Emunator Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 (edited) Marc Belmont Marc Fontanet 37637 Submission Information Castlevania Adventure Holy Battle Battle of Holy (Stage 1) I am Marc Belmont, from Spain. I have recorded a tribute album to Castlevania Adventure 1 & 2 Heavy Metal style. I share the first track to see what you think.. Edited March 22, 2022 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 12, 2022 Share Posted March 12, 2022 Mixing of the lead guitar at :47 makes no sense being so far back and practically swallowed into the soundscape. Electrosynths from 2:17-2:33 were super bootleg, but at least they're decently produced. The organ from 2:48-3:00 was also pretty fake, but used in a way where the sound just came off as stylistic. Less so for the fakey strings from 1:52-2:01, but those were very brief. The ending from 3:48-4:21 with the repeating bars and fadeout went on so long that it ended up hurting the finish and feeling too much like a cut-and-paste way to end it. It could have faded to 0 around 4:07 and saved it from becoming overlong. Spirited and expansive metal adaptation that easily clears the bar on that level, IMO. No idea why the encoding's so low at 128kbps, though unsure how much better this would sound at 192kbps or above. I'm going to say YES on arrangement, with a tentative NO on production/mixing. Right now, too many parts are blending together at similar levels and panning, so something's gotta be tweaked and improved there. We'll see if any of the musician Js agree, but bolstering some of the faker-sounding parts (e.g. strings at 1:52, synths at 2:17) would be nice, and figuring out how to restore some higher frequencies and get the overall mixing sounding more balanced would be great. Nice job so far, Marc, and would love to see this posted in some form. Don't forget to submit a WAV or at least a 192kbps MP3 (rather than 128kbps). NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir_NutS Posted March 19, 2022 Share Posted March 19, 2022 This is an underrated soundtrack in the castlevania series, so I'm always up for some more remixes for it (hell even produced one myself). This one is also one of my favorites and possibly one of the most recognizable tracks from the soundtrack. The source is utilized throughout, and while it starts a bit cover-ish it does develop substantially as the song goes on and I am digging all the inclusions and changes. Arrangement-wise, I really have no issues with it. The production however is a different matter. For some reason some instruments sound like they're drowning, or like they're really far away, (i.e. the church organ in almost every instance) There's sadly also the issue of sample quality which is not the best in most instruments used, including some of the drums. Synths are really cheap sounding and I don't know why it's this way because it's super easy to get good lead synth sounds even with free VSTs. That section at 2:14 is just not good at all, between the mechanical and fake nature of those drums and the anemic synth lead it just felt really out of place because the metal sections, outside of production issues, are not this bad. Looking at the mix here in my daw, I'm not seeing much wrong with the frequency response other than it's kinda flat but I did notice the mix sounded substantially better to me with slightly more midrange, a small dip in the upper midrange and a good boost to the highs. It is possible the mix may have an overabundance of lows and that's contributing to the drowned feeling of the instruments, but I don't want to speculate too much on this as the most I can do is try to hack some eq on it as it is. I do notice the lows become this monolithic kinda sound where the bass is really hard to make out and you just get a ball of sound playing the root. I don't like the fadeout ending, something better could be done there, but this is not 100% necessary. I have no issues with the performance, It's all good. But I can't give it a pass on production. Needs a lot of cleanup. I may have gone a bit hard on this one but it's not nearly as bad, and could be easily cleaned up and resubbed and I hope that happens. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 (edited) big dark mastering on this one. the initial chords under the organ sound super dark, and the synth choir, big room reverb, and heavy low presence certainly give it a specific vibe that's really fitting. i agree with larry that the lead guitar is pretty far back under the big drums (cymbals are nonexistent, though, it's just static that's filtered out from the sound of it). there is a lot of presence below 40hz, not much at all above 3khz, and a hard cut at 16khz. that's why it both sounds boomy in the lows and lacking in highs, and it does sound muddy in the kick/bass. a harder cut under 40hz would help a lot, as well as an EQ pass on the rhythm guitar, snare (the kick's got more treble in it than the snare does!), overhead/cymbals, synths, and lead (in that order). brightening it up would add a ton of clarity to it i think since you could smile the EQ some and turn down the upper mids a touch without losing punch. i admittedly like the cheesy lead synths and crappy string synth since it feels super 80s and IMO fits the style with the huge arena reverb and super bright and loud kick drum. arrangement-wise this is fun. there's more than enough expansion for me and it never loses the energetic feel through a variety of exploratory things. the ending is indeed two or three times as long as it should have been - use a proper parabolic curve to prevent it from overstaying its welcome. i actually think this is pretty close. it's pretty low-heavy and dense intentionally to give it a darker feel, but i think it's just too much. for me, just cut some of the sub-bass freqs, boost the highs a bit more so it's not dead above 3khz, and make the snare and lead less in the background, and this is done. fun track. NO Edited March 22, 2022 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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