*NO* Dragon Warrior 4 "Twisted Systerz" *RESUB*

[Liontamer]

Original RESUB Decision (after initial DR)

Hello:) This is Audiomancer's (me) another attempt at this remix of Mara and Nara's theme from Dragon Warrior 4. My work situation has changed, so now I have more time at home to attempt this on a real DAW:)

Remix is attached.

 

Original

Dragon Warrior IV (NES) Music - Nara and Mara Overworld

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Liontamer
closed decision

[prophetik music]

i voted NO on the original submission after a lot of deliberation. i complained about the dense mastering, too-tight arrangement that didn't allow sections to really develop and breathe, and a missing ending.

this has a real 2001 OCR vibe to it. the fat squelchy bass, the kick with little attack and super-verbed square, the nearly-static-sounding hats, and the synth guitar and vox pad all are super early FL sounding to me, in a nostalgic way. i still think the big ensemble parts sound really too dense. there's a ton of sub-40hz content in the mix and a big peak at 70hz, interestingly enough. i can't point to one thing that makes it feel so dense, but i think at least turning down the vox pad a bit and massaging the kick tone some will help lighten up the tone.

the arrangement has a lot of noodling and space added which i liked a lot. i think the drums are pretty rote outside the fills, but the additional attention paid to making the leads both sound more interesting and say more interesting things shows through. there's a functional ending now too which is good.

i think that this is still held back by the mastering, unfortunately. i don't know that i can offer a ton of commentary about how to fix it specifically - i'll leave that up to some of the other Js - but it just still sounds so dense despite there being obvious effort to handle the drums especially.

 

 

NO

[MindWanderer]

While I think the sound design is now adequately modern — barely — the production is sadly not.  The snares crackle like mad, the leads are too quiet more often than not, the kicks are too loud and sometimes cause overcompression, and that's just the stuff that leaps right out at me.

Now that you're using a real DAW, you can more easily put some real attention into the levels of the various tracks, and possibly reconsider some of your synth/sample choices.  The drums in particular could use better samples, and you can get some less dated synth sounds.  The good news is that the arrangement itself sounds really good, you just need to work on the sound quality.

NO

[DarkSim]

Really pleased you've made the switch to a desktop DAW instead of the phone app! Well, the bad news is that now you've got to learn the ropes all over again. It'll feel like a step backwards, but once you start moving forwards again then the ceiling will be much higher than before.

For the basics of production, get a visual EQ on every track so you can see where the core frequencies are for that instrument. Use one on the master too, to identify things stepping over each other, and then go to the individual tracks and sculpt them if needed. A decent arrangement and instrumentation will often mean you'll need minimal EQing for the mid-high frequencies, but it's always a good idea to roll off the low end (<100Hz) of anything not bass or kick drum.

In your mix, the snare sample sounds very hissy and washed out - this could be due to too much reverb, or simply a bad sample choice. The hi-hats are also panned quite aggressively left and right, which gives a disjointed feeling to the percussion. They also sound quite hissy, and is it just the one sample you're using? Hi-hats benefit greatly from variation, both in sample and velocity. I might have anywhere between 4 and 8 hi-hat sounds loaded at the start of a project, and by the end I might have double that. Try finding 3 or 4 samples that sound like they're from the same kit, and mixing it up a bit more, with attention paid to the clarity of the hats in the mix. Narrow the panning so it sounds like the kit is more cohesive as well.

You've got a fair few pads in the mid-lows for atmosphere, and the acid arp is dipping its toes in that region as well. The mix gets a lot better at 0:34 when those atmospheric pads drop out - going back to my point about arrangement and instrumentation. Don't try to add too many elements at once, or things will get muddy-sounding. The climax at 2:00 also suffers from overcrowding.

All that said, the arrangement is great, you've got an awesome guitar solo in there, some proper retro-sounding acid synths, and clearly loads of creativity. Once you get the hang of producing with this new DAW, you'll go from strength to strength. Keep practicing!

NO