OCR04596 - *YES* Horizon Zero Dawn & Horizon Forbidden West "The Edgerunner with Blazing Hair"

[Emunator]

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

Game: Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West
Arrangement Name: The Edgerunner with Blazing Hair
Songs Arranged: Aloy's Theme
Composer: Joris de Man
Original Soundtrack(s): 

Forbidden West: https://youtu.be/TW1sIJiv8Ro

Zero Dawn: https://youtu.be/_w9B7uwLZeI
My own comments about the mix:

Both official renditions of her theme have a lot of whimsical movement in them that doesn't lend toward an identifiable musical theme but more of a feeling/vibe, and the composer ties it all together with the recurring melody. I went a sort of similar path in a different genre, but leaned hard into combining the identifiable melody with the pacing and sound design of the dark club style cyberpunk 2077 popularized, while staying true to my own personal tastes in energy and erring on the side of uplifting mystery and intensity/action to better represent Aloy's curious, confrontational, and optimistic nature over the genre's typical dark and oppressive vibes. I chose to include in-game samples from HZD's "longneck" enemy machine, as their extended screeches fit the genre and arrangement nicely.

Cheers

[DarkSim]

You know, I just completed Horizon: Zero Dawn last week, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Despite it being so fresh in my memory though, I don't recall any of the music! Aloy's theme is very fitting though, a powerful and emotive piece, and the female vocal melody that doesn't use words helps to give it a timeless, tribal feel. Anyway, enough about the source, on to the remix...

Source melody is presented immediately, with some tranquil bells, and there's a hint of what's to come with the robotic synth filtering in, and pulsating bass. 0:20 cements the cyberpunk/dark synthwave vibe, and I gotta say, I love the synth choices and the mixing is pretty clean, but the mastering is super quiet. I had to turn my volume up considerably to match my usual listening volume. Melody is handled by a different synth, then there's a break with the B section, and a huge build to some monstrous synth work at 1:30. Like a bunch of teenagers broke into a Cauldron and drank some Thunderjaw blood.

The break at 1:56 is a welcome one, again with some cool sound design. The glitchy Tallneck effects are a nice touch, and handled just well enough so that they sound slightly uncomfortable, but not so much that the high frequencies are piercing my ear drums. There's another build and then a really nice distorted arp at 2:50 that leads into the final chorus. We finish with the same instrumentation as the intro to bookend the track, and some beautiful reverb.

Throughout the track we're treated to some gorgeous sound design, from those soft, sweet bells to that snarling arp and screeching machine SFX. The mixing doesn't muddy any of the detail here, I just wish the master was louder. I'm surprised there's so much headroom left on the track, given the quality of the mixing here. I think a conditional vote is warranted just to bump it up at least 6dB, but otherwise I've no complaints at all on this one. Fantastic stuff, and great to see Horizon games getting some love here on OCR!

CONDITIONAL on overall volume

[MindWanderer]

Not sure that this needs both sources referenced, as they're nearly identical.

It's a nice house take on Aloy's theme. I think the melody of the theme is easily recognizable, and it's clearly present and dominant here.

I don't agree the master is too quiet. I only see about 1.49 dB of headroom here, and while it's a little quiet, I can hear it clearly at my usual listening volume. I do think the lead is too quiet in the mix; but I think most of the times when it's really too quiet to hear (like 1:19), it's a stylistic decision. I wouldn't call this a dealbreaker.

YES

Edited July 26, 2023 by MindWanderer

[prophetik music]

i loved HZD when i played it but couldn't tell you a thing about the music. this is an excellent set of originals though!

the initial build is just great. the hit at 0:17 is nice, and the melodic entrance at 0:36 is excellent. the near-immediate transition to a breakdown is great pacing - saving the big bits for later is a good way to get your listeners coming back. 1:12's rising build section hits hard when the backing parts kick in finally at 1:30. the lead through here isn't as big as it could be but sounds good.

1:56 is the first real break, and the glitchiness is a fun add. the melody comes back in about 20s later and i appreciate the continued updates to the melodic material that keep happening. the false build into 2:48 is a great idea. we get one more final blow through the melodic material at 3:04, and then an extended outro that mirrors the intro.

i see what darksim is saying - it doesn't have the wall-of-sound mastering this style normally has - and it is indeed quieter than i'd expect, but i don't think it's enough to hold it back on a conditional. nice work treyt.

 

 

YES

[Chimpazilla]

The mastering is indeed on the gentle side for a track like this, with 1.3db of headroom and -13db RMS, and the lowest lows could stand to be a hair louder, but dang, it does not need to be pushed harder, especially since YouTube is going to compress and normalize it anyway, so overall volume is really not an issue.  

WOW what a track, starts out gentle and then shows its teeth hard, with all of the distortion and bitcrushing, all while a gorgeous glassy synth plays the melody.  I love this arrangement.  I don't know these sources, I feel like there is plenty of source in this mix but I'm not timestamping.  I really love all the delicate bell tones and softness, contrasted with some of the heaviest EDM sounds possible.  This one melts my face!

YES

[Liontamer]

The beats and lead synth at :28 were on the bland/generic side, though the other stuff surrounding it was good. I thought the leads should have been more upfront compared to the percussion and guitar, but it's a stylistic thing, and the pumping until :54 created some nice dynamic contrast after it stopped. Really tepid beats at 1:12; where's the beef? I liked the beats from :54-1:12, but not from 1:11-1:29. Lots of cool glitching from 1:55-2:12; awesome dropoff here.

Man, just underwhelming beats again at 2:13; it sounds like a WIP where the writing's laid down and it's awaiting the full & final production seasoning; too tame given the driving energy of the arrangement. There's some density, so it's not as if the beats aren't registering, I think they could still sound more spaciousness and give off a bigger energy. Would love to hear another pass at this with denser beats; hell, try going over the top with it, at least to try it out, then pull things back accordingly.

The level of interpretation in the arrangement's obviously creative enough where I wouldn't say send this back, but the overall levels should be louder, I'm hearing where DarkSim was coming from there. More volume actually helps the dynamics of the arrangement shine through more. Nitpicks aside, Trevor, digging this a lot. You really took the melody and rode with it; lots of strong, varied ways of presenting it, with effective dynamic contrast throughout the piece.

YES