*NO* Pokémon Sapphire Version "Rainy Horizon"

[Emunator]

ReMixer name: FreakyT

Real name: Dan Tilden

Website: https://soundcloud.com/freakified

Userid (number, not name) on our forums: 28818

 

Name of game(s) arranged: Pokémon Sapphire Version

Name of arrangement: Rainy Horizon

Name of individual song(s) arranged: Route 118/119

Additional information about game including composer, system, etc: Composer: Go Ichinose, System: Game Boy Advance

 

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc:

 

The music of Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire has always been my favorite of the series, probably because at the time it felt like an amazing leap from the minimalist music of the original Game Boy games. In particular, Route 119 always stood out to me -- not just because of the song itself, but also of how it was presented in the game. The song's bombastic brass-heavy instrumentation was accompanied by a showcase of the game's new weather effects; exploring the detailed colorful surroundings in pouring rain and crashing thunder while triumphant music played really just struck my younger self as awe-inspiring.

 

OCRemix was what got me into music composition & arrangement in the first place, so I've always hoped that one day I could have a mix worthy of inclusion on OCRemix! For this mix, I wanted to take things a bit slower than the fast-pace of the original and focus on a more chill piano-driven groove. (In particular, I would cite The Orichalcon's OCRemix classic "Person, Place, or Groove"  as inspiration.) Originally, it was more piano-driven, but I felt like it was a bit repetitive, so I added the synth lead as a tribute to the brass-heavy nature of the original song.

 

I made this track some time ago as a PRC bonus mix, and had always intended to submit it to OCR after "improvements". However, every time I made changes, they didn't necessarily seem better -- just different. Given that, I decided that it was finally time to just submit the current version, and hope that it was well-received!

 

Thanks for your consideration!

--FreakyT

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Emunator

[MindWanderer]

Nice mellow piano & drum.  Pleasant and smooth.

...and then the synth hits.  It's such an odd choice.  You say it was added to reduce repetitiveness, but it plays for the whole piece except the intro and outro, so it only replaces one sort of repetitiveness for another.  And it's such a bland synth.  However, it's arranged well, and played with humanism, and has some reverb to make it sound like it's more or less in the same space.  I don't think it's the greatest choice, but it's not a dealbreaker.

Otherwise this is nice.  It does take a fair amount of creative license with the source material for extended periods, but I don't have doubts about the source being dominant.  It checks all the boxes for me.

YES

[DarkSim]

Ya know, at the beginning of this I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but by the end it was a really enjoyable listen.

The drums sound pretty weak to introduce the track, and the piano is a little behind the beat on some occasions before the synth comes in. Once it gets going though, everything seems to click as a whole, and it's much more than the sum of its parts. The extended synth soloing, and the character of that (admittedly slightly basic... but let's call it 'retro') sound put me in mind of Kool & The Gang's 'Summer Madness' from 1974. Indeed, if you were going to pursue this kind of genre in future, that track is a good place to start for inspiration.

The percussion, although very generic-sounding, has some decent variation and fills, providing a solid foundation for the piano and synth to do their thing. The arpeggiated electric guitar chords and subtle pad do enough to bolster the dynamics and fill out the soundscape nicely. The drums peter out somewhat disappointingly, however the piano performance seems to get tighter towards the end, which is a good way to finish.

YES

[prophetik music]

the piano and drums do sound a bit disjointed in the intro, like they're not near each other in the mix, and there's a ton of sustain tone in the piano which sounds weird (like there's not enough attack and too much sustain tone). i also wasn't a fan of the drums being very rigid - there's some variation in dynamics, but they are mega-on the beat perfectly. some quant there would help that a lot. this is a subtle thing but immediately gave me a weird taste when listening to it.

once everything gets going, though, as the other judges said, it feels better. the bass is a little quiet/hard to hear considering how small the ensemble is. i'd like to get a bit more of the finger tone off of it - some more treble would do wonders to help it be more audible. it's doing fine stuff so it just needs a bit more.

that lead synth is so blah. it's played fine, but there's no tonal variation, essentially no dynamics until the end, and hardly any breaks. this is a hard pass by me - there needs to be some sort of envelope or variation on this. even just turning down the sustain volume to give it some natural movement off the attack would be a huge change.

the intro feels weird, and the drums intro and outro isn't my favorite, but that synth is a deal-breaker for me. some more attention to the body of it would be huge. adding more space to the performance (and some glide) would also help vary it up a lot. as it is though, this feels like a workshop track still.

