Emunator Posted May 28, 2022 Share Posted May 28, 2022 Contact Information Your ReMixer name: Mel Decision Your real name: Mel Choyce-Dwan Your email address: Your website: https://melchoyce.design/ Your userid: 37511 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged: Super Mario 64 Name of arrangement: The Slow Pull of the Space Docks Name of individual song(s) arranged: Dire Dire Docks Your own comments about the mix: I created this piece as part of a challenge to "write an arrangement of any video game song, but make it space-related." I immediately knew that I wanted to do a take on Dire Dire Docks. There's a thin line between deep sea and space, and I wanted to see if I could actually achieve it. I relied on layering lots of soft pianos and synths, and drenched the whole piece in reverb. I wanted to give the feeling of drifting through space, staring out through the window of a spaceship into the black. Kind of peaceful and a little mysterious, with a touch of awe. Thanks for considering! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 If everything were just about voting on source tune choice, this would always get my vote. Nothing but great memories playing this game as a teenager. Koji Kondo is a legend of legends. The arrangement premise here certainly has my attention. Opening synth at :27's generic, but spacey, so we'll see where it goes. Melody arrives at :47 and the soundscape's somehow cramped, muddy, and too loud. Arrangement-wise, it's a relatively straightforward transposing, but it's effective, albeit too loud as I said. By 2:50, I was waiting for this to go somewhere else due to the repetition here. 3:17 hit a different section, but I'd argue it should come earlier by trimming some fat. 3:36 went back to :47's section with a cut-and-paste, and I was waiting for any sort of variation. Once 4:17's melody arrived for a last run and it was still the same, I threw in the towel. Again, I like the concept, and in a vacuum, I could even go for just looping and vegging out to this one. But once you've gotten to 2:34, you've essentially heard it all, and that ain't gonna do. I'll leave it to other judges to better detail how they'd tweak the mixing/production. Maybe listening to some Mario Galaxy would stoke some further ideas to vary the instrumentation and/or textures up; this doesn't necessarily have to overhaul anything, but you've lots of repetition within a slow-tempo'ed, 5-minute piece, and that's difficult to look past. Awesome base here though, Mel; I'd love to hear how much more you can develop this. Even if this somehow didn't get passed and posted, you're on my radar now, and I'm genuinely looking forward to what else you come up with. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted July 19, 2022 Share Posted July 19, 2022 i came out of this feeling exactly the same way. There's a good hook here, but that's really it. By 2:35 you've heard everything this has to offer. In fact, I could make a case that by 1:50, you know what this is all about, and actually listening through it doesn't come with anything unexpected. There's also something about the mode that strikes me as off. It feels like it's not quite settling into one. Maybe one of our judges with a better background in music theory can put a name to it, if they hear what I hear. I think the foundation is fine, and I don't hear any egregious production issues, for what it is. It just needs more ideas. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) You've changed the harmonies here. I'm not well-enough versed in music theory to comment on it, but wow it feels dark, and not necessarily in a good way. The way that piano sounds, it could almost fit in a season-one Westworld episode, old-school (sounds like an upright) yet apocalyptic. I think the other Js nailed it, this track just comes off sounding overly sparse, instrument-wise and writing-wise. I like the idea of a "space mix" but just leaving the soundscape bare and depressing doesn't really accomplish that. What about adding a proper bass instrument, and maybe some "spacey" sfx? Sweeps and chimes, beeps and boops, and whooshing effects? The piano and e-piano in the mix have way too many lows, perhaps since they are trying to cover the entire spectrum? To me the mix has a muddy low end without having a proper low end, if that makes sense. Very interesting idea and a great start, but more is needed to make this a complete arrangement. I'm actually going to batsignal @prophetik musicand have him make some comments about the harmonies, I think that might be helpful. The section between 2:08-2:35 bothers me the most, harmonically. NO Edited July 30, 2022 by Chimpazilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted July 31, 2022 Share Posted July 31, 2022 this is already NO'd based on 3N at this point, so i won't do a full commentary, but rather just talk about the harmonic content. although there is a TON of lows from the various keys that is not good, it's mega mud city even if there's no mud in space. my one comment overall is going to be that you can make a sparse, spare soundscape that evokes the deep nothingness of space without cutting it down to two instruments and an echo pad and 65x too much reverb. there's a lot more that could be done in here both in terms of synthesis and in terms of countermelodic content and sfx to keep it interesting without just repeating it twice and slapping a major chord on the end. space is simultaneously empty and enormously full of otherworldly things that we can't comprehend. i get that you're going for mass effect galaxy map feel, but there really does need to be more here. i actually like what the instruments are being played (although it's hard to hear everything over the mega sustain), but intentional simplicity in a track is actually pretty complicated usually. i'd encourage you to experiment more. re: harmonies, much of what could be called weirdness that i'm hearing is a result of long-sustain stuff that has a lot of overtones. the stuff kris is talking about didn't sound 'wrong' on first listen. at least part of it though maybe is because it's in g dorian (key of F, sounds like it has a flat 3, normal 6, flat 7). dorian has some odd chords, not the least of which is a major IV (normally in minor, which dorian feels like, iv is flat) and a flat ii (in minor, ii is diminished and often used in fully diminished form with a vii as the root, or as a major chord with a flat vii in melodic minor, both are used in dominant fashion and dorian ii isn't). so i think it's because you're expecting to hear minor stuff and you're hearing dorian, and it feels weird. those weird chords are used in odd inversions too which doesn't help, it's unsupported and so it's hard for your ear to sort in the short time it hears it. there aren't many Es in this piece to wake you up to that it's not minor either, but that's not a problem, just not ideal. so i don't think there's anything wrong about the harmonic content specifically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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