Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambience [Chillwave/Vaporwave]

[freeforms]

Hi everyone, I just finished my cover of David Wise's "Aquatic Ambience" from Donkey Kong Country. I primarily used analog synthesizers to compose most of this song. Let me know what you think!

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Hemophiliac
Fixed embedding

[Nase]

all analogue? certainly competent.

my crititque: it kind of climaxes at 30 seconds onwards. that's why i'd call it "competent", but i think you could do more to put your own stamp on it.

[freeforms]

5 hours ago, Nase said:

all analogue? certainly competent.

my crititque: it kind of climaxes at 30 seconds onwards. that's why i'd call it "competent", but i think you could do more to put your own stamp on it.

Thanks for the feedback! Definitely going to work more on my sound design and experiment with implementing more unique "signature" sounds to add more personality in future tracks.

[Hemophiliac]

Evaluation:

So you say you primarily used analog synthesizers to put this together, that's rad!

The way you morph and evolve each synth element from beginning to end is quite beautiful and well executed. 

With that said the arrangement itself is where I take issue.  This is mostly the original source with slick analog work.  You need to add some of your own flavors and spices to the arrangement to make it unique and your own.  That could be a new section, or embellishments to the melody, or new other parts/countermelodies.

A few specific notes:
1:19-1:38 with the filter on the drums here, the compression on the kick pumps too hard compared to the rest of the track.  Everywhere else it's fine but here in this short section it's different.

2:01 super smooth base slide, liked this a lot.

2:13 THIS!  The upper arp gliss that you added on top of everything is great.  More original stuff like this is what we need to make this your own.

2:25 drum fill ending into fade out is very unfilfilling especially for a track that's only 2:48 long.

In it's current state, I can't see this passing.  Production is fine, it's the arrangement that needs work as indicated above.  This could be a very awesome track with some work on the arrangement, and the synth work is very nice.

[Gario]

Adding my two cents to the mix, this is a gorgeous arrangement that stays in the same place sonically throughout. I love where the sound is, don't get me wrong - it's a great combination of clean and crunchy that gives a lot of flavor - but it centers around the same arp loop and drum pattern (with fills) throughout. With a whole theme that one could play with and the ability to drop out that admittedly great sounding arp periodically (as well as change up that drum pattern from time to time), there are so many more places that you can (and probably should) take this, as right now this sounds like a proof of concept.

Mind you, a great proof of concept, but still otherwise incomplete for what it could be. I look forward to where you take this one, because it sounds fantastic so far.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Gario