Emunator Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 (edited) cooliscool Jeremy Johnson https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-johnson-850853006 & https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-johnson-24 (I have no personal website) 38856 Metroid II - Return of Samus My World over world Theme Ryoji Yoshitomi, for Nintendo Gameboy, 1991 I wrote this quite by accident during an improv/practice session. The chord progression came about by intuition, and I realized quickly that it would represent a great version of this wonderful tune. It is sparse, but I think the elements are quite strong in harmony. Enjoy! I also have a 7 minute long extended version available. Sorry for being g negligent in reading and following the guidelines first. Thanks for your consideration! Edited December 4, 2023 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 file fails to download correctly for whatever reason. i'm doing my analysis within the drive audio player as a result. intro is with piano, bass, and kit. the piano's got some delay on it, but the kit is ultra dry and the bass is essentially fundamental content only. drums are playing basic patterns and really don't sound in the same space as the piano, and the cymbals on the kit don't sound like they're in the space of either as well. the piano is mostly functioning in an exploratory sense around the melodic line - there's certainly expansion, but it usually is staying pretty close to the original melodic line or the arpeggiated perfect fifth that we hear at the beginning of the original. there doesn't appear to be a clear direction to where the piano's going, and the drums are so much louder than everything else that it's honestly hard to hear what it's playing most of the time anyways. the file breaks at around 2:03, but i'm comfortable rendering my thoughts on just that part as i don't see this changing. overall, this needs more workshopping. first of all, there's no real dynamic direction to the work. the original starts out smaller and swells through several sections. this track doesn't change at all in terms of instrumentation or dynamics in the first two minutes i heard. there's also nothing beyond those initial three instruments. you can absolutely make a small trio work, but it requires expansive, interesting work in the piano and bass, and some more complexity in the rhythm instrument. adding some pads, a few leads, some other keyboards, or even a bass with tone that we can hear instead of it just being in the sub would add a lot to the work. beyond that, getting all the instruments in the same room from an auditory standpoint would help a lot. all three instruments sound very different and are in very different spaces in terms of reverb, EQing, and volume. balancing those out - ie. improving the mixing - would make a huge improvement. right now this needs more work. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted November 26, 2023 Share Posted November 26, 2023 File downloaded fine for me. Wow right off the bat, directly into the writing with no kind of intro, the soundscape is established and everything feels separate. The bass as Brad said is fundamental-only and has no synergy with anything else. The piano is washed out and delayed with a very fast, stiff delay, and the drum kit is loud, dry and up-front. This soundscape stays exactly the same until 2:24 when a plucked instrument joins in which is welcomed, but it seems to only be adding further noodling to the arrangement. The bass is just playing the same thing again and again and again, same for the drums. The piano and this pluck are just noodling away and not giving me anything motif-like to latch on to. Everything is playing at around the same energy level and it just sounds frenetic and lacks any kind of structure. I'm five minutes in and nothing interesting has happened and I am wishing it was over already. Seven minutes of this? The pluck drops out at 6:26, with no resolution to its writing pattern, it just stops cold. Ok at the seven-minute mark here is the strangest outro I have ever heard. The drums and piano stop abruptly and the bass pattern continues alone for a quick fadeout. That was straight-up obnoxious, sorry to be so blunt. Nice little noodle, good vibe, but goes on way too long without providing anything interesting. Mixing is inconsistent and disconnected. Seems like a good concept wip for a more detailed arrangement, but surely not ready to stand alone on OCR. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 4, 2023 Share Posted December 4, 2023 Too many fundamental shortcomings. Like others mentioned, the track starts with 0 introduction or build-up, and the drum mixing is imbalanced. All of the sequenced parts sound stilted and the arrangement is underdeveloped and repetitive, certainly nothing justifying an extended cut. The track took too long to even get to the melodic portion, then once you got to 2:14, about a minute’s worth of loop went on for four for no reason. Would have loved some further variations, textural changes, or other arrangement techniques to be employed to help justify the length. Even if this were a brief cut, the way the samples are used lacks sophistication and humanization, and the arrangement ideas are too minimal. I’m sorry to not have positives to point out beyond the kudos for entering the arena, Jeremy; as a non-musician, I respect that you’ve made this piece happen. Without further compositional/arrangement ideas or production polish, however, this is very far from a developed concept, just something in the early work-in-progress stages. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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