Top Gear in Mute City (Mashup from "Top Gear" and "F-Zero")

[Kyaku]

Another home brew mashup, always interested in feedback of all kinds!

Song:

 

Sources:

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Kyaku

[Hemophiliac]

@Kyaku It says the video unavailable, removed by the uploader.

[Kyaku]

Oops, now fixed! Made and edit and didn’t realize the link would change. Sorry about that. 

[Hemophiliac]

First off, I did see that your first submission passed.  Congratulations on that!

Evaluation:

At 0:36 I hear the bass come in and it does not carry the weight I feel it should.  Needs more presence in the mix, bring it forward.  Same goes for all of the percussion they are quiet, and the kick drum especially isn't coming through.

Arrangement is working for me until we get to the end.  At 3:00 we get a sudden key change into something that's based on the end of Mute City's loop (0:49-0:53 in source).  The key change is sudden and unprepared giving the ending an unresolved feeling.  You're going to want to look into changing that up or modifying it so it doesn't feel like it's tacked-on to be an ending.

Is 1:12-1:47 based on the Top Gear theme...if so that's good interpretation, feels similar but not quite the same as the source.

The other main thing to keep in mind is balance between the parts.  There were times such as 1:12-1:47 where I wasn't sure what to focus on in terms of melody.  Take a look and see if you can make the melodies more of a focal point so that they are not in question as to what is the focus.

Creative start, just needs more TLC and detail work.  Good job, let me know when you have updates

[Hemophiliac]

[This is an automatically generated message]

I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that it's ready for submission to OCR, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and someone will review it again. Good luck!

[Kyaku]

So I don't know if this happens to anybody else but I got a little fatigued working on this one and submitted it as a cop out.  Thankfully it was rejected because there was still work to do.  After a few diversions I tried to incorporate the feedback.  Dialed down my inclination to FILL certain frequencies and sounds while trying to better distribute the song in it's sonic space.  Simplified some parts, axed the ending (yeah, it's not you it's me), and created an intro of sorts so it's not so much BAM!  Curious for any additional feedback!

 

[Hemophiliac]

New intro works, I get the "starting line" count-down beeps.

0:46 left-side guitar with delay is too heavy on the delay and there's some overlap going on.  Could just adjust the wet/dry amount to reduce the effect from being as heavy.  More subtlety on the delay would go a long way to cleaning it up.

There are some elements that seem to be hard panned to both left and right that should probably come away from the far edges.  It's good to have some panning, but going too far can be a little disorienting.  Particularly the guitar on the right side (starts at 1:40), and whatever is on the left side that starts at that same time too.  They don't have to be centered, just bring them back towards center try going 50% back and go from there.

New ending is better than the previous one.  My only complaint on it (and it's not even a real complaint), is that I was expecting one more beat of melody at 3:09 on the downbeat (1) of that measure.  Fine as is, but it would give a more complete and resolute ending to me.

The only other nitpick I could make is more velocity variation within patterns.

Mix sounding pretty good overall.  Don't have any comments on levels.  Good luck.

[Liontamer]

Nothing wrong with Hemo's crits and it would be beneficial to keep them in mind. My only thing was that the last note should have been a C and how it ends now feels like you didn't get that last resolving note, but the ending itself is better. Definitely a meaningful improvement where there's less cramping and conflict between the parts. IMO, it's ready now, but I'm only one judge.

[Hemophiliac]

I apologize, I really should have pointed out that.  Absolutely, there's improvements on this from what I remember in the initial version that I heard.  Especially the ending.

Seriously @Kyaku, I do enjoy your work and am impressed with your growth with only a few years under your belt.

[Kyaku]

All critiques and feedback received in the spirit they are intended!  I genuinely appreciate it all, I don't really know how one could improve at this otherwise.  Or I can at least say that for me.  I work in HR and not even my wife is very interested (beyond the, "that's nice dear") in my little hobby after the kids go to bed, where else am I going to learn how to be better? :) 

That pan was too hard, I agree, softened it a bit.  Also dialed down the delay, but only slightly, I'm rather fond (maybe overly so) of delay.  Sometimes less is more though!  Also added one additional note/measure to the end, and I think that was a good idea!  Lastly, listened to it in my beater car and the high frequencies were just too strong so tapered that off in mastering subtly.  It's always interesting how songs sound differently on cheap speakers.

Here's goes nothing!