Emunator Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 (edited) WarMachine Matt Thompson https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm590er3bCmsIHEYZbhmvRA userid: 31670 Haunted Castle "Dusk Ensemble" Remix of "Dont Wait Until Night" from Haunted Castle. Edited June 25, 2023 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Gritty metal with a bit of symphonic flair. One of my favorite things. What's not to like? ...well, a bit, actually. The orchestral elements are generally too quiet throughout. The brass and string section starting at 1:06, in particular, isn't loud enough for the melody line, and is overshadowed by the drums and bass. The backing chugs are too loud in general, but it especially stands out there. Even the drums are louder than they need to be for this mix. The crashes in particular cut through everything like a knife, but the snares eat up too much bandwidth, too, and even the kicks could be toned down a hair. There's also mixing issues during the two-guitar sections, like at 0:56: they step all over each other and become indecipherable. Some stereo separation at least, if not some EQ, would do a lot of good here. I was waffling on passing this, but when I got to the climax at 2:30 I'm afraid I tipped over. There's so much great arrangement work going on here, but the balance is so off that you can hardly hear any of it. (Also there's 13 seconds of silence at the end that should be trimmed out.) Killer arrangement; production needs another pass. NO (please resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 I'm just about recovering from that solo... damn! Love those drum fills at the end of it as well. What a great package this is. The perfect cocktail for OCRemix - an ancient source tune brought right up to date with a fantastic arrangement. My gut instinct tells me that it's over the bar as-is, however MW is absolutely right with his production crits. The clashes between guitars at 0:56 and 1:03 are easily avoidable with some stereo spacing and EQ/volume adjustment, and the following section with the brass needs bumping up in the mix. There's a loud splash cymbal at 1:23 that needs turning down. I'm not too bothered about the kick and snare - they sound OK to me, but it's always worth having a look to see if your EQ could be tightened up. Although I'd love to see this tightened up with another production pass, I'm going to vote with my gut on this one. I think there's more than enough to like about it, and the key elements are all handled well enough to cover the shortcomings of the secondary ones. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted September 15, 2022 Share Posted September 15, 2022 what a great original! i knew nothing about this game but recognized the composer's style right away. this is a really punchy mastering job. the beater head of the kick and the snare are both pretty loud compared to everything. it also feels very center-channel. 0:56 is messy, hard to tell if it's from performance timing or effecting. there's a weird splash in the right ear that gets used a few times and sounds odd. there's a nice break at 1:06 thematically, but MW is right in that the melodic content gets hidden due to a combo of too-loud backing guitar and not-clear-enough arrangement in the orchestral parts. to be honest, though, overall it's a great big fierce feel to the whole thing, and i really like that i can feel the kick and chugs in my gut. the solo really whips the llama's ass and doesn't overstay. the drums overall are fairly bog-standard but there's some fun stuff that they're doing especially near the end, and the track does a good job of saying what it wants to say and then being done. as is, i think it's over the bar once we trim off the end silence. if this goes back for more work, i'd suggest turning down the kick beater tone some, the snare a bit, the chugs a bit, and focusing more on clarity in your lead guitar tone. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted October 7, 2022 Share Posted October 7, 2022 Opening guitars, bass, and kick drum bring us to a powerful opening where my head is nodding at :20. However, the guitar lead is buried behind that great growling stuff, and it remains buried until the instruments drop out at :53. It's very well performed, though! And the stuff going on at :55 is great with the instruments dropping out. But then the second lead at :56 is very jarring; I'm not sure what happened there, but it's absolutely competing with the first lead, and therefore muddying up the harmonies. It sounds like it might be mixed completely different from the first lead guitar, or recorded in a lower-quality setting? It's hard for me to give good feedback on that since it's all so smushed together. We don't get any relief from that noise competition until 1:09, which is a long time to tolerate not understanding what is going on melodically. We seem to have a similar problem with the melody at 1:15. The synth/string melody get buried in the chonk-a-chonk of the rhythm guitars and that driving kick drum, which by 1:30 I was re-thinking whether or not I liked it that punchy just because it was killing other things in the mix. The ripping, well performed solo at 1:40 doesn't have the same problem, although not by much. Lead guitar, again, at 2:13 is buried for me. The content is phenomenal, so bring that shit out! It's worth having a seat at the front of the concert. Indeed by 2:40, I was really not digging the kick drum anymore. The snare and kick are too punchy, and on multiple listen-throughs, I started to understand that part of the problem is that you have space competition from L-R within anything that's not a rhythm guitar. All the synth and all the leads seem to be competing in the same space, which may lead to why I was so doubtful about hearing the