT (7/18/23): We have an updated version in (with the title of "Toriel's Pain") from Charlie Atom: "Lower volume and added something new in the second part." referring to an added supporting part from 1:33-1:58

[MindWanderer]

 Nice traditional house-style EDM here.  Checks all the boxes as far as that goes.  It's a fun arrangement that I definitely enjoyed.  However, it's not without its issues.

First of all, it's loud!  I had to turn my volume down.  Looks like it's clipping by about 1.2 dB at peak.

Also, there's a lot going on.  In the loudest, busiest sections it gets pretty muddy; on my third listen I was still picking out parts I hadn't heard earlier.  Pads, sweeps, and arp are all competing for the same space.  It's not as bad as it could be, since most of the instruments are clean, low-bandwidth synths, but it's still an issue.

At 2:09, it's a very short remix.  It does do a lot with the time it's given, though.  0:23-0:50 is duplicated at 1:32-1:59, and the 11 seconds leading up to those sections are very similar as well.  38 repeated seconds out of a 2:09 remix is 20%---a lot, but not too much.  Finishing the track on a repeat does have the effect of making the already composition a little unsatisfying, because there's no real climax.

Also, as a final note, this needs a different title for us to post it.

I think the arrangement is passable, but for us, I think the production needs a bit more work.  Clean things up a little when all cylinders are firing.  After that, it may not be necessary to bring down the peak volume, but you should check.

I don't mean to come across as a downer on this, as it's a really good arrangement, and I see why you've gotten so many listens and so much publicity and use.  It's more than fine for a noisy venue.  But we just need those little tweaks to release as a standalone track.

NO (resubmit)

Revision 7/19/23: The new version is still louder than I'd like — I had to turn my volume down again — but it's not clipping anymore. And there are still a lot of little textural elements that are 95% buried and took me several listens to hear.  I think it works well enough, but for future work I'd encourage you to balance this stuff a little better. You put work into writing that, and it sounds good when I can hear it, so help your listeners appreciate it! And you have an actual title now, too. Still could be cleaner, but I think we can take it now.

YES

Edited July 20, 2023 by MindWanderer

[prophetik music]

great fat opening. love the big sweep in. the initial melodic presentation is big and clear, and the little drops in between phrases are pretty fun. i like the break at 1:15 - it's well-handled and is a nice break. the track cuts out just before the two-minute mark and then filtros out. it's very short but does explore some neat ideas. i just really wish it was 30 seconds longer.

i love the complexity, tbh - tracks like this are often too simple for me. there's a lot of fun interplay in the synths here, and i like how regularly active the bass is and the variety of sweeps and sfx. and i'll also say that i think the different synths are handled pretty well - there's nothing that really feels too loud or too crushed by other stuff. i understand where MW is coming from, but ultimately i think this is solid. i think my main concern is the consistent clipping. bring the peaks down and i'm good with it.

 

 

CONDITIONAL

Edited January 6, 2022 by prophetik music

[Chimpazilla]

Wow, that's a lot of remix crammed into a short little package!  I like it, and it grows on me more with each listen.  I like the stacked saw lead even though it's LOWD.  From what I can tell you have your limiter set to 0db, but it is still clipping.  I'm going to share my pro-tip for mixing as loud as possible without clipping.  Lower the input gain into your master channel by a few db (I usually lower by 5-10db depending on what I'm writing).  Then bring it back up with one or two compressors and/or limiters in your master chain. That little trick alone will allow you to master your track to sound even louder than it is but without clipping at all.  Oh and set your ceiling more like -0.3db to make sure. 

Please reduce the master overcompression/clipping.  Other than that, yeah let's do this.

YES (conditional)

[Liontamer]

Opened up sounding pretty cramped on first blush, but this sure has a lot of power, and I'm able to make out the different parts well enough. Nice chaneup in the textures at 1:15. Great treatment of the theme; melodically conservative but an extremely personalized and well-designed sound palette, along with great dynamic contrast employed in the arrangement.

Ah man, basically a cut-and-paste of the buildup from :12-:24 again from 1:21-1:33 with a little more texture to it, then :24-:49 wholesale repeated from 1:33-1:58. Damn, that's a shame. Vary up 1:21-1:58 in some subtle but substantive ways and this would be a shoo-in for me.

Very minor thing, José, but somewhere after 1:59 into the fading finish, there's something causing a light pop every bar until the end that would need to be fixed/removed. Nice work otherwise!

Right now, it packs a lot of punch, and I'm not even bothered by the volume. No hate from me if this passes as is, as I can understand the case being made, but there's just too much unvaried repetition for such a short piece, IMO.

NO (resubmit)

EDIT (7/19/23): I just needed some variation for the final section instead of the pure copy-pasta. Awesome; really appreciate you taking a look and adding in those subtle countermelodic lines for the final verse! It's those subtle touches there, where it's not a drastic overhaul, yet it's just enough to give a different feel for the finish. Nice work, José!

YES

[Emunator]

Good to hear that the loudness war is still going on ? I know we're measuring on True Peak metering here, but if I can't audibly hear any distortion caused by that clipping, and it's not clipping on a standard meter, I'm good with it as-is. Obviously a remaster to remove those true-peak clips is the best solution, but hypothetically, if the artist couldn't revisit this, I wouldn't hold back on account of intersample peaks that aren't actually audible on the overwhelming majority of listening setups. 

I'm inherently skeptical whenever I see a submission come through with just over 2 minutes of runtime, but I actually feel like the waste-no-time approach to arranging suits your track well here. While there is, of course, room for more substantial exploration of the theme, there are a number of breakdowns, builds, and other various ear-candy interspersed between the (admittedly repetitive) choruses to help this stand on its own as a complete arrangement. It lends itself to looping while still providing enough meat to enjoy as a standalone piece.

