*NO* New Super Mario Bros. 2 "Heatrave 「1000° Full Mix」" *PRIORITY*

[Emunator]

Your ReMixer:
EAR

Your real name:
Weston Ahern

Your email address:
 

Your website(s)
 https://djear.com/

 

Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile:
22858

Submission Information
Name of game(s) arranged:
New Super Mario Bros 2

Name of arrangement:
EAR - Heatrave 「1000° Full Mix」

Name of individual song(s) arranged:
https://ocremix.org/song/26467/world-2-desert
World 2 (Map) // or World 2 (Desert) [Overworld] --- whichever makes the most sense to you.

Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site):
https://ocremix.org/game/94846/new-super-mario-bros-2-3ds

Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site):
Here is one of several YouTube uploads - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0106DFD6D1393F98

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc.
I wrote this piece for OCR's Super Cartography Bros. album in 2015 (https://cartography.ocremix.org/) where our challenge was to remix the extremely short Overworld Map themes from New SMB 2 into fully dancefloor ready tunes.  I opted to blend my love of the hectic 90s rave-influenced sound of Hyper Techno with the fun 'Put-a-Donk-on-It' nature of UK Bounce.

 

[Chimpazilla]

That's one beefy kick!  Almost too big, aaaalmost.  I love the concept of this mix, the 90s influence is heavy and cool.  I love the vocal clips, shouts, synth-braam hits, sirens and coin noises. The mixing seems fine other than the fact that the highs are soooo hyped and loud.  I put a high shelf on it at 10k Hz, 3db GR and the mix is much less piercy.  The whole thing is mastered on the hot side, with the peak exceeding 0db.  I'm not sure about the source use going on here so I'm going to come back to this a bit later and (hopefully another J will have checked for source use, I know, how lazy of me hehe).  On first listen, the arrangement feels source-light to me.  Regardless, I do feel like the highs need to be tamed before releasing this.  Otherwise this is super fun.  Even for such a long arrangement, there isn't any copy pasta that I can discern, and it feels fresh all the way through even with the same instrumentation.

? until I'm sure about source use, but probably a NO (resubmit) until the highs are tamed

Edit 3/28/23 - I really like this one, but since my peers have confirmed my suspicion that there isn't enough source I'm going to close this out with my NO.  I'd love to have Larry also give it a listen, just to completely confirm this.  But if you can get the mixing cleaned up and if you can add some more bits of source, this one would be good to go for me!  I liked it.

NO

Edited March 28, 2023 by Chimpazilla

[MindWanderer]

Source is definitely a concern, but it's easy to check since the source is nearly all melody and bongos.  The remix has the same chord progressions throughout, but that's not enough to count. Here's my timestamping:

• 0:14-0:26
• 2:54-3:20
• 4:44-5:34

...and that's it.  That's all I got.  Other sections are clearly inspired by the source material, and flow well, but I don't actually hear source in them besides chord progressions.  That's a mere 88 seconds out of 400, or 22%.

I'm also in agreement with Kris about the entire mix being too hot and bright.  It's less of an issue than the source usage, but it leapt out at me immediately and would also be enough reason to send this back.  Unfortunately, since it's already on the album, I don't expect a revision.  It's still a ton of fun, though, and I did enjoy it immensely.

NO

[prophetik music]

thought i recognized this when i started listening.

it's a great track that's fun to listen to. ultimately i didn't find overt source usage that was not included in MW's representation above. there's some stuff that's pretty close and i'd consider enough if we were at 48% usage and we needed a bit more, but it's a ton of new melodic content over the old chord progressions, and much of the track doesn't refer to the original melody so it's not even obvious what track it's remixing.

unfortunately this doesn't meet our criteria for being able to be posted.

 

 

NO

[Liontamer]

I hit up Weston just to be sure there wasn't something huge being overlooked. Here's his breakdown and comments:

Quote

 

0:14-0:26
0:59-1:42 Are piano chords that are following the same note progression as the source lead (more or less)
2:55-3:20
4:22-4:37 Those pianos again
4:37-4:51 Lead buildup referencing the source melody
5:05-5:35 Same lead after the buildup

Aside from this I'd say that, technically - the Radio Edit that was cut for the project removes much of the middle part of the song (all of which is mostly original stuff) Which I guess would technically shrink the % of original vs source from the track, lol.

Other than that - if it can't pass the bar I can understand, the source was EXTREMELY short, and I expanded upon it for this project knowing it wasn't to be scrutinized for submission to the site - I really only submitted now because you put a call out for Mario tunes and I had this one laying around. 

I don't know if the Radio Edit would bring it to >50% tho, so very likely looking at a not-pass if this is the case.

Part of the melody REALLY stands out to me as something I might have referenced as a seperate source, but I have no idea what it would be - I don't have the original project file for this tune anymore, was way too long ago. so shrugs

 

So yeah, that would basically put this is "enjoyable listen, but not enough source tune usage".

Moar source plz. No worries, you didn't know, but now you know. Needs to be arranging the VGM source tune for at least 50% of the track's runtime.

NO