OCR04811 - *YES* Spelunker "Cave Diving"

[MindWanderer]

I'm thrilled to finally be able to send this one in!  Spelunker(NES) was a game I remember playing a lot as a little kid.   It was impossibly difficult, and beyond frustrating, but I kept coming back to it.  Maybe I just liked the concept, maybe it was a need to face the challenge, maybe I simply enjoyed the music in the first level, maybe all of them. 

Arranging Stage 1 in this style was one of the first ideas for a ReMix I had, but I decided it was beyond my abilities starting out.  Over the next few years, I kept coming back to it off and on trying out different ideas, but I couldn't ever seem to get past the first minute (rather like the game itself...).   I actually came up with the title very early on, and liked the whole spelunking/tropical island pun so much that it helped motivate me to not give up.  Last November, I tried bringing in some other sources and finally broke past that 1 minute barrier.  Pretty soon I had several sources involved and thought "how cool would it be if I could use all ten of the tracks from the OST in this in some way.", and it worked!  While the majority of the ReMix is taken from stage 1, all nine of the remaining tracks on the OST make an appearance in whole or in part somewhere in this ReMix (that source break down was a beast).

I'm joined on this project once again by a stellar cast of collaborators who brought this idea to life:

Classical Guitar: GuitarSVD  - Always a great guy to collaborate with . He took center stage here and turned out his usual great performance

Acoustic Guitar: Reuben Spiers - I hadn't gotten to work with him since the Golden Sun album.   

Electric Guitar: SiolfortheJackal - Who did a great job creating a slide guitar sound without actually having a slide or having tried it before.

Hand Percussion: Sean Hanson - I actually didn't write any hand percussion, I just told Sean roughly what I was after and he delivered!

Steel Drum: MarimbaMatt - This is the second time Matt's given me a great performance on a hard-to-find percussion instrument that elevates the whole track. 

Drum Set: Kenny Jr. - I can't write drums to save my life. Fortunately, Kenny can. I sent him a part that approximated the style I was after, and he rewrote it into a real drum part, providing a great performance to boot!

Piano: ZeldaRocks - Xander's bailed me out with piano parts on both this track and "Green Glade Groove" ( actually recorded at the same time).  There's no overselling how great it is to have someone who can churn out solid performances in short order. 

Trombone: DeweyNewt - Frequently, he serves the vital role of being the bass anchor in my brassier tracks. 

Bass and Mixing: myuik  - He put in a truly heroic effort mixing this track between other obligation and challenges over the course of many months, in addition to taking some time to shine on bass.  He modified the bass part pretty heavily to give it that little something extra. 

And naturally, I rounded out the ensemble on trumpets.

A huge thank you to all of my partners on this track for helping me finally turn this concept into something real!  It is always a blast working with each of them, and this track would be dramatically different (and not near as good) without their creative and performative contributions. 

Without any further ado, I hope you all enjoy the sounds of subterranean submersion in "Cave Diving".

Thank you, 
TSori

---

Games & Sources:

Cave Diving Source Break Down		Spelunker (NES)
ReMix		Source
Time	Instrument	Track	Time	Link
0:00-0:005	Trumpet	Title Theme	0:00-0:03	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUvxItZeMYM&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=1&pp=iAQB8AUB
0:05-1:02	Nylon Guitar (with Steel Drum&Trumpet)	Stage 1	0:00-0:18	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC-dlAnURBY&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=2&pp=iAQB8AUB
1:02-1:07	-	ORIGINIAL	-	-
1:07-1:14	trumpet	Ghost Appears	0:00-0:03	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnTNEn_o9pA&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=9&pp=iAQB8AUB
1:14-1:16	snare drum	mimcs gun sound that chases away ghost in game	-
1:16 - 1:40	piano	Title Theme	0:10-0:22
1:40-1:45	piano	Title Theme	0:31:0:34
1:45-2:04	Steel Drum	Doords Unlocked	0:00-0:06	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tVroScIreE&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=6&pp=iAQB8AUB
2:04-2:14	Bass	Game Over	0:00-0:10	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCkN60jwkL4&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=8&pp=iAQB8AUB
2:14-2:22		ORIGINAL
2:22--2:33	Trumpet (with Steel drum)	Stage 2	0:00-0:06	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wuop02VTn4&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=3&pp=iAQB8AUB
2:33-2:46	Nylon Guitar	Stage 1	0:00-0:18
	Trumpet	Stage 2	0:00-0:06
2:46-2:51	Nylon Guitar	Lost Life	0:00-0:03	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-YfCDS_wM&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=7&pp=iAQB8AUB
2:51-2:56	Nylon Guitar	Stage 3	0:00-0:05	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZg-RRxnHGw&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=4&pp=iAQB8AUB
2:56-3:03	Nylon Guitar and Steel Drum	Stage 4	0:00-0:11	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGPK9g2KMCE&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=5&pp=iAQB8AUB
3:04-3:11	Trumpet	original loosely based on stage 3	-
3:11-3:30	Piano	Ending Theme	0:00-0:10	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCMpCKtonCI&list=PLD51E5D6230C3FDFC&index=10&pp=iAQB8AUB
3:30-4:03	Nylon Guitar	Original
	trumpet	Stage 1	0:00-0:18
		Stage 2	0:00-0:06
	steel drum	Stage 1	0:00-0:18