The production quality lives up to your credentials - the drums hit hard, each synth sits nicely in relation to the other sounds without anything ever being too dominant. Sounds like a pass to me!

YES

 

[DarkSim]

Man, I used to listen to this kind of stuff all the time. Call me an old fart, but that compression is just way OTT for me now (probably the plugin you used to get the sound as well, hah). That said, it is a staple of the genre, and so ignoring the insane loudness of the track, there's a lot to like.

Cool synth choices, some nice effects sprinkled into the offbeats, and a nice break at 1:18. Even the break is super loud though, and as ever, the dynamics suffer when compressing the sound like this, so the breaks don't provide the level of respite one would expect. I'm glad this remix wasn't any longer, because at my normal listening volume it was starting to get uncomfortable.

The lack of a significant difference in the final chorus is disappointing, but that's partly due to backing yourself into a corner with how loud and busy the track is already. I guess anything else would be too much. Lessening the intensity of the first chorus might be the way to go, but I understand that's not what this remix is about, so I respect the decision to keep the energy levels high for a short duration.

The popping Larry pointed out sounds like the sidechain is working really hard at the start of the bars to stop any sound coming through, and the master compression is trying to amp up the tiny amount of sound that is leaking in at that point, resulting in a pop. Might be worth checking to see if that is the cause (another reason not to bump the compressor gain too high), but it wasn't a dealbreaker for me.

It's a YES based on the genre, but my ears wish the whole thing was less compressed.

YES

Ninja edit for title suggestion... "Earache"?

Edited April 23, 2022 by DarkSim
Title

[XPRTNovice]

This had me nodding my head; I think it's a great groove on a great song and there's a lot going for it. I really enjoyed the arrangement, all the drops, I liked how committed it was to the source while adding a lot of different flourishes. It's a little on the short side, barely crossing the 2 minute mark. This genre isn't my particular forte from a production standpoint, but I have to agree that it needs another pass to make sure we're not clipping here just from a basic engineering perspective. There's a lot of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic complexity in here that make me want to hear more, which is kind of why I was disappointed to see that the track was so short. I'm interested to hear more of what you do, and just think this needs a basic mastering pass to make it clean.

YES (CONDITIONAL)

[Rexy]

Okay, your choice of sound design is fun!  We've got some big-sounding polysynths, emphasized with textural choices and applications of various effects.  We've got the big bass and sine wave tonal drops, the occasional rise back up, airy drones, the application of big reverb during the builds, and an extremely aggressive sidechain.  I didn't hear any clipping on my setup, which made me think of the sidechain acting the way it is - though, a scan through Audacity did find some non-audible peaks, which is something that Chimpazilla already addressed.  Though I would've preferred for the sidechain to get weakened so that I get to hear more of your textures underneath, I can understand the necessity for a track of this sub-genre.

Arrangement-wise, it's structurally conservative as it goes through all the source segments in the same order.  Still, there are more than enough alterations in the transitions between parts to prevent it from being a straight cover - and that was something that needed the sound design to shine right through.  But Larry and MW pointed out the gratuitous amount of repetition, particularly in the recap.  And I believe MW's math was off because that's pushing more to 30% redundant content, which is highly gratuitous for a 2-minute track.  Granted, you would've needed that last third to close out the mix properly.  I recommend you go back towards that entire 1:32-1:59 stretch and see if you can tweak your writing.  It could be a change in pattern for your arpeggio, a change in octave for your leads, a unique set of pads, or unexpected effects from out of nowhere - and that's a handful of examples.  Any change can turn things around, no matter how big or small.

As of right now, this track packs a wallop, and I can see the case for it being ready as is.  But the repeated recap is way too gratuitous for a theme of its length, and I'm afraid I can't pass it in its current form.  If there's a way for you to tweak the textural composition of that last third, I'm all for listening back.

NO (resubmit)

[Gario]

This song definitely leans into it's strengths: it's big, bombastic, and very loud. It's not the most complicated arrangement when it's reflecting the source, but to be honest the track is better for it; too much complexity with a track this loud and you lose all of the detail under the wash (I have to deal with this a lot in my own arrangements  - the struggle is real). That doesn't mean that this track doesn't run into this issue of a loss of clarity due to loudness; anything that ain't the supersaw or square bassline is pretty much lost entirely, dipping out due to heavy overcompression.

Honestly this sounds great for a soundcloud, where you need the track to be as loud as possible in order to compete with other tracks of this genre, but I agree with the others when they say toning down the mastering so that we can hear the rest of the track would be of great benefit overall.

I hear the issues others have on the arrangement - the repetition of the material starting at about 1:30 - and I agree that some flourish would do nothing but help the track, but it's not the primary item of focus. Nonetheless, if this one is going back then you should take a look at giving the listeners a reason to listen to that section again. This is less an issue on the dancefloor since the reason people listen there is to stomp to the beat, but it's nonetheless something that would only benefit the track if you made some small variances to keep the listeners guessing, especially for such a short track.

I like this track, boisterous synths and all, but I agree that this is overmastered and overcompressed at the cost of clarity. Tone down the compression, and give that repeat section some more love, and I think this track would be great.

NO (old)

EDIT (07/19/2023):

Listened to the revision, the levels are down so everything can be heard more clearly, and I hear the neat little accompaniment added to that repeated section. I think that addresses our issues well enough, let's go.

YES

Edited July 20, 2023 by Gario

[DarkeSword]

Other Js have outlined the issues. I have no problem with the arrangement. Very fun, very creative.

Let's get a fix on the issues. YES (CONDITIONAL)