 

 

NO

[Chimpazilla]

The piano playing does sound disjointed to me too, a little behind the beat here and there.  I hear this especially between 0:32-0:45, right before the synth lead begins.  The drums are weak, quiet and fairly repetitive other than a few fills here and there.  The bass is in there somewhere but wow it's quietly mixed.  When the synth lead enters, it is a very simple, vanilla sound. This lead is quite loud and it is panned very widely, and it competes with the piano in the stereo field, rather than the synth being panned more centered in the soundscape.  To my ears, the piano and synth are playing on top of each other rather than the lead having its own space in the mix.  When the guitar comes in, it sounds super quiet and almost entirely mono to me.  I would expect a backing guitar to be a wider sound than the lead.  Everything playing has too much lows, giving the mix a muddy feel. The piano and lead both have so much in the low end that I can barely hear the bass playing.  The mixing and stereo-field placement of instruments make the track feel odd to me, as if each element were playing in its own separate universe, not really gelling with the other instruments.  

I do like the changed groove of this arrangement from the original, this beat is much more mellow and groovy than the march pattern in the source tune.  The energy of the remix arrangement however doesn't evolve or change too much once established, giving it a repetitive feel despite new elements entering as it moves along.  I think this is a good start but the mixing and stereo placement just feel too strange to me, the arrangement is repetitive, and the instruments are mostly on autopilot all the way through other than the synth lead which noodles along over it.

NO

[Liontamer]

I essentially commissioned The Orichalcon's "Person, Place, or Groove?", so I'm glad it could serve as inspiration! Opens up sounding stilted, both the piano and particularly the drums, so the parts lack synergy.

From :21-on, the bassline does register if I pay close attention, but it just gets absorbed into the background and isn't meaningfully audible, which was a problem throughout. It's just too subtle.

I liked the tone of the lead at :44, though I'm partial to anything reminding me of the Sega Genesis. But does it genuinely work with the rest of the instrumentation?

Throughout, the sparse percussion doesn't properly drive things forward, so that feels like the main culprit on why this doesn't click. I really liked the ending section from 2:40-on; great ending section (though there's a dissonant chord behind the last note at 3:08; it didn't hugely bother me, but I still noticed it).

I didn't wrap my head around the arrangement, but without the "performance" feel cohesive, the arrangement's unfortunately a moot point for me. I'd love to hear another pass as this with smoother-sounding multitracking and bassline that registers. Great potential here, Dan!

NO (resubmit)

[XPRTNovice]

We start out nice, with the piano and drums tightly together with a well-mixed bassline, although I will say that it feels a little weak overall. The opening piano is very warm, which works later in the arrangement when it's covered by other instruments, but in the beginning it just feels a little fuzzy, by which I mean it's very mid and mid-low heavy, and we lack any sparkle at the top of the instrumentation. That's easily fixed, but there's a lot more going on with this mix that needs attention. 

Overall rhythmic synergy is on shaky ground; if the piano was humanly performed, which my gut tells me it was, there are times where it falls out of time with the drums, which also, in their own way, feel slightly out of time. I feel it really start to get out of time at :35, and it doesn't fall back into what I feel like is a groove for 20-30 seconds after that. Tasteful quantization could help with this. 

The synth at :50 is intensely jarring. It doesn't seem to go with the arrangement, and it's way too loud in the mix, dead center, and loosely performed. 

The guitar at 1:43 is loud, and dead-center, competing with the synth. 

The drums are also seemingly dead-center, from what I can hear, or very minimally spread, which competes with everything. There's so much L-R space available in this mix, especially since the instrumentation is so sparse, that spreading out the kit is absolutely necessary. 

I wasn't really able to get past the performance and the mixing to get too far into the arrangement critique, but I agree with Larry's comment above that it's generally moot by the time you look at all of the other things going on with the mix. 

NO

[Emunator]

When I first paneled this track, I felt like something was off but I was having a hard time articulating. The other judges have done a great job articulating the issues present here, so I will recap some of the positives first. Your soundscape is mellow and intimate, which suits the source tune really well. It's really challenging to work with sequenced instruments with an arrangement where everything is so exposed, but the instrument choices and stylistic changes are on a solid foundation. You've definitely got potential here!

This feels like a very polished demo, but it's lacking the level of polish in several critical areas that other judges have elaborated on well - there is very little synergy between the different instruments both in terms of mixing and performance. The piano frequently falls out of rhythm with the groove, and the drums don't feel like they're living in the same place as the rest of the instruments. The tone of the lead synth is perfect, but the lack of expression and modulation again makes this feel more like a demo than a finished product. 

The mixing definitely should be addressed with some stereo widening and panning, making sure your reverb levels are consistent, and generally adding a bit of bite to the track through some light saturation, perhaps. I'd also suggest expanding on your backing pads and layering in more texture throughout the track if you're still struggling to make everything feel like it's glued together.

I want to stress that this is a great start to a track, but it's not there yet for me. Best of luck, looking forward to your next submission!

NO