Emunator Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 Contact Information ReMixer name : Neverback-Music (19797), Latomarques (38178) Website : https://www.reitoken.com Userid : 19797, 38178 Submission Information Name of game arranged : Kingdom Hearts 2 Name of arrangement : Black and White Name of individual songs arranged : Monochrome Dreams Old Friends, Old Rivals I continue to train my symphonic skills with that new arrangement. That song was so funny to do. I hope you will like it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted December 16, 2022 Share Posted December 16, 2022 some fun originals, lots of character there. initial presentation is thin-sounding and quiet, and starts with monochrome dreams. there's some fun schmearing in the vins and lots of melody passing between everything, but there's admittedly not a lot going on in the arrangement besides the oom-pah and the melody. the sound quality of these samples isn't great. at 1:07 the other original comes in, and this includes a significant time change and a lot more depth to the orchestration. there's a break at 1:50 and it comes back to monochrome dreams. this is mostly a recap of the initial section, not copy-paste but a lot of similar writing. at 2:57 we get a significant shift into a more aggressive feel, and it picks up old friends/old rivals in a slower, more intense scoring. this is the first real arrangement i've heard in the track and it's great! there's some meaty stuff with a (not great) men's choral pad used at 3:45, and a fairly standard ending. there are two main issues here. first is sample usage - while we don't expect everyone to have picture-perfect orchestral samples across the board, there's a lot here that doesn't sound great. some level of layering on the strings for example will flesh out the timbre so it doesn't sound so thin. more consistent verb across the board will also help to smooth out the tone. second is arrangement - 2/3rds of this is essentially the same as the original, done with roughly the same instruments, in the same style as the original, at around the same tempo. there's a ton of variety that you introduced in the last quarter of the track - use more of that! you've clearly got an ear for what can be done, now just get after it and make it yours, not the original composer's. i don't think this is ready yet. needs more workshopping. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted December 29, 2022 Share Posted December 29, 2022 More oompah music! General Grunt will be pleased. The strings in the beginning sound very exposed, which isn't the best idea if your samples aren't great quality. Better to layer them so as not to force the listener to notice their sub-par quality. The first section deals with Monochrome Dreams, and it sounds very similar to the source in terms of instrumentation and tempo. The oom-pah beat needs to have a deeper pocket, if you understand my meaning. Deeper bass notes, and a bouncier groove can achieve this. Better, cleaner mixing would also help a lot here. The faster tempo section from Old Friends, Old Rivals is also presented very similarly to the source. Notice though how the faster tempo and fuller orchestra masks the sample quality much better, and the section as a whole sounds better as a result. It's still very close to the source though, and I'm not hearing much original arrangement as we transition back to the first source and slower tempo. The transitions between sections also feel somewhat arbitrary, with periods of silence connecting them, rather than a telegraphed progression. A smoother transition or two wouldn't go amiss. The oom-pah from 2:57 does have a deeper pocket here! That's more like it. Really like the fuller sounding orchestra with the OFOR source at a slower tempo. Instruments do still sound quite muffled, particularly in the highs with the cymbals, and mixing overall could be a lot cleaner. Overall there's quite a bit of promise in this track, but the conservative nature of the first 3 minutes of it sort of kills it on the arrangement front. If you can rework it somehow to emphasise more of your original ideas and arrangement, and clean up the mix a decent amount, this could be a really fun track. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted December 29, 2022 Share Posted December 29, 2022 I don't feel like this is all that bad. I do think that the production has a distant, tinny sound to it, which makes it sound as if it were recorded far away in an open-air venue rather than in a studio or orchestra hall. Combine that with the sample quality — which isn't the worst, but definitely does sound fake — and it gives the impression of being from the score of a PS1 or PS2 game played quietly on a TV. Not great for standalone audio. I echo the comments on this being a little too conservative as well. I don't think either issue is necessarily a dealbreaker on its own, but they're close. Combined, I think this one does need some more work before we can accept it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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