*NO* Street Fighter 6 "Psycho Businessman"

[Liontamer]

Your ReMixer name : Vylent (formerly Silent Ice)
Your real name: Darryl Cummings
Your email address: 
Your website(s): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfPwY-HjR-f-UV8cCZyG6qQ
Your userid: 23989

 

Name of game(s) arranged - Street Fighter 6
Name of arrangement : Psycho Businessman
Name of individual song(s) arranged :  JP's Theme - The Plunderer
Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. : (Capcom Sound Team for the album, Yoshiya Terayama for the track) (PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S)
Link to the original soundtrack (https://vgmdb.net/album/131185) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMZq8Ycgo6U
 

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, how the source material was referenced in the arrangement, etc.

 

Capcom had been releasing character themes as part of their marketing up to the release of Street Fighter 6 and upon hearing JP's theme, I thought to challenge myself on producing an arrangement I was proud of in a day's time. 

Psycho Businessman is a short and admittedly simple rendition of some of the melodies heard in the original theme (with an emphasis around what is heard at the bass drop of the original) along with some of my own interpretations of the character's energy. I wanted to invoke the feel of a regal businessman who exudes video game Boss energy.
 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Liontamer
closed decision

[prophetik music]

make sure you listen to the entire original track, judges: don't miss the funky section at 1:56.

easy to see how an epic orchestral approach would fit this original. starts out with orchestral taikos and E. S. Posthumus-style choir and orchestra elements. the brass samples are a touch behind the beat which is pretty distracting. there's a big drop into the 0:40 hit, and we get some wubs alongside orchestral elements for the 30s or so that this section's going on.

the transition between wubulous and the subsequent orchestral section is jarring in the extreme, and the orchestral section appears to be the intro without taikos. it does this for a bit, loads up some kicks for a transition, and then repeats Wub City. this is, as far as i can see, a 1:1 copypasta, so that means about half the track is repeated nearly note for note. then the track ends with no outro or acknowledgement of the change.

this is a no from me, dawg, primarily due to the lack of overall content. i think both individual sections you wrote are interesting, but that's not quite 1:15 of music repeated once to make it 2.5 minutes. expansion of the arrangement is needed.

 

 

NO

[Liontamer]

Opens up with some plinky piano but solid orchestration, and I like the percussion. Brass was really blatty at :12, almost sounding like it was lightly distorting, and the orchestration and vox were sounding distant. Nice turn at :39 with some deep bass, and a nice sweep sound from :57-1:03, but this mixing's shot and there's 0 clarity and sharpness aside from some abrasive volume until the textures abruptly changed at 1:15. Vox awkwardly changed from note-to-note, most exposed at 1:15 & 1:21, but adequately covered up later. A good textural change at 1:39, and I like the deep bass sound, but this mixing's doing it no favors. After the second poorly mixed track in a row, I literally had to thrown on a control track just make sure it wasn't my setup.

I'm not put off as much by the repetition; prophetik's not wrong about it though. To me it sounds like you only sent in the first half of the arrangement, and then there's a raincheck on the second half. Even with an adequately personalized sound to the arrangement so far, I agreed with him that you'll need to develop this further. Cleaning up the sequencing and mixing is important as well though; find out how you can sharpen and tighten this up, the sequencing being the more important of the two. There's obvious potential here, Darryl, and this has a big sound, but this just isn't a complete arrangement yet.

NO (resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

I absolutely LOVE this concept and how huge this sounds in the big wubby choruses.  I truly hope this will be completed because I want to hear it and throw it in my favorites list.  But it isn't ready. 

The samples used are very weak (piano, brass, strings, vox).  Those really should be replaced as they are so integral to the piece.

Everything is mixed super hot and abrasive; there is no need for everything to have this much distortion.  It makes everything fight for presence in the soundscape and makes it all feel crowded.  Some elements should naturally float to the back and be less prominent, some should be loud and proud in the front.  That will give you a more 3D mix.

The bass and wubs are AWESOME.  The drums are sort of weak.  I can hear the kick ok, but whatever you have layered on top of the snare is not a good sound, it isn't dubsteppy and just sounds like a high-end "smack" sound, you need a solid dubstep snare to carry it.  Both kick and snare need to be loud, cut through well, and you need good heavy sidechaining (on the bass at least, but also on the other elements with lower gain reduction amounts so it doesn't pump).

Speaking of pumping, the overall mix is pumping and not in a good way.  The master is smashed to smithereens, while still coming in at -3db peak, which is not good at all.  Your ceiling should be more like -1 to -0.5db, but you need to mix this in such a way that you don't have to overdrive your master compression/final limiter like this.  My primary suggestion to get a huge mix and clean master is to lower your master input gain by at least 5db before you even begin to write.  In this type of mix you could lower it up to 10db, I do this often.  This simple tip will allow you to mix at the higher end of your faders without ever hitting 0db during writing/mixing, which will allow you way more headroom for more creative mastering when it's finished being written.

I agree with Larry that this is half an arrangement.  On top of that, the two big sections that are here are too similar, there needs to be some more variation between the two.  Following what you have here, and after varying the two similar drops, I feel the arrangement needs a nice drumless breakdown and another big section, with even more variations in sounds and/or writing to vary it from the preceding two huge sections, and then a proper outro.  That would be my recommendation.  I love what's here but this is a wip, please finish it!

NO (please fix up and resubmit)