*NO* Super Mario Sunshine "Love on Noki Beach"

[Emunator]

ReMixer name: Neon X
EMail: 
Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV8NwzoUa9I9HD1YXRIXp3g
UserID: 37046

Name of game: Super Mario Sunshine
Name of arrangement: Love On Noki Beach
Name of song: Noki Depths theme
Original composer: Koji Kondo
Link to original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn0jIAJU-Es

For clarification:
Name of remix: Love On Noki Beack
Name of original song: Noki Depths theme

 

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Chimpazilla]

Short and sweet little cover here.  I really like the sounds you used, and the drum groove is a nice addition.  The writing is verbatim most of the time, but there are plenty of additions to make this stand out.  I especially like the writing from 1:36-2:24.   The arrangement works well, although I admit I would prefer another breakdown and another full section before the outro.  The arrangement feels unnecessarily short, but what's here works well.  However, the mixing needs some cleanup.  In the beginning, the bass is heavy in the mid-lows, which is accentuated when the pad begins.  I recommend removing the low-lows from that pad, and also from any leads.  That alone will clear up enough headroom for a full master without overcompression.  As it stands, the master is too loud and clipping during the fullest section.  I can hear the compressor pumping as it works too hard from 1:36-2:24.  Also, make sure the reverb on your bass instrument is low-cut so you're not reverbing lows (adding mud).  I recommend also sidechaining your kick to every element in the mix in varying amounts, not enough to sound "zomg EDM" but enough to clear out space when the kick hits, thus uncluttering the mix.  Please clean it up and send it back, it's very cute.

NO (resubmit)

[Liontamer]

Sounds ultra-conservative to start, so we'll see where it goes. The lead at :12 wasn't my taste, but we'll see where it goes. With the dropout of the melodt at :48, I was waiting to see how this would stand apart from the original. Some beat entered in at :59 and I'm not getting a synergy with that new part together with the padding or lead. Nice drop at 1:24 though. Yeah, same with the beats at 1:35 (which were getting buried), I'm not getting the feeling that these sounds glue together. The source melody was interpreted more from 1:35-2:28, so that was a positive thing. By 2:00, I'm still feeling the soundscape is very cluttered and that the beats from 1:35-2:24 plodded, mainly because of the snare, which also had an underwhelming tone. I liked the closing section from 2:26 until the end, which had a lovely ethereal quality to it.

I'd also argue the lead could stand to be changed or have some effects applied on it to give it a more complementary sound with the other instrumentation; I apologize for not better articulating why the lead and drums don't seem to work well here. I'm glad Chimpa gave feedback on how to possibly clean this up, because I agreed on the textures being too muddy. Incorporating some other ideas to help the first half stand apart from the style of the original wouldn't be a bad idea either. Solid development that still needs fine tuning on the production side.

NO (resubmit)

[MindWanderer]

I enjoyed this, and didn't mind the imbalanced sections the way Kris did.

The bassy intro was clearly intentional and vibrant; the mid-lows seem fine.  However, I'm listening on headphones that don't have much sub-bass to them, and I can see from a spectrum analyzer that there is indeed a lot of presence in the subs.  That's a big part of what's causing the pumping Kris mentioned, and I can definitely hear that.  Similarly, this peaks at +8 dB; the clipping may not be audible on everyone's setup, but it's there and it's causing distortion.

The snare sounded fine to me, though the kicks are lost in the mud in the lows.

I don't think there's a ton of work to be done here, but it's not a 5-minute fix, and it's pretty critical.  I hope you can send this back to us soon!

NO (resubmit)