Liontamer Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 Contact Info: ReMixer name: Jett Swole Real name: Nikki [prefer not to post my last name for privacy reasons] E-Mail: Website: https://jettswole.bandcamp.com/ UserID: 36756 Submission Info: Games arranged: -Guilty Gear (Year: 1998, Console: Playstation, Developer: Arc System Works, Composer: Daisuke Ishiwatari) -Tales of Symphonia -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time -Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Year: 1997, Console: Nintendo 64, Developer: Konami, Composers: Shigeru Araki, Kato Yusuke, Saiko Miki, Yasumasa Kitagawa) -Ninja Gaiden [NES] -The Ninja Warriors (Year: 1987, Console: Arcade, Developer: Taito, Composer: Hisayoshi Ogura) Name of Arrangement: "Run Like a Ninja" Individual songs arranged: -"Shihna" (from Tales of Symphonia) -"Suck a Sage (Chipp's Theme)" (from Guilty Gear) -"Going Up" (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time) -"Star Base: Where No Turtle Has Gone Before" (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time) -"I Am Impact" (from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon) -"Ryu's Determination" (from Ninja Gaiden) -"Daddy Mulk" (from The Ninja Warriors) -"Requiem" (from Ninja Gaiden) OST Listings (for games new to OCR listings): -Guilty Gear: https://vgmdb.net/album/117454 -The Ninja Warriors: https://vgmdb.net/album/36566 -Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon: https://vgmdb.net/album/2779 Song Download Link (Google Drive): Comments: This was something I originally made in August 2021 as a Dwelling of Duels Free Month entry, but I was particularly proud of this one, so I thought I'd submit it to OCR as well. The idea started out as just some guitar noodling on "Suck a Sage" from Guilty Gear, but I ended up building on it with parts from other ninja-themed vgm, and before I knew it, I had this big, epic tribute to everything I find inherently cool about video games with ninjas. Also, I had just got done binge watching Naruto at the time, and it had me extra hyped to work on this (to the point I threw in some small cameos of the anime OST). That's all I have to say about this, I guess, but I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed making it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted June 6, 2023 Share Posted June 6, 2023 Nice metal medley. It's definitely a medley, but the transitions are incredibly smooth throughout. A ton of sources, but they're all used in an obvious way. No problems there. Ninja Gaiden still has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. It's a standout even among so many excellent sources. The Parasprinter section gave me goosebumps. Great performance, great production. Hope this did well on DoD, it deserves it. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted June 14, 2023 Author Share Posted June 14, 2023 The opening piano's serviceable though exposed; the timing's rigid enough where it was noticeable, including when it comes back at 9:18. "Suck a Sage" arrived at :59 and the mixing was lossy-sounding and messy, with the stabs from 1:06-1:15 sounding like they were distorting; solid enough power with this section; the performance felt somewhat stilted until 1:52, though certainly not anything where it would be below OCR's bar. TMNT "Going Up" was thrown in from 2:18-2:34 with a pretty shrill synth. "Star Base" theme was also in there at 3:03, with some more interplay from the shrill synths; part of the issue with those synths was them sounding so much sharper than the guitar, which was a weird contrast where they didn't sound like they occupied the same room. The Goemon source at 5:23 felt like a jumpier transition; at the "Ninja Rap"-style cameo at 5:47. There's "The Parasprinter" at 6:01 with a seamless transition, and I dug the brief doubling of the melody with the chiptune line at 6:37; nice touch! Organ's piercing, mostly around 8:05, along with the Eastern wind instrument at 8:50, some more examples of an imbalance with some of the sounds. So yeah, almost everything's lacking high-end sharpness, and some of the synths had too bright and/or shrill of a presense in contrast, but it's an otherwise solid presentation. Would love another mixing pass to smooth some of this out if at all possible, yet the arrangement & performance are enough to carry it. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 Both ReMixer and ReMix are Swole here, with this one clocking in at an absolutely hench 10:48! What a wild ride that was. Funnily enough, the intro starts out quite weakly, with the stiff solo piano not offering much emotion beyond the writing, and although the flute sounded nice when it came in, the obviously-fake vibrato wasn't selling me. As soon as the guitar kicks things off though, I had that sort of 'gotcha!' moment, where I realised it's going to be a fun one. Mixing a track this long is always going to be a nightmare, but I think you've done a decent job. There are plenty of points where it could be better, and some parts where the lows are muddying things up significantly (1:14, 3:02, 3:25 for example). Given the length of the track though, I'm willing to overlook the odd dodgy blast of low-end. My favourite part is the transition between "Suck a Sage" and "Going Up" at 2:11, with that ascending bass into the synth line from Turtles. I actually laughed out loud with satisfaction there, it's genius. Love the organ in that section as well. The energy levels are pretty unrelenting from 1:14 to 5:49, where we get some really loud vocal samples "RUN NINJA, RUN NINJA RUN!". I think these perfectly serve to highlight the overall mixing imbalance, as they sound so clear and present in comparison to the rest of the mix. Dropping the volume of those samples would lessen this effect, or maybe filtering/downsampling them in such a way as to sound more cohesive could have been an idea. The big crescendo at 7:26-7:50 sounds great from an arrangement perspective, but it's really pushing it on the low end and getting very muddy. Again, I'm giving it a pass because of the length of the track, but this is the most egregious part of the mix for me. Mercifully, the last 3 minutes are at a slower pace, allowing us to wind down somewhat from the tour de force we just experienced. It bookends nicely with the piano and flute from the beginning, reminding us that, yes, that is where we started 10 minutes ago! I think this is a great example of being creative with some fairly basic sound design, and using the energy and ambition of the arrangement to carry it through. The level of technique on show is just about good enough to pull it off, and while the mixing isn't perfect, it was a hugely enjoyable listen. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted August 17, 2023 Share Posted August 17, 2023 11 minutes? and three Ys already? this should be a treat. intro piano is pretty stilted, and the intro in general is kind of meh between the strings and the obviously fake flute. the guitars come in at 1:00 and it's clear what kind of track this'll be. the initial band sound is both lacking in low end overall (the whole first section has a bump at about 95hz and not much below it) and has a lot centered in that low-mid range which leads to a pretty narrow soundscape despite the cymbals and other high-freq instruments in the mix. a glance at the track's shape indicates that i'll be hearing a lot of this (it's essentially a solid sausage for 8:45 with two <5s breaks), so i'll echo what darksim said a few times - this is good enough for such a huge track on a macro level, but the micro certainly isn't always there. this is really too big to do my normal breakdown section by second, so i'll call out a few favorites - 4:30's break was fun, in general i liked the bass's tone (just wanted more bass presence), the minute or so starting at 6:01 was just superb as others have mentioned, and i really liked the transition from the megablast section through 7:45 into the subsequent section (volumization needs there notwithstanding). the ending overall conceptually was a nice idea, but again the lack of personalization in the piano was not a positive, and the strings were more designed to sit as a pad under a rock track than be used in an exposed fashion like this. it's not a big deal in the scope of the whole piece, just means the bookends of the work aren't as good as the solid middle. what a blow this track is. really fun. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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