melody. Ending at 2:50 was stellar. Really liked it. Arrangement wise I think this one is totally fine, but I really need more of those lead instrument parts before I think this can pass muster. It's not a 2 hour fix, but it's not a 5 minute fix either; bring those leads out, and see what you can do with that kick drum, and I think this is a great mix. NO (please resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 Structurally opens very similar to the original, but with a bombastic orchestral rock approach that I'm digging. The supporting bowed string line at :17 was getting buried; it's not terribly so, but you don't get real synnergy and interplay between the bowed strings and guitar as a result. Nice changeup in the instrumentation and textures at 1:06. Though the brass samples weren't good there, they did have their realism issues mitigated by have some body via chorusing, being surrounded by the guitars and drums with solid stereo placement to not mud together. The brass was mixed well enough to not expose them to the point where you can't look past them once we move on from them at 1:31. Nice shredding/comping section at 1:33; kind of shocked to realize the track's not actually been running that long by this point; it really feels like a lot of substance and energy got packed into a short timeframe. Solid transition back to the source theme at 2:06 followed by soloing over the source tune. The soundscape remained too crowded throughout, but I'll take what's there, as I can reasonably make out the partwriting. The arrangement's all sorts of great; the intensity's great, and the structure of source/soloing/source+soloing flows nicely. The mixing not being ideal definitely pulled this back some, but if the source files went kaput, I'd still want this posted as is, and that clarifies the call for me. A solid arrangement with solid but not ideal production/mixing = we ride. Nice work, Matt, and good luck with the rest of the vote! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 Cool, if ancient, source tune! I'm loving it. The arrangement is conservative yet fully transformed into metal. The arrangement opens strongly, but the brass and strings sound fake right off the bat. When the lead guitar starts at 0:17, I don't feel like I'm hearing lead writing but instead some kind of nebulous backing material, and this writing conflicts heavily with the string writing at that point, so my mind is a bit confused. Also the mixing is flat and the lead guitar is mushing into the soundscape rather than riding above it and standing out. There is so much distortion on the lead guitar so I don't hear/feel its fundamental punching through. Starting at 1:06, the brass is trying to carry the lead writing, but the sample sounds so weak and thin and the attack is uncomfortably slow. The string that follows, playing the lead, is equally thin and anemic, with inhuman sounding attacks. The soloing at 1:33 is better mixing-wise (in terms of the lead riding above the backing soundscape), but the mixing of that lead guitar is odd to me, it is sooooo wide, it sits at the exact same space in the soundscape as the backing chugs, leaving the center empty except for the kick and snare. At 2:06, it's back to the initial lead guitar which is mixed so weakly and the writing again conflicts with the backing string writing. The drums are mixed well enough, but that crash sound is super weak and almost cartoonishly out of place with the rest of the kit. I love the concept of this, but I think there are some major mixing and instrument-sample fixes that need to be addressed before this one is ready for the front page. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted June 11, 2023 Author Share Posted June 11, 2023 This is a badass arrangement with mixing that's really not doing it any favors. I second the feeling that the drums are mixed too forward, and the lead guitars are getting absolutely lost in the sauce. Basically agree with Joe on the play-by-play, I'd love to hear a tightened up version with mixing that blends each of the elements more naturally and lets the lead shine more. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted June 12, 2023 Share Posted June 12, 2023 Interesting source, don't hear too much of this game on this site. Making it into a metal arrangement is a great idea, and the guitar work is pretty good to back this all up. The backing instruments are pretty thin. The strings are hollow, and the brass sounds like it's being played in a church across the street.. I can see strings and brass working, but they all have to sound like they're in the same room as the guitar and drums if you want them to blend well. The mixing is also a significant issue, especially for these instruments at 1:07 - that brass is supposed to be in the lead, but it's barely audible over the rhythm guitar. The solution isn't to just make them louder, either, since all that reverb will overwhelm the track before they sound remotely in the front of the mix. Those samples really need some cleaning up so that everything sounds in the same space, and then the mixing needs to be reworked. There are moments where the lead gets lost behind the rhythm, as well (such as at 2:07 - end), so it's not just the backing instruments that need work. It's a good idea, and the arrangement is well personalized, but I think this needs work before it can get to the front page. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted June 25, 2023 Share Posted June 25, 2023 Incredible performance. That solo slays. I'm in agreement with the Js calling out the mixing issues. Anything non-guitar is getting buried. Do not touch the arrangement, it's perfect. The mixing needs a another pass though. NO, resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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