*NO* Animal Crossing: New Horizons "Isabelle Needs a Break"

[Emunator]

Contact Information

• Your ReMixer name : Rockos
• Your real name : Roch Côté
• Your email address : 
• Your website : None
• Your userid (number, not name) on our forums : 44017

Submission Information

• Name of game(s) arranged : Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Name of individual song(s) arranged : Town Hall
• Name of the remix : Isabelle Needs a Break
• Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. :

Following the remix of Animal Crossing New Horizons theme, my wife kept bugging me about another AC:NH remix. Her only request was to have "animalese" in it. I kept going in my DnB surge I had a couple month ago and I am really enjoying and embracing it. 

 

This track has a lot of love on the mastering side. I also gave a go to my new plug-in (Rift) which I have been using on the coming album songs I made on SeeDs of Pandora in collab with other remixers. But I can't share the details here  

 

The goal was to include some live instrument and have an energetic mix as my 7^th saga mix had. I'm really liking the DnB songs I've been making lately and I tried to give a Pendulum, Kromea, Tantrum Desire, The Qesmits sound to it. Also added a touch of psy-trance in it but less than usual, focusing instead on creating a very coesive stereo image. 

 

I also tried to use more and more the Samson monitors I got last year and they seem to be very effective when mixing since they are almost perfectly flat.

 

I really liked working on this one and I think my favorite part is 3:30 to 3:46 since in the OST it sounds jazzy and in this one it's almost as if you were in a big fight with a boss and it is a big mean baddy. I found this comparison very interesting and funny.

 

I hoped my wife would play some piano or guitars but we didn't figure out any way to include it so I went all alone on it. We really hope you will enjoy this as much as we do.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Liontamer
closed decision

[DarkSim]

Animal Crossing DnB brings a big smile to my face. I love how it starts with very similar instrumentation to the original, then the beat comes in to get your foot tapping. There's a run-through of the melody a couple of times on that saw/square lead, before things really kick off at 1:12.

Great attention to sound design and production here - the effort taken in this area is plain to hear. The bass sounds incredible - it's got such a full tone, with some kind of modulation on it that gives it a snarling richness. The accompanying drums are tight and punchy, and everything is well mixed so there's no mud, despite the intensity. Tasteful use of 'Animalese' is sprinkled in. Just enough to be funny, and not too much to be annoying. The melody is presented in a more subtracted way during the intense part from 1:12-2:24, with some chippy arp textures in there as we transition to a harder synth lead.

At 2:30, the B section of the source is used for the breakdown and subsequent build back up. I can tell you've had fun here with some of the beats and textures, and my favourite part of the whole track is that half-tempo switch at 3:03. The bass in this section again is suuuuper nice, but in a different way. Much more smooth, and then the modulation starts moving in to make its character sound more robotic. Superb stuff.

The transition at 3:30 is a bit iffy. Going back to the full-tempo section on the second beat sounds jarring, and especially doing so from almost dead silence. Trying to fit the 'jazzy' sounding source section in here is difficult, but I think you've done a decent job. The transition into this section does kill a lot of the track's flow though, which is a shame.

We finish things off with a couple of run-throughs of the A section melody in half-tempo - a nice bit of respite to catch our breath.

Very little I can say that would improve things here. Arrangement is a lot of fun, production is impeccable, and the sound design is rich and interesting. My only quibble is the transition at 3:30, which trips up the listener and it takes a while to get back in the groove again.

YES

[MindWanderer]

What a strange arrangement!  Some nice acoustic guitar, then the lead becomes this vanilla saw with stylish portamento.  Then it gets all wubby.  The second half is even stranger, with a lot of original material and distortions of the source material.

I'm not at all sold on the sound design or structure.  Both synth leads are pretty bland; the first one especially stands out because it's layered on all those acoustic instruments.  1:06 onwards almost sounds like an entirely different track, with only brief hints at similarity to the first part.  Also, nearly everything from 1:06 onwards leans on that same lead, and having no lead changes in an EDM-ish piece like this is both unusual and fatiguing.

I'm having a hard time deciding how much of my dislike is objective and how much is subjective.  Certainly the more objective metrics of production clarity and source usage are fine.  The sound design is great other than the leads, but of course leads are a big deal.  And while it's disjointed, it's not so disjointed that it feels stapled together.  So I'm going to lean on the side of

YES

[Liontamer]

Lead at 1:11's effected, but still has a generic sound to it.

Wish the core beats weren't louder than the other instrumentation, for example from 1:39-2:23.

Texturally, there almost always feels like there's some sort of audio glue missing to truly make the textures feel cohesive. You'll have loud sections where the rigid, vanilla leads and basic beats don't fill things out enough, so even busy areas somehow feel empty and incomplete, e.g. :55, 1:12, 1:39, 3:02, 3:30, 3:57, 4:19. Something also sounded dissonant from 3:07-3:13; it seems to be on purpose, but caught my attention.

