Emunator Posted September 11, 2022 Share Posted September 11, 2022 (edited) To Whom it may concern, This is Audiomancer, and this tune is called Lookin' for Buddies, and it's a remix of a Final Fantasy 6 song called Searching for Friends. It's always been a favorite song of mine, so I thought I would give this a go. Thanks for your time and consideration ahead of time! Respectfully, Eric Fogel Edited December 28, 2022 by DarkSim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 Well, this is an... interesting mix. I'm going to guess the idea is that it's a sort of narrative, where Celes is represented by the opening flute, and that the instrumentation changes each time she finds a new party member? If so, that's a cool idea, but I'm not at all sure it works. This is absolutely all over the place, with samples and synths constantly flipping in and out, changing genres every few measures. It doesn't help that many of the synths are bland, generic ones; some of the instrumentation is just weird (like the SID arpeggiations in 0:32-0:48), and the instrument samples are generally fake-sounding. I think something like this could work, but it still needs to be coherent. Pick a genre and stick with it — Peter and the Wolf is a famous example from classical music, but I can see it working in electronica or other genres as well. Choose instruments/synths that go together so you can work them in and out smoothly rather than abruptly changing leads all the time. Maybe increase the length by adding original writing, or mixing in another source, so that you can fit the whole "cast" in there. Thanks for sharing this creative idea, but NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted November 30, 2022 Share Posted November 30, 2022 starts off with flute, some strummed guitar, and bass, and then kicks off a bigger band vibe. intro sounds a bit rough - flute is fakey despite the articulation attention paid, guitar is quiet enough that it's hard to hear. full band sound features a really fake sounding bass and straightforward drums that regularly use a kick fill that is fast enough that it's obviously a robot and not a person. there's a break at 0:48 for a bit, and then it drops way off at 1:04. it wanders around for a bit on the melodic concepts and comes back to the original at 1:48 - some very different experimentation in there, a lot of time devoted to it for such a short piece. there's some more exploration of the melody in the lead guitar and then an EP, and then it repeats a bit as an outro. i think this needs workshopping. the instrument quality is rough, and that can be managed with more attention - some quant and more creative drums will help the percussion a lot, as well as getting rid of the EDM-style kick fill. the bass needs to do anything other than repeated octaves for the entire song, since it's getting a machine-gun effect right now. i think there is a lot of interesting stuff you're doing with the arrangement, but i wouldn't mind not hearing the same 8-bar melody played the same so many times - either mix up chords or add some grace notes, spacing, etc so it doesn't sound like you're copy-pasting the midi data from part to part. lastly, you commit a lot of time to the exploratory section in the middle, and i tbh couldn't really tie much of it to the original. that's fine if what it's saying sounds good, but it just sounded odd to my ears. either prepare your noodles better so they fit the meal better, or consider reducing the duration of that section while adding meat elsewhere. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 It's a strong source tune with a distinctive and catchy melody, and the direction you've chosen to go in is a good one. I think it could really work as an electro-rock jam with lots of interplay between lead instruments. Unfortunately, at the moment the mixing is all over the place, and the piece doesn't sound cohesive. Each instrument sounds like it's in a different space, particularly the drums, which don't sound like they're in the same room as each other. The hi-hat sounds close, the snare sounds far away, and kick sounds very muffled. Also both the hats and snare are left-panned, leaving a feeling of imbalance. The bass guitar in the source is doing some interesting things, however you've rearranged and simplified it to be much more disco sounding, which doesn't really seem to be working with the feel of the rest of the track. I can't decide if it's a rock band, an EDM track, or a disco piece. I think head back to the drawing board with this one, nail down a style you want to go for, and then find a sound palette that works for that genre. Once you've got that laid out, try and build up the mixing piece by piece, so that each instrument sounds like it belongs with the others, and try to maintain clarity of sound with each addition. If things are starting to clash in terms of frequencies, or things start to sound muddy and muffled, don't continue until you've found away to restore that balance. If you keep adding things without addressing the mixing as you go, it'll get very hard to clean up later on. Pay attention also to panning, although this is easier to fix once the mix is closer to completion. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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