*NO* Witcher 3 "From Kaer Trolde with Love"

[Emunator]

Hi,

Please find attached my mp3 file of my cover of "Ard Skellig Village" from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Arrangement name "From Kaer Trolde With Love"

 

Thanks

 

Alex

 

Contact information:

Remixer name: AxRob

Real name: Alex Robinson

Email: 

Website: instagram.com/alexrobinson.music

User id: 38534

 

Submission information:

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Name of arrangement: From Kaer Trolde With Love

Name of individual song arranged: Ard Skellig Village

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Liontamer
closed decision

[MindWanderer]

Starts off conservatively: same genre, mostly the same instrumentation, but with a richer tone and some additional layers.  Deviations from the original gradually increase until the halfway mark, where there's a breakdown and a brief violin bridge. Then we start another loop, back to being conservative at first, but this time breaking away from the source more quickly and radically, until going into a much more complicated climax, which fades out.

It's a little quiet. That's a minor issue, though, easily corrected.

I have some mixed feelings here. The tone is great. It's a rich soundscape with gorgeously orchestrated and realized instruments. But for the first half, it's squarely in "sound upgrade" territory. The extra layers add to the depth of the arrangement, but not the character. The cello in particular does sound great; it's the most transformative part of this section, but it is the only notably transformative part.

The second half is much more transformative, with a change in tone from pastoral to epic. For about a minute there, there's no doubt that there's original interpretation going on. But then it fades out, folding back on the notion that it's an original creation and seeming more like a snippet from the game's OST.

This does a great job of elevating the original piece into something with a much richer tone and grander scale. But ultimately I'm left with the feeling that that's mostly all it is: an elevation of the original piece. Most of the second half is fine, other than the fadeout, but between the conservative first half and the lack of conclusion, I'm borderline on whether this is substantially an original creation. I've started to type out this conclusion several times and keep waffling.  Well, when I'm this close, better to fall on the side of

YES (borderline)

[Liontamer]

Yeah, opens VERY conservatively, so we’ll have to see where this goes. 4:44’s enough room to play with, but that transformative pivot better come through.

1:22 finally has some additive string work/orchestration join in, finally having some arrangement and interaction with the main lead at 1:49. Brief but beautiful string lead at 2:30, followed by nice drums at 2:45, and this is where things take off more in terms of a different intensity and energy from the source, leading to the peak at 4:03.

Some people are gonna criticize the fade-out ending, but I’m not one of them, it’s fine.

You had me in the first half, not gonna lie, but you came through with substantial expansion and personalized this treatment well after 2:45 (and of course led into that gradually starting at 1:22).

Sometimes additional part-writing is the key distinguishing aspect of an arrangement, and that’s cool. There was enough of that together with that part-writing referencing the source and occasionally doubling the melody that the sum total is transformative with the overall composition. Nice work, Alex!

YES

[prophetik music]

i disagree that the first part of this is a sound upgrade. the original is superior in every aspect - the backing pad is richer and the original's plectral instrument is more evocative. there are some added percussive elements at 0:55, but they're almost nonexistent. the doubling of the lead is nice but again not as evocative as the original's instrumentation. the cello at 1:22 is certainly nice, but i don't think i'd call it particularly realistic with the machine-gun vibrato (if you can modify the depth, reduce it! it's very wide). i particularly like the slides added between notes, they're not idiomatic but help give it a folky feel that counteracts the very wide romantic-era vibrato.

there's a clear shift at about 2:44 to start bringing in a lot more countermelodic and backing content. the original plectral instrument is lost in the mix (i hear snippets here and there) but the rest of the writing is rich and broad. i wouldn't call what is being played particularly groundbreaking, and the melodic line regularly gets lost, but it's nice to listen to and feels good until the fadeout which is a super buzzkill. i'm one of those people, larry, i feel it just drains any energy or emotion built up in that section. and it's lazy, especially on a melodic line with a clear ending point like this one has.

the fadeout loop starts at 4:06. the cello comes in at 1:22. that means that 34% of the track is the original but less, another 34% is original with a cello doing sustains, and the remaining 32% is a solid arrangement of the theme. i would argue that we wouldn't ever think of even coming close to passing the first 68% of the track, so a minute and a half of orchestral remix work isn't enough to balance it. i'd possibly consider it if it didn't have the first 1:22 of less-than-original, and was 1.5 minutes of original with cello and 1.5 minutes of orchestra. the extra cruft on the beginning is too much for me.

edit: to clarify my vote, my issue is not with the remixer writing boring music or something. it's that the vast majority of the first three minutes wasn't written by the remixer at all, it was written by marcin przybyłowicz & friends, and the remixer put some (simple but well-handled and carefully animated) cello sustains in there on the second half. that's not arrangement, that's realization or transcription, and we don't accept either here normally. the last minute and a half is immaterial at that point; way too much of the track isn't arrangement.

