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*NO* Golden Sun: The Lost Age "Unfurl the Sails!"


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ReMixer name: Treyt
Name: Trevor Tuls
Email: 
Websites: 
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD6e8Tgh_0AZ9ixt7BPTWkA
Userid: 38283

Game: Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Arrangement Name: Unfurl the Sails!
Songs Arranged: Full Speed Ahead!
Composer: Motoi Sakuraba
Original soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcgGkkuA7UY

My own comments about the mix:
Golden Sun: TLA was the first real RPG I'd ever played, and it's one of the best memories my brother and I share. About a month ago, I was listening back through the ost, and having just received hardware that allowed me to record guitar straight into my DAW, I decided I had to try  remixing it. I was amazed by how well it fit the 90s "Escape From the City" double time rock beat. Honestly I really just set out to make it sound overly energetic and fun, and guitar + synth really embodies that for me. 

 

Edited by prophetik music
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  • 2 months later...

Starts off with some nice clean guitar over an almost bagpipe-like syth drone.  Good sound.

Then we encounter some production issues.  The rhythm guitar chugs are really loud, especially when the lead changes to a square wave.  On the other side, the cymbals are too quiet; the hats are almost inaudible at times and the crashes are muffled.

Structurally, it's a fairly conservative cover up until 1:40.  It does swap instruments around and add a few layers, but I'm not at all sure it's interpretive enough for OCR.  Then at 1:40 it goes completely off the rails for the last 21 seconds; this part is interpretive enough, but it's not coherent.  It's also barely 2 minutes long, which is our soft minimum.

Soundscape-wise, there's something unnatural and flat about it that I can't put my finger on.  It sounds like maybe the bass is filtered just a hair too much, in addition to the cymbals having too much of the highs cut out.  Maybe another judge will be able to explain it better than I can.

Regardless of this last issue, I do think this needs some production tweaks, and more importantly it needs to be developed more into something transformative in a relatively cohesive way.

NO

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  • MindWanderer changed the title to 2022/07/06 - (1N) Golden Sun: The Lost Age "Unfurl the Sails!"

Arrangement-wise, MindWanderer's hung up too much on the melody being the same when the overall instrumentation and energy of the theme are completely different than the source tune. Again, there are plenty of other ways to personalize an arrangement, and that's more than accomplished here. The handling of the melody doesn't have to be transformative as long as enough other areas are.

Love the energy of the opening, with faux geetars that sound expressive and reasonably good in tone.

Once the beats come in at :20, there's something about those kicks in particular that feels underwhelming. The pattern's also pretty plain, though I liked the lil' fill from :43-:46. The drum tone also fit the texture a lot better during the chorus areas from :53-:59 & 1:06-1:11. It's odd that you have moments where the instrumentation has more synergy, then others where the percussion tone feels thinner and out of place.

Watch the machine gun effect on the four drum hits at 1:44; making the hits all have the exact same sound needlessly exposed the samples. IMO, the percussion writing and mixing's the weaker link for an otherwise solid piece.

Very nice fakeout change in style from 1:40-1:44, as well as the track essentially having the power switch shutting off for the finish right after going lo-fi; that was a creative way to escape not having a more fleshed out resolution. :-)

This is definitely substantive enough of an arrangement, and I'm on the bubble. Would love to hear a strong musician judge go after what's lacking on the production side, but I'd say this is 85% of the way there. I wouldn't change a thing with the structure, Trevor; this is an awesome start.

NO (resubmit)

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  • Liontamer changed the title to 2022/07/06 - (2N) Golden Sun: The Lost Age "Unfurl the Sails!"

oh, i love the intro. feels a lot like a few of OA's past remixes.

0:21 when everything comes in, the chugs are initially too loud. giving it some stereo depth might help keep it present without making it overwhelmingly loud. in later sections (like at 0:46) it's not quite as bad, so maybe some timing-specific volumization is all you need. i also wouldn't mind some more doubling to give it more depth. for the drums, the snare is overall really loud, has a lot of drum sound, and isn't quite as snappy as i'd expect to hear for the style, and the kick especially has way too much high beater sound and not enough sub presence or even lower beater tone. some significant and intentional EQing on both the snare and kick will give them much more body without requiring them to be the only thing in the middle of the mix. the bass's attacks are essentially inaudible as well, although the presence is there.

there's a decent break around 1:26, a really dramatic break at 1:46, and the machine-gun snare fill into a final blow to end it on a tape stop. it's barely 2 minutes.

from an arrangement perspective, it's not long enough to do what you want. there needs to be another 30 seconds to give you the time to tape together some of your ideas into a coherent whole. one thing that can help with that would be more intentionality regarding personalizing the melodic line. even adding harmony on a last blow-through of the melody would add a ton. i'm not in either MW or LT's camps - i think that there isn't much arrangement here outside of the silliness in the last third, but i also don't think what has been done is too little to measure. you've done a lot to adapt it to the style, and really it just needs some more Treyt to really put a stamp on it.

so, to recap - spend some time broadening and volumizing your rhythm guitar parts and EQing your kick and snare, for starters. i would also look at your leads and see about adding more personal touches to the overall arrangement. in a very short piece like this, even altering a few chords on one melody goes a long way. consider adding a solo break or some other expansion to the existing arrangement to give it more meat.

 

 

NO

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