Liontamer Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 (edited) Remixer name: AzureKevin Real name: Kevin Che E-mail: Website: UserID: 38131 Game: Radical Dreamers Name of arrangement: Treasure Beyond Dreams Name of individual song: Ending ~ Le Tresor Interdit My comments: Hello! It's been a loooooong time since the last time I submitted a song! In the past 15 years or so, I've taught myself guitar and have been steadily improving my composition, recording, and production skills. Ending ~ Le Tresor Interdit is one of my favorite video game songs of all time, and I wanted to be able to do it justice with real acoustic and electric guitars. I've been heavily inspired by rock bands such as Porcupine Tree, and my aim was to create an arrangement in that style. I hope it was successful! Thanks for listening! Edited July 15, 2022 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 29, 2022 Author Share Posted May 29, 2022 Ooooooooh, it's awesome to hear from you again, Kevin. Really good to see that you're still doing music! I never forgot about this piece: https://ocremix.org/community/topic/9395-no-final-fantasy-5-distant-world/ - You're gonna think I was upset it was never resubmitted. It was something where the arrangement was super strong and had a nice atmosphere, so I would have loved to have heard a revision on it to tighten up the mixing. Always thought you had promise and hoped you'd continue making music no matter what. Nice whistling intro, followed by the guitars coming in at :15. I liked the doubled leads at :31; very unique tone on them. Not a big fan of the distorted guitar from :51-1:06; it's not inherently bad, it's just mostly panned in the right ear, so the balance isn't pleasing to listen to. Then the backing lines from 1:08-1:27, I guess those are electric guitars as well. The mixing's odd on them and seems to create mud in the same frequency range as something else. Then there's the melody as the warbling lead from 1:27-2:55; the production on that also doesn't work for me. It serves as the lead, but it's not really in the foreground and the drumming and acoustic guitar both sound louder than the lead, which itself somehow has some piercing frequencies. Arrangement-wise, this is creatively expanded, and well-performed; that's rock solid and doesn't need to be changed in any way. Now it's just a matter of mixing/EQing these parts properly so that all of the placement makes sense. Hopefully, a musician judge can give some detailed suggestings on how they'd address this. I could also see this getting some YESes regardless. That said, maybe on monitors, my issues would seem like not as big a deal; I feel like the problems I've noticed are certainly exacerbated on headphones. Great base here though, Kevin, and sincerely wonderful to know that you're still making music. Definitely try to refine this if it doesn't make it; this concept absolutely has a home here and is at least 85% of the way there, IMO. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 This is a lovely arrangement. Really chilled-out vibe; I'm picturing someone playing guitar looking out over the ocean as the sun sets. I listened to a few Porcupine Tree tracks too - cool sound! Submissions like this are tough to evaluate because they're so close to being absolutely wonderful, yet there are numerous small production issues that hold them back. While the package as a whole is an enjoyable listen, I feel there are a few easy tweaks that would make this stand out. Kick - Your kick sample has no presence outside the low end, which means it's fighting the bass on those low F and G notes around 44-50Hz. It also sounds a bit 'boomy' to me, like a mic without a pop filter. Consider swapping the sample for something an octave higher perhaps, or notching your bass EQ around the kick frequency to reduce the competition in the low end. Width - The overall sound feels a bit narrow on my headphones. I took the liberty of setting the stereo width to 200% in my DAW and it sounded a lot better. Give those guitars more space to breathe! Better do it on the individual channels though, not the master. Distortion/resonance - You have a lot of effects on the guitars and lead synth, and especially when they get to the higher notes, some of the distortion or resonance effects border on the shrill. See if you can pare that back a bit, although if it's recorded through hardware effects pedals then it won't be as easy a fix. Tambourine - This is far too dry and doesn't sit in the soundscape at all well. It's way up there at 14kHz and needs some reverb to help it sit in amongst the rest of the instrumentation The heavily-distorted guitar around 0:50 has some nice layering around 0:56 that's buried somewhat by being panned in the same fashion. Try swapping the panning of that harmony to the left side and/or adding a bit of ping-pong delay to the heavily distorted guitar so that it balances out the left side of the stereo field a bit more. I think the overall clarity of the mix could be improved too, but hopefully with a bit more stereo width and some tweaks to the low and high end, it'll feel both clearer and more cohesive. The little tweaks outlined above could make a big difference, and I'd love to hear it back again after another production pass. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 love the original. such a classic. your whistling intro is notably sharp on your first big sustain. the rest is fine. keep air going to keep it on pitch! my primary issue with this is the resonance on the lead instruments. the lead in the second half of the track has some cool movement on it, but it's got way too much presence up high and is shrill and uncomfortable to listen to, and the very broad frequency range it covers serves to cover up your great backing instrumentation. i am not certain a heavily effected lead like that really fits an acoustic ballad, to be honest, and simplifying it a bit in tone and frequency range might be for the better. similarly, the lead guitar in the first part is distorted so heavily it loses some context in the mix. i do like the tone, honestly, but again i think it's a bit too much distortion for the track. the lead instrument being so loud and present throughout is super obvious in the fadeout, where when it drops there's suddenly way less sound going on. making that sustain/fade a little more lined up will help a lot. i agree with darksim that there's no beater tone on the kick and so there's a bit of clashing down there. i also agree with LT that it's unbalanced in my ears occasionally. this needs some mastering love but is a fun idea. i like the personalization you've put on the original and the backing guitars and approach really fit it pretty well. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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