Emunator Posted May 22, 2022 Share Posted May 22, 2022 (edited) Hi, I'd like to submit a ReMix for evaluation for OCReMix. You'll find it attached as an MP3 file. --- ReMix info --- ReMixer name: MFG38 Real name: Santtu Pesonen Website: santtupesonenmusic.com Game arranged: Unreal Name of arrangement: Sunrise on Na Pali Song(s) arranged: Dusk Horizon Comments: Unreal is one of my favorite FPS games and I'd been wanting to pay tribute to it in some form for a while, so when the inspiration finally hit me recently, I decided to take full advantage of it. The end result of that inspired period of time is this remix of the track "Dusk Horizon". When I set out to make the remix, I knew I wanted to keep as much of the original vibe as I could while simultaneously putting my own spin on it. It felt like a good excuse to properly put my Behringer TD-3 synthesizer through its paces. The TD-3 plays the main bassline - other synths I ended up using in the track were the Korg Minilogue, with which I tracked the lead parts, and Massive and Monark by Native Instruments. Drums were provided by yet another NI plugin, Polyplex, with randomly generated sounds that I kept hitting the Randomize button on until I had something I figured would work. --- Game information --- Released in: 1998, for: PC Developers: Epic Games, Legend Entertainment Composers: Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopée, Andrew Sega, Michiel van den Bos Link to soundtrack: Edited June 24, 2022 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Oh boy, I love me some Unreal. Well, Unreal Tournament, at least - I never played its predecessor, but I see the composers are the same, and this ReMix certainly captures the aesthetic perfectly. The sound design is excellent throughout; you’re obviously putting that hardware to good use! Let’s get into the play-by-play: Ambient intro with some phasing/chorus effects to set the scene leads into a bassline worthy of UT. It’s not the same as the source tune, but it’s close. We get 8 whole bars of the bassline alone, which seems excessive, as good as it is. The fill to introduce the drums was exactly what I was expecting, and very satisfying. That hi-hat panning is a big problem though, albeit a very easy fix. At the moment it’s panned almost hard-left, and sticks out like a sore thumb, particularly on headphones. Bring it back into the middle, maybe only 20% left, and it’ll be fine. A little more variation in the patterns wouldn’t go amiss either. Moving onto the A section, and I’m struggling to find a melody in the source tune. What I think you’ve done here is very clever - it sounds like you’ve sped up the long, sweeping strings from this point in the source, and added a few connecting notes to make a melody. I’ve gotta say, it sounds great, and is very catchy. The synth lead reminds me of the one in the UT99 track ‘Go Down’. After running through that, there’s a cool development of the bassline, and countermelody to go with it which complements the A section perfectly. We then drop back to the A section for 8 bars, then another 8 with a softer lead synth. The solo/B section is up next, using an 8-bar loop repeated twice, with an extra synth layer in the second run-through. It’s a decent section, and shows off some more originality in the track. The break maintains the synth layer heard in the second part of the solo, and not a lot else, for 8 bars, before bringing a kick pattern in for the next 8. Then there’s a 16-bar section of drum randomisation, and some snippets of the bass arp to fill it out. After 8 bars, I was tired of the randomisation (which is very obviously random), and was hoping the beats would sound more curated for the rest of their duration. I think if you’re employing randomisation to things, there has to be more manual editing afterwards, otherwise you’ll be there forever trying to get something that sounds interesting. What you’ve got here sounds OK, but certainly doesn’t justify 44 seconds of time in the track. Finishing off, there’s another 8-bar run-through of the A melody, followed by 16 bars of the countermelody. The outro is another 8 bars of the bass arp, into a fadeout. Source usage wise, I think it’s thin, however if I’m right on the melody, that’s present for a good portion of the track (32/132 bars), and the bass arp is there almost throughout. The bass arp, like the melody though, is inferred rather than verbatim at any point, so that’s why I’d say it’s fairly thin. Perhaps another judge can nail the usage down a bit more tightly, but I will say again that this track definitely has the Unreal aesthetic, so it’s got that going for it. The main issue I have with this piece is the length of time that sections seem to drag on for. I mentioned the drum randomisation earlier - that could be cut in half easily. Also consider the bass arp intro