Liontamer Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 Your ReMixer name: Troyificus Your real name: Troy Plain Your email address: Your website(s): troyificus.bandcamp.com Your userid: 24839 Name of game arranged: Ristar Name of arrangement: Ice Star Name of individual song arranged: Planet Freon - Ring Rink (Round 5-1) This was made for An OverClocked Christmas v.XVII, however for me it's a track several years in the (theoretical) making. I've always wanted to make a remix of this song, as it's my favorite from a criminally overlooked OST on a game that has mostly been forgotten, likely due to it releasing towards the end of the Mega Drive / Genesis lifecycle. Ristar is just a fun, straight-forward platformer and the music totally reflects that. There's a joyous, triumphant feel to every song on the OST that perfectly reflects the themed level it's assigned to. And to me, Ring Rink feels like Christmas (the sleigh bells help, I'm sure). So for years I've sporadically picked up this source and tried to do something with it, but never managed to make anything worth pursuing. Until this year when, for some reason, it all came together. This will mark the second time I've ever submitted a track to the judges panel (the first one failed, then was rescued by the wonderful Jorito and Chimpazilla for the Terranigma album. I was going by Trism in those days!) so I'm rather nervous as to how this is going to be received. Thanks for your time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted September 22, 2023 Share Posted September 22, 2023 It's a nice chill mix. The problem is that it's repetitive as heck. The main hook is 0:18-0:26, and it repeats 8 times unchanged, not counting the fadeout. After 1:35, there's no original content, it's just a loop of most of the first half. The sound quality is fine for what it is, it's just that this arrangement is effectively only a minute and a half long. Add some more content to hold the listener's interest and I think this will be in good shape. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 not quite 5db of headroom. also about 20s of padding after the fadeout. intro bells and pad sound nice. initial drum groove is fine, although the bass in the intro is almost inaudible. the groove hits at 0:18, and the drums sound pretty rough. there's a lot of bass content in the snare, the hats occasionally pop forward in the mix like they're from a different kit, and the kick has a ton of really boomy head noise like it's from an arena rock kit. i'd spend some time crafting the sound on that kit more so it's not so big. from an arrangement perspective, MW's correct in saying it's very repetitive and much the same throughout. there's some ways to improve that, including adding additional elements, varying your instrumentation throughout, altering chords, and messing with the melodic material itself. any of those changes would make a huge boost in the overall level of the mix. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 26, 2023 Author Share Posted September 26, 2023 Nice sound upgrade to this to start, but then the switch to the drumkit and bass guitar at :18 doesn't have synergy with the synths. By :45, I was wondering when we'd hit a different part of the source theme. At :55, there's another textural change, but these instruments don't gel together. At 1:12, the bass guitar's playing too low (and the combination with the fading pad makes it sound off-key) and the clap groove sounds super default-y. OK, briefly back to the nicer sounding groove at 1:35, and then the drumkit from :18 coming back again at 1:44, and this is definitely underdeveloped. prophetik broke down how this drumkit sound doesn't fit, and, to me, most of these textures don't even click. Once you get to 1:35, Troy, you've essentially heard all the substance there is. Unfortunately, nothing here yet is beyond a work-in-progress level of development or cohesiveness. If you're not getting feedback from the #workshop channel in the community Discord or Post Your Game ReMixes forum, please gather more feedback and advice to help refine your future work. I really liked the very start, but this needs a lot more arrangement substance, textural cohesion, and mixing polish. Good source tune choice, with some areas that sounded nice here, but this would need a significant revision to adequately develop this. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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