Emunator Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 (edited) Remixer: bGevko Name: Bogdan Gevko email: userId: 31542 Name of Game: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Name of Arrangement: Into the Unknown Name of Song Arranged: Midna's Lament Composers for original Theme: Koji Kondo, Asuka Hayazaki and Tōru Minegishi Link to original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoBRdekWKxI My comments: Many will agree with me that this is the best theme out of LoZ: Twilight Princess. Sadness, urgency, mystery. These are the things that make the original theme so good. My goal here was to keep those elements but also draw from my influences to my own spin on it. You'll hear a lot of Ocarina of Time in here.. and some Chrono Trigger. Edited January 6, 2022 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted December 21, 2021 Author Share Posted December 21, 2021 The rigid sequencing on the piano for the first 45 seconds was not the strongest start to this arrangement, I'll be the first to say. Your samples are highly exposed due to a lack of backing instrumentation, so the robotic velocities and strictly-quantized timing is especially noticeable on repeated riffs like the one that first enters at :39 and repeats a few times after. It's a marginal improvement over the original source, but still not a great way to start things off. However, once the beats enter at :52, I got a much better idea of what you were going for. The beats/bass help mask the fake quality of the piano, and you've got some really cool use of SNES/N64-quality samples like the ocarina or the LTTP strings, which provide a great contrast to the more organic piano sample. I think those sections show the most promise from a sound design perspective and were honestly really enjoyable to listen to! Another issue I have with this is the seemingly random structure - I can't pick out any discernible structure or flow to the arrangement, and it seems to simply jump around between different sections of the song that have been copied and pasted. The ending was anticlimactic since it is essentially just a loop of :44-:53 from earlier in the song and didn't offer much resolution. I feel like this would strongly benefit from reworking the structure from the ground up and focusing more on continuity throughout the track. I think this is a case where you have some really excellent ideas that have not yet formed into a cohesive arrangement, and is also dragged down by rigid sequencing on the piano, which is so integral to the arrangement that it really sticks out like a sore thumb. There's a lot of potential here, so whether it's this track or another one in the future, I'm excited to hear what you cook up! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted December 27, 2021 Share Posted December 27, 2021 Well, this is an eclectic mix! I agree with Emu about the rigid piano being an issue. The intro really exposes it. The bendy ocarina works in the intro due to the reverb, but after that it is dry and sticks out. After Navi says "listen!" I expect a drop but it's still sparse piano after that, which feels like a letdown, I think her vocal should occur instead before the beat drops. This arrangement feels odd to me, at 0:43 there is a tape stop and then a blast of frenetic piano, it just doesn't flow for me. The sections with the beat feel the most natural to me, I'd enjoy this arrangement more if the beat continued and/or developed throughout most of the song other than one or two short breakdowns. The arrangement feels really choppy and awkward as it stands now. The ideas are solid but the arrangement and production need work. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 opening is pretty non-idiomatic for the piano. i didn't care for the ocarina much - sounded very fake. the tape stop was pretty unexpected given how organic the earlier parts were, and the transition with the strings was also unexpected! the beat that comes in at 0:53 is pretty funky, though, and i'm digging the bass under it too. the strings at 1:16 sound real rough though thanks to such a delayed attack. the new texture after the scoop after 1:43 is interesting, but then we get more copy paste right before 2:00 of the beat, the tapestop, the transitional material, and then it just ends. this is all over the place right now. i'll echo the others in pointing out the lack of a cohesive form to the track, and also point out that this spare of a soundscape requires very careful attention to synth selection and the strengths and weaknesses of your samples. there's a lot of highlighting things your samples aren't good at, and that's not good technique. this one needs some rework IMO, especially on the execution end. the best parts are definitely where there's a beat going on and we're not listening to one or two synths repeat the same arp for most of the song. lean into that more. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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