and outro - in total there are 16 bars where the bass arp is playing almost exclusively. Now I know it sounds good, but that’s way too gratuitous. You could halve that time at both ends and I wouldn’t miss it. When you have such a good framework for a track, you want to distil the best bits, not have them outstay their welcome. There’s a fair bit more I’d like to cut down on, but those 2 sections were definitely the most noticeable areas that would benefit from trimming. I’ve listened to this track for over an hour now, and the more I listen, the more I like it! I can see why you want to keep it going for longer, but if you could give it a trim and sort out that hi-hat panning, we’ll be in business. Hope to hear this one back soon. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 (edited) There's a lot I like about this. The general tone, with the Korg melody over the Behringer bass, sounds as good in practice as it does on paper. Beautifully chill. However, you absolutely lost me at 3:45 when the random drum solo pops in. You could make that work with more intentionality, but honestly I don't think it does with the rest of the piece at all. And it goes on forever. And then the section after it is is a loop back to 1:42, with what sounds like a wholesale copy-paste job. It would probably work if instead you transitioned to a climax here, e.g. a loop with some extra layering, such as an arp or counterpoint. I do have some production notes as well, although they're pretty minor. Your bass has good timbre, but it's too quiet and the frequency distribution needs tweaking. It caps out at -15dB (which should be -12dB; you have about 3 dB of headroom you could stand to get rid of), and is almost completely flat from 0-120 Hz. This particular genre needs bass with oomph. It should be louder in general, especially in the 50-100 Hz range. You can put a high pass at 20-40 Hz to give yourself more wiggle room in the audible frequencies. Pump up the volume, especially the bass, and come up with a different ending, and I'll be excited to put this on the front page. NO (resubmit) Edited June 15, 2022 by MindWanderer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 24, 2022 Share Posted June 24, 2022 i love that all the PC soundtracks that were around this time sound the same. it's such an iconic sound. the intro section is about twice as long as it needs to be at everything, but the beat and bass are a great groove, but those hard-left hats are real irritating. the bass and kick are running into each other also, a bit more beater tone and less sub freqs on the kick will help give it impact without losing the meat of the bass. the melodic content is clear, although i thought that the synth needed some more natural movement or dynamics to keep it more alive with the long sustains and slower overall tempo. same with the reedy synth that's right after it. i wasn't a fan of then hearing the first lower synth section copy-pasta'd right after it, too. it wouldn't have taken much to give it a bit more noodling to make it more unique. the squelch in the bass opening up was fun, and the next section here with the toots in each ear echoing is a creative idea. i still wish the leads had more movement. the break is wholly too long - this is 45 seconds of nothing in the middle of a groove-based track - and i agree with MW that the drum break could have been prepped better both from an instrumentation standpoint and by introducing glitchy drums earlier (maybe during that overly-long break?). it also is notably louder than the entire rest of the track so that's distracting too. we then get copy-pasta'd material for like a minute and it ends on a too-long fade-out that isn't parabolic (i don't mind the repetition in the bassline, but it could have just stopped, it didn't need 20 seconds of fadeout where 10 of it was almost inaudible). the difference between the drum break and the main body of the work is much more noticeable here since the drumloop feels mostly the same (and not glitchy at all) for the rest of this. there's way too much below 40hz which lends to it feeling quiet overall. cutting out that will make it easier to properly compress it and fill it in. lowering the snare volume a touch also will free up a lot of middle freqs. that'll allow for some more aggressive compression which should let the bass feel beefier. overall i think the mastering is lackluster and the copy-pasted parts really are a downer. you've got some great ideas. i think if you cut like 30-45s off the total track time, beefed up the mastering notably by cutting out extraneous freqs, and added more humanization / creativity to the copy-paste parts so they're not copy-paste, and you'll have a great track that's ready to go. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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