Breakbeats at 3:30 were plodding; you can barely hear the breaks, just the main beats.

The interpretive treatment of the theme and textural variations may carry the day here. To me, something feels very unfinished with this, and it could just be a polish thing that I'm hung up on. Since I'm not as articulate as the musicians, I'm actually going to reserve judgement until I see some other opinions.

EDIT (1/24): Yeah, I'm listening through again now that prophetik has voted. I still like the variation in styles of the instrumentation. The beats plod a LOT; that's in part due to the mixing obscuring the detail work in the breakbeats, so the track’s energy feels flatter than it should. 3:30 would have been such a great point to vary things up; instead the last third dragged on the entire way for me.

The lead at 3:30 was also the same as 1:11 & 1:39, but it lacked the pitch effects that gave it more personality and made the lead's sound design more creative earlier on. For the final 1 1/4 minutes, you had great bass and thick beats, but this somehow still dragged on.

This'll likely pass as is, Roch, but I'd love to hear some more TLC with the mixing of the beat pattern as well as the lead's sound design from 3:30 until the end before I can get on board. Great concept overall, but listening through again crystallized where the biggest shortcomings were for me.

NO (resubmit)

[prophetik music]

what an interesting idea.

initial presentation is clearly the original with some drums. the lead is kinda iffy here to me. the detuning LFO is a little slow for me. 0:55 starts to introduce some more meat to the drums and the hit at 1:06 finally gives us some bass. the audio sausage really hits at 1:13 and is a fun adaptation of the melodic content. the mix feels slightly empty in the middle ground between the bass and leads and this does persist for most of the track.

there's some chippy arp stuff around 2:10 and we hit our first break at about 2:23. melodic content is still clear here. there's an extended build to a new feel with some fat square basses hitting at 3:02. this also feels empty in the middle - there's not much i can hear that's not the bass/drums or the lead. there's a drop and a hit at 3:30, and this isn't as clearly based in the original as the rest of the material. This is more motivic in approach, but we get back to the melodic content again closer to 4:00.

the outro is extended and kind of blah. i found myself expecting the track to end almost a minute before it did.

i agree that this track as a whole has some structural choices demonstrated that felt weird. it's a bunch of different ideas that are implemented effectively, but i never said "wow, this is the sound i was really waiting for". there's always a missing pad, or the drums sound a bit fudgy, or the melody doesn't make sense as much. i also think not changing up the leads at least a little bit throughout was a mistake - even pendulum will change octaves for their leads or filter them occasionally to mix it up. there's not many examples of that here.

all that said - the track overall is produced and mastered very well. everything's clear that should be, even when things get glitchy and weird. and the arrangement itself is great, going all over the place and exploring a lot of stuff that the original doesn't even touch. so that's neat. overall i think this passes. i just with there was more body to the big hits in it.

 

 

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Mastering on this track is super hot.  0db limiter ceiling is allowing it to clip like crazy, and -6dbRMS is extremely loud.  That said, I don't hear overcompression artifacts or unwanted pumping.

Right off the bat, the intro sounds like a simplistic cover with DnB beats added.  The lead that enters at 0:23 sounds rather vanilla and doesn't gel well with the bass and acoustic guitar.  At 1:12 when the heavy bass kicks in, I love the bass, it's deep and gnarly and nasty.  But I don't feel like the lead there is epic enough to go with that bass (although this lead is better than the one that came before, and the writing of this lead is good). As Larry said, the beats are loud and heavy but the shuffle detail is quiet and hard to hear.  In the section starting at 2:11, that saw lead is so buzzy and competes with the big bass sound enough to almost obscure the top end of the bass completely. The section after the big pitch rise has some original writing that feels melodically strange and clunky, uncomfortably so, and the bass there feels weak and flabby instead of intense (after the long buildup I'm expecting a major drop). At 3:30 the big badass bass returns, but the lead writing in this section is also melodically odd and clunky.  The lead timbres throughout this track are plain and underwhelming; some filter movement or other interest added would be helpful.  The outro doesn't do much for me, it's just the core beat with some more lead noodling over it, and when the ideas run out there's just an 808 crash. 

I want to like this mix, there are many good ideas here and the deep bass in the heavy sections is terrific, but overall I find many of the timbres too simple or vanilla to hold my interest, the drum mixing needs work, and some of the original writing and/or noodling doesn't make sense to me.    

Larry said something feels very unfinished with this, and I tend to agree with him on that.

NO

[Emunator]

I'm also finding myself on the side of really wanting to like this one; the concept is so unique and quirky. Ultimately though, I find that too many of the timbres are just underdeveloped and uninteresting, in terms of both lead synths and drum tone. Most everything sounds very raw and unaffected, giving this an "unfinished demo" quality more than a "simple sounds used in a quirky way" one. Other judges have elaborated on what can be done to fix this, but I'm unfortunately not sold here.

NO (resubmit)

[Gario]

I think this arrangement is meant to catch you off guard, and with these ears at least it succeeded. I was expecting something with some powerful synths with Rockos at the helm, but that opening is deceptively charming before it takes the track off the rails. The guitar work was nice in the beginning with what is admittedly a simple synth that I didn't enjoy much in the beginning, but this track goes well off the rails a minute into it and it couldn't make me happier.

I do not think this will be everyone's cup of tea being it really does move in some weird and interesting directions throughout, but being something everyone can enjoy isn't what this site is about. I can nitpick the beginning synth a bit and it's use throughout the song wasn't great, but overall I think this arrangement could hardly be changed to improve anything without fundamentally changing what it is, and what it is would be an ever changing experiment on a simple if pleasant source. I like it, not everyone will but I know it'll be a hit with people who like eclectic electronic music that dares to deceive you with great acoustic instrumentation early on.

YES

Edited June 12, 2023 by Gario

[DarkeSword]

Arrangement is great. Lots of variation and change-ups. Where you're losing me though is this sound design. The whole thing sounds thin as heck; whole swaths where we've got maybe 3 voices playing together, which makes for an incredibly sparse sound, which in turn kills the energy. Larry used the word "plod" and that's the word to use. Percussion is sizzling and not in a good way.

Other Js have articulated the issues well, so I don't need to rehash further. As it is, it's a NO, resub from me.

[Rexy]

I love your direction with the arrangement, Roch.  From a lore perspective, I predict Isabelle is getting overworked while Tom Nook is just booking his next golf game from the sidelines.  And it feels that way with a lighter first minute using the central Isabelle motif before a transformation into an ominous DnB break.  The appearances of Tom Nook's motif (1:34-1:39, 2:01-2:26, 2:29-2:40, 3:02-3:24) then lead into equally menacing variations on the Isabelle motif (1:39 onwards) or mood-shaking sweeps and pitch-bends into following segments.  And after the chaos, the return to her leitmotif at 3:57 felt like a satisfying conclusion but suddenly pulled a 180 turn at 4:19 with the atonal backing chords and melody stuttering.  It's something that I see as an art piece in execution, blending your trademark DnB with a slice of working-life horror - and I can vibe with that.

I similarly appreciate your sound design, too.  Initially, it feels sparse, with just a simple polysynth over a fake acoustic sound.  As soon as that gnarly bass starts fading in at 0:45, the sound design becomes more noticeable with your selections of sweeps, punchier drums, pitch bends, and significantly richer textures.  I have no issues with either the RMS - which Audacity read as -10 rather than the -6 that Kris picked up - or the minimal polyphony due to these multiple layers, though I would've also liked some similar TLC on the faux-realistic tones on the tail ends.  It's no dealbreaker, as the meat and potatoes for the other two-thirds of the track carry and embrace the idea.

I'm all for seeing it on the site in its current form, but I can also understand how divisive the track is among my fellow judges here.  Best of luck with the rest of the vote, and I hope it'll make it.

YES

[XPRTNovice]

I have to say I really didn't expect what was going to happen at 1:25 but then it happened and I was happy. This arrangement is supremely weird in the best kinds of ways. 

My major issue with the piece is basically what many of the judges here have already said; the piece feels thin and underdeveloped. When we DO have the full ensemble, we get good balance and mixing, even if some of the timbres are a little stale, but the in-between stuff lacks depth. It doesn't have to remain powerful - it's that contrast that helps us appreciate the big booming parts - but if you listen to the first minute and a half, and the last minute in particular, it feels like we're just missing a huge part of the sound spectrum. The drums in the beginning feel sparse, as well as the lead, kind of like you were sketching the skeleton of the piece but never gave it the rest of the muscle and fat that go with making a full body, an analogy that I am going to depart from now becuase it's kind of gross. 

My suggestion might be that if you ARE going to make the choice to be intentionally thin (and I am assuming here) then make it. This tune reminded me of a Trigun track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9iDfnBxLA - if you listen around 1:10, you hear this thin drum sound in the background with a full flute over it, but the arranger there made a clear choice, so the listener isn't confused. 

This is a good piece, and definitely exceeds the OCR bar in many ways. With some polishing, it would be a clear post. 

NO (resubmit)

[djpretzel]

I usually tiebreak yes, but in this case I found myself nodding my head in agreement with the more critical decisions from @XPRTNovice (agreed on all counts) and then also @MindWanderer's comment on lead fatigue - the lead gets overused, and there's only so much variety added by effects. I specifically wanted to hear some modulation on the space/verb, where cutting it to dry or drenching it on a curve would have been neat & refreshing... but so would simply swapping to a different lead. I do love the structural creativity, but at times it gets so stripped down and exposed that it does end up feeling somewhat incomplete, as Joe honed in on. Hopefully revisions are feasible!

NO (resubmit)