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*NO* Donkey Kong Country "Oil Drum Madness"


Liontamer
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Arrangement Link (WAV): 
 
16 BIts, 44,1 KHz
 
Contact Information
Your ReMixer name: VGMasters
Your real name: Dark Hunter
Your email address: 
Your website(s): https://www.instagram.com/darkhunterc7/
Your userid: 37166-dark-hunter

Submission Information:
Name of game(s) arranged: Donkey Kong Country
Name of arrangement: Oil Drum Madness
Name of individual song(s) arranged: Fear factory
Original Composer: David Wise
System: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
 
Link to the original soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfoEVgp-RmM
 
"Oil Drum Madness" is a re-arrangement performed by the band VGMasters.
It is Dark Hunter's very first aggressive remix of a VGMusic back in 2011, now with the band providing extra interpretation!
 
Thank you very much for the comments on the "Black Belt Destruction" remix! We'll continue to improve as long as there were VGMusic to remix!
 
Here's a link showing the band performing Oil Drum Madness (The wav one got a remaster to submit into Ocremix): 
 
Edited by Liontamer
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mix is a sausage from the looks of it. it's a super aggressive opening, and there is zero bass presence. it peaks at about 130hz , there's much less between there and 40hz, and then it falls off. i can't hear the bass or the bass element of the kick at all. it's like it was hard cut - the bass shows up when the fundamental's above 130hz and disappears below that. so this is a hard no, there's something wrong with the mastering that needs to be fixed. probably need to listen on less bass-amplifying headphones.

intro is immediately fear factory, and reminds me of magfest performances with the rolling gait of the track and the high-energy style. the melodic content comes in after a quick drop at 0:42, and the dual guitars with melody and harmony sound good (although harmony part is a bit louder than lead). i wouldn't mind hearing more stereo separation between those two parts.

there's a drop at 1:23 to give some space, and after a few ensemble elements we're into a solo section at 1:43 or so. the melody's back at 2:20, and this is roughly the same as the first time through the melodic content at 0:42. i'd prefer there wasn't the same level of copypasta for this section. it rolls through the melodic content and then just kind of ends. after the extended intro, i'd have expected more on the end of this track.

the mastering is definitely a hard no for me, but the arrangement probably needs some work still. i like the first few minutes, but repeating the same melodic approach was a let-down as was the ending. i'd love to see more interpretation there.

 

 

NO

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  • prophetik music changed the title to 2023/09/12 - (1N) Donkey Kong Country "Oil Drum Madness"
  • 3 weeks later...

Whoa, sounds incredibly lossy, like I recorded it off the speaker I was listening to it on or was encoded at 64kbps. I like the energy of the performances. The bowed strings are defintely the weak link here; they sound so unrealistic, yet the attacks are so loud and just forcing you to pay attention from :00-:27. Main verse melody starts at :27 and the soundscape is cluttered until :40 thanks to the muddy (and overly fake-sounding) vox padding.

The layered guitars sound strong and the percussion's solid as well with some energetic rhythms; obviously not mixed ideally, especially the kick drums being so loud, but they're still positives. Man, the strings from 1:27-1:30 were just shrill and fake-sounding, then the orch stabs from 1:36-1:39 were brutally fake and exposed.

Some good guitar soloing at 1:39-2:07, but the drum kicks were cutting through too much, IMO. More weak supporting strings and vox during another iteration of the verse from 2:21-2:48, followed by some loose yet creative interpretation of the chorus's part until 3:02. Sloppy and akward cutoff of the vox samples at 3:19 for the finish, which hurt it, but would hopefully be easy enough to fix. 

prophetik wanted to see more done with the arrangement, but the presentation's stylized enough, so to me that already-interpretive treatment can bear some repetition; there's no copy-pasta here, so I'm not on board with that criticism.

The mixing should be cleaned up, the crummier samples (string, vox) need to have their lack of realism mitigated or eliminated. It's got good energy otherwise, and the arrangement/writing doesn't need to be touched, so I'd love to hear a revision, Hunter. Good work so far, but it's missing some attention to detail on the production side to help it be fully cohesive.

NO (resubmit)

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  • Liontamer changed the title to 2023/09/12 - (2N) Donkey Kong Country "Oil Drum Madness"

This is incredibly loud, especially since there is almost no content below 130Hz.  Due to no lows, all the other frequencies sound overhyped.  The mix sounds boxy as well as overly crispy.  It is a dense soundscape, so the frequency overlap of elements isn't helping things mixing-wise.  

I agree with Larry that the string and vox samples are particularly weak.  I think both should be replaced, I doubt there is much that can fix them on the mixing side.  The drums sound like they cut through too much because it's all highs.  If we could hear/feel the lows of the kick, it would sound different.  But all the lows are cut out.  It's like the entire mix has a severe low-cut on it.  Why?

The mastering sounds loud and abrasive.  This may be partly due to the lows having been cut out of the mix, but I also think there's too much saturation on everything and the final limiter is being driven unnecessarily hard.

The arrangement is good though!  And the guitar performances are solid!  I think the writing and arrangement are interpretive and transformative enough and I really like this piece in that regard.

NO (replace strings and vox samples, mix such that lows are audible, tame the mastering, and resubmit)

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  • Chimpazilla changed the title to 2023/09/12 - (3N) Donkey Kong Country "Oil Drum Madness"
  • Liontamer changed the title to *NO* Donkey Kong Country "Oil Drum Madness"
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