Emunator Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 (edited) Remixer Name: Staticaster Real Name: Matt Bounds Email: this one Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Staticaster Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/staticastermusic Name of Games: Pokemon Blue and Super Metroid Name of Arrangement: Revivify Songs Arranged: Viridian Forest and Brinstar - Plant Overgrowth Area So a couple months ago I was feeling nostalgic and looked up my old Youtube channel from a decade ago. It was... not good. But it did get me in the mood to start making music more regularly again, so I decided I might as well lean into the nostalgia. Viridian Forest was the first song I ever did a remix of, way back in 2009. It was essentially just a MIDI track with drums and new instruments, but it was the start of my journey into electronic music, so I figured if I'm reviving the channel I might as well kick things off with a new remix of it. While I was making it the Brinstar theme popped into my head and I decided to see how well I could integrate it, and the mix evolved into the idea of an overgrown jungle, with different lines and synths all playing together and working in their own sort of ecosystem. I had to change bits of Brinstar to make it fit with Viridian's weird key signature, and it was a tough mixing challenge keeping things from getting too muddy, but I think I did alright. I tried to keep everything balanced so the ear can kind of shift what it latches on to, like how in a jungle there's a thousand things you can shift your attention to at any moment, while still having enough space so it doesn't get too overwhelming. I know there's a thousand remixes of Brinstar on here already, but what can I say? It's a bop. Edited February 14, 2022 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 8, 2022 Share Posted February 8, 2022 some fun stuttering heavily-filtered stuff to start off with viridian forest. the instrument choices have a pretty lo-fi feel to them, and especially the bass is super heavy in the sub-bass frequencies and does not have much tone to it above that. there's some fun countermelodic content going on, and there is a ton of arrangement going on behind the melody with the bass work and the drums changing it up regularly. the addition of brinstar's content is seamless, really awesome job there, and tbh i didn't even realize it was there until i started looking and then it was very obvious. it just felt like part of the original 1:53 starts a transition point with a heavily-filtered kick again, and there's a build towards a recap of the melodic content and a subtractive outro. 2:36 sounds like a recap of 1:24, but there's some small differences between the two sections. this arrangement is gangbusters. i love it. there's tons of personalization, you're combining tracks from two areas in disparate games that have similar conceptual ideas in a seamless fashion, and you don't let it sit on one thing for any period of time. fantastic job. your synth choice overall is pretty solid (the brinstar arp lead is a bit buzzy for me but that's personal taste) but i did feel the mastering's a bit suspect. there's a lot of sub-bass freqs that should be rolled off - there's a ton of stuff below 40hz that shouldn't be there (in fact <40hz is one of the loudest buckets on a freq analysis). there's very little in the highs (which surprised me since there's a lot of noise sweeps used), so spending some time EQing your leads and percussion especially would be great, and some moderate freq-based compression could help there. i also think that volumizing it a bit would help - the leads are pretty loud compared to the background (especially the aforementioned brinstar arp) so i think dropping that a touch would be very helpful. i was going to pass this solely on the strength of the arrangement. i think ultimately though there's so much to be gained with some pretty straightforward mastering efforts that i'd like to see this take another try. it's so good though! i am super excited to hear it with the sub-bass gone and some volumization done. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted February 8, 2022 Share Posted February 8, 2022 The arrangement is indeed killer. It's exactly what I love to see in a mashup. The energy is great, and it's hugely creative. However, proph is absolutely right about the production. There's a ton of sub-bass and very little in the highs, and actually not that much in the mid-bass range either. As a result, everything's concentrated in the mids, except for an extremely boomy kick that you feel more than you hear. It's a very thin soundscape overall. I'm also not as happy about the synth choices. To me, everything sounds stock and primitive. The bass in particular has an Ad-Lib sound to it that sounds like it was made by a bedroom producer circa 1999. They would have sounded great for an early OC ReMix, but I don't think they hold up today. I'm loving the hell out of the composition, but the sound quality just isn't doing it for me. I really hope we can post a revision sooner rather than later. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted February 13, 2022 Share Posted February 13, 2022 The intro grabbed my attention immediately - that sweet synth with a bit of reverb on it playing simple chords in a syncopated fashion sets up an awesome groove with real bounce to it. The arrangement kept my attention throughout the piece, and it wasn’t until I played the Brinstar tune that I realised there were two sources! Absolutely amazing integration of the Brinstar theme, so hats off to you there. After the intro though, things start getting a bit sketchy. The bass is huge in the sub frequencies, and whilst that doesn’t create muddiness per se, it does introduce a lot of acoustic energy that doesn’t add to the arrangement, and can fatigue the listener’s ears. A simple EQ low-cut can help here. Use visual EQ if your headphones aren’t picking up sub frequencies. Proph and MW have mentioned some production improvements that could be made, and I’ll also suggest some sidechaining - particularly if you’re going with such a prominent bass and groove-based track. Groove could also be improved a lot with some more interesting percussion - I don’t hear much more than a kick, snare and closed hi-hat. I did enjoy the pitch shifting on the snare for the build at 2:20, that was really nice. There’s some glitching/fast hats towards the end too, but that’s about it for variation. Synths too could use some more TLC - they all sound very ‘preset’, and whilst I praised the intro synth for being attention-grabbing, there was nothing else that really caught my attention during the rest of the track. Try adding some more personalisation and points of difference to them. For example, the half-tempo section at 0:46 is a great arrangement choice, but the hoover-type lead synth lacks any kind of variation. Try experimenting with filter envelopes or LFOs and see if you can create some more unique sounds. It’s great that you’re getting back into making music after a decade, and this is a fantastic way to start! I’ve no doubt this would benefit massively from some sound design upgrades and new techniques, and I look forward to hearing it again after you’ve given it another pass. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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