OCR04430 - *YES* New Super Mario Bros. Wii "Welcome to Our House" *PRIORITY*

[Emunator]

Hey friends,

I saw OCR was looking for Mario game remixes in advance of the SMB movie dropping, so here's a track that's got a little age on it, but I still think it's pretty snazzy. After listening to the castle theme from New Super Mario bros. Wii a few times (not enough times to finish the game, but I digress), I tried putting my spin on the song with beetz and guitar action. Hope it makes the cut!

 

Peace and love,

 

D

 

[Liontamer]

Dunno why I chuckled to myself, but I did on hearing this old-timey production for the intro; definitely loads of personality to start. Sustained strings brought in at :30 were arguably too bright & upfront, which needlessly exposed the samples, but we press on. Faux geetar at :46 with beats underneath that I'm afraid are going to plod, so we'll see where it goes. IMO, the beats are too loud compared to the guitar.

I liked the doubling of the melody at 1:06, nice touch. It's a subtle thing too, but I liked how the strings dropped out at 1:27, which cleared up/opened up the soundscape some and created a nice dynamic change that might otherwise go unnoticed. Beats changed up at 1:46, so happy to be wrong about the beat-writing getting plodding. IMO, the beats are too loud, and it's making me focus on those and less on the arrangement. Gliding synth at 1:48's way too loud or at least too piercing. Bwomp-chicka guitar there sounds great though. Ooooooooh, that glassy, ghostly line running underneath the melody from 2:18-2:29 for that harmonization, wow, that's was a nice touch; definitely made me rewind and literally go "Oooooh, yo, wait, what was that? Lemme hear that again!"

Tasteful Bowser laugh SFX before some lengthy geetar soloing from 2:29-3:13 brought some nice fire to the piece, then went more into the ghostly atmosphere with a straighter rendition of the source. I liked the wind down at 3:51, although the final fade at 4:12 then came way too abruptly. I wouldn't have had the instrumentation actually stop when you could have had 2-3 more seconds and just continued relaxing the volume down to 0.

I'd say this is a strong arrangement with some mixing flaws that don't hold it back. Would love to hear another production pass as this, provided my feedback didn't sound like bullshit, but this is all sorts of good and clearly over our bar. Nice source tune choice and a great arrangement concept that would fit well for Halloween as well. Duane, welcome back! It's good to have you rep your Sonic Skillz once again!

YES

[MindWanderer]

Pretty eclectic mix, combining distorted and clean electric guitar, synth, and orchestral elements.  Despite being a bit fakey, it's all pretty well done, except for the percussion, which is both primitive and relentless.  There are precious few change-ups in the percussion all the way through 0:46-2:08 and 2:29-3:52: 165 seconds out of a 254 second mix, or 65%.  That's a lot, and it definitly wore on me well before the end.

Speaking of that end, fade-out, ugh.  Especially when it's not a bookend or otherwise have anything to give it a sense of closure.  It just feels lazy.

That said, the arrangement is fun enough, and there's clever part writing all over the place.  Neither the drums nor the fade-out are dealbreakers in my book, though they do bug me.  Overall an enjoyable mix.

YES

[Chimpazilla]

This is indeed an eclectic mix!  Filtered intro is cool but simplistic and it drones on a bit.  It could be more fun with a few crackles or unexpected filtered noises but what's here works.  I like the strings (they have a disco vibe) and guitar although as Larry said they sound fakey.  The straight simplistic grid-locked writing all the way through the intro didn't help.  I also like the doubling of the melody with the bell in the second half of that first guitar section. The guitar at 1:27 sounds clean and cool.  The snare is too loud and isn't the greatest snare sound I ever heard.  At the very least, this snare doesn't match well with this soundscape. Whistle lead at 1:48 is neato. The soloing at 2:29 is awesome!  The e-piano/organ underneath that soloing fits very well.  At 3:11, the soundscape sounds annoyingly empty.  Another solo or strong lead instrument would have been nice but whatever is here trying to carry the lead melody is waaaay too soft and weak (could this just be a soft pad?).  This section almost feels like you hit mute on your lead writing by accident. 

There are some moments in the piece where the harmonies aren't working the best they can, for example at 1:22-128 where the strings, bass, and guitar clash here and there, melodically.  Also from 1:50-2:09 there is some clashing I can't quite put my finger on.  At 2:42-2:50 during the soloing, there is more harmonic dissonance.  Perhaps a J more versed in music theory can help me explain this. At 4:02 the bells play a chord that sounds very off to me.

I do like the varied mix of sounds used in this mix and the creativity of the arrangement.  I love the vocal clips.  Overall the mixing is adequate but things could be better balanced and eq'd so that everything is more easily audible.  Outro feels cut off at an awkward point since the writing just ends in mid-line, i.e. the writing was duplicated and meant to continue into another section but just came to a stop instead.  Would have been better to either write the final portion into a legitimate outro (just altering the very last notes into a finale would do the trick) or let the writing roll on and do a full fadeout.  

This is a cool little beat with a small section of excellent guitar soloing.  None of what I said above is a dealbreaker on its own, but a lot of little things together are causing me to be less sold on this arrangement than my peers. 

NO (borderline, resubmit)

[prophetik music]

intro's a fun idea. a bit bright, tone down the 2-3k range and it'll feel duller like you'd expect. agree with the chimps that this could use a bit of record/needle noise or something similar.

0:44's beat coming in was an immediate head-bobber. love it. agree the snare's really loud and kind of not something i want to listen to a lot, but i love the quant on the drums and the groove from it. guitar sounds great here, and also at 1:28 when we get to the break. the fat kick next to everything else reminded me of the Pyre soundtrack, specifically the travel themes.

a whistly lead comes in at 1:48 that i didn't like much at all. it was very loud and needed some action on it (volume changes, vibrato, pitch-bending, etc) to keep it interesting. the oboe layered with glass beads after that was a neat idea. this transitions (suddenly) into another great guitar section, this one a solo. the heavy distortion tone on the guitar contrasted negatively with the backing EP. something more aggressive as your chord instrument there would have helped keep the energy up. the subsequent string stabs were better, even though i heard them earlier and didn't think much at the time.

the last minute or so is on auto-pilot, which was disappointing. would have liked to hear more melodic content between 3:30 and 3:52. the outro is, as MW said, disappointing.

i think this is over the bar. mastering is good enough, the arrangement is fun and has some great solos, and the overall execution is more than competent. i agree with chimpa that there's a lot of little nags which are disappointing, but don't think they're holding this down enough to say no.

 

 

YES

[DarkSim]

Hmm this one's a toughie. Lots I like about it, lots I'd do differently.

For starters, the beats are way too loud! I love a clean, chunky beat as much as anyone, but everything needs to be in balance. Without significant shifts in patterns and fills to keep me guessing, the beats were starting to grate on me by the end. The groove is cool though, and I don't have a problem with the samples used.

Guitar solos sound killer, but the backing is really weak and the soundscape seems to be lacking one extra element to support such shreddage. Some cool wah-wah action from 1:49-2:10 leading into the Boo sound effect was a really nice detail, as the wakka-wakka from the wah pedal sounds a bit like Boo's call. You gotta respect the oboe usage as well.

Standout moment for me is the end of the last solo at 3:13. The ringing note leads into the ghostly, reversed synth perfectly. Outro is too abrupt.

It's definitely a mixed bag here, but the more I listened to it, the more I liked about it - particularly the wah pedal stuff that I didn't catch first go round. I wish the beats were quieter, but that's not gonna stop the

YES