NO

Edited August 2, 2023 by prophetik music

[Chimpazilla]

I have to sadly agree with Brad that there isn't enough arrangement here for a full remix.  The instrumentation is nice but it is really just a cover up until 2:44 with minimal additions to it.  The additions brought in starting at 2:44 are very nice but that should have happened somewhere around the one-minute mark.  As Brad said, the first 68% of this mix is too conservative; basically a cover.  Then, just as things are getting interesting and it feels like the soundscape is still on full blast after the big section, there's a fadeout.  Even dropping a few instruments out after 4:06 would feel like an ending is coming, but all the instruments are still playing as they were in the previous section, during the fadeout.  I am one of those people who feel that fadeouts are disappointing generally, but sometimes they work.  Here, it just doesn't.   

There is a lot of repetition in the writing.  The drums sound good but they play the same thing over and over once they begin.  I also agree with Brad about the cello having the over-consistent vibrato making it obviously fake, although I do like the sound of it and I also like the note slides.  

The instrumentation is nice, but I'm with Brad, too much of this arrangement is the original source tune.

NO

[DarkSim]

I don't think there can be much argument that this is too conservative - AxRob says in his submission email that it's a cover! I'm inclined to agree. The beautiful enrichment of the piece only just gets going right before the fadeout, which is a total cop-out here and reminds us that it's a piece of music originally designed to be looped, not an original interpretation designed to be listened as an entity with a beginning-middle-end. Granted, fadeouts are fine in some cases, but here it runs counter to the slow-burning build established in the track. By being so conservative with the tempo, instrumentation, and overall presentation of the track, really the only thing going for it in terms of original arrangement is the way elements are added and built upon as it progresses. By simply fading out, all the great work done in building a swell of emotions just dissolves away, leaving the listener unfulfilled.

This absolutely needs more original interpretation and a better ending before I'd be happy passing it, although there is plenty of scope to work with what you've got. You've laid the foundations, now it's time to really build on that and come up with something that puts more of your own mark on it.

NO

[Rexy]

I'll start with the production aspect. Yes, the original is superior in every way, but that was mainly because the acoustic strings in the original (Mandolin? Dulcimer? Bouzouki?) were live. Working with a sampled variation, it has a lush feel despite the key-switch limitations associated mainly with a dulcimer VST. The backing pad, while not entirely out of place, doesn't feel as deep as the original either - and some of the vibrato and pitch bending of the cello also gives off a more synthetic vibe. None of these are deal breakers, as when all parts get together, any accentuation issues get mitigated, and the balance is strong enough to make them all work cohesively.

Yet, I'm afraid I will have to concur with Brad and the camp regarding the arrangement. Yes, the strings, some percussion, and some string harmonics (2:16) did their involvement under the source transcription to add some subtractive arrangement work. But the structure is still two loops of the BGM, with added instrument work becoming more prominent at 1:22 and only starting to get going within the final third. Now, usually, there's nothing wrong with adding other layers underneath to make a mix work - but when you still have the base pads and folky guitar being used in the arrangement, doing the same actions in the original BGM, there needed to be more to it and much sooner. Methods like assigning different instruments to play the melody, subtly altering patterns on the main parts, and some texture building like you did in the last third can bring this a long way.

I'm sorry, but I can't pass it in its current form - and it's all down to arrangement and not enough thereof. You are the artist here; therefore, we want to hear more from you - so if you can revise it with a more original interpretation, that'll be fantastic.

NO (resubmit)

[Flexstyle]

I'll keep this one short:  I agree that this track isn't transformative enough. If the instruments were arranged to be a significant embellishment of the original melodies, if there was variation and playing with different presentations of the motifs, if there was a significant change in instrument choice...all of those would help this on the way to being a OC ReMix. As it is, it's a really beautiful cover, but not substantially transformative for this site. I'd love to hear this back with a new, fresh approach to the tune, because this is certainly well-done -- the mix is clean, the sounds work well in their context, and that MIDI string lead is sequenced quite well. Can't wait to hear a new approach to this one soon, I hope!

 

NO (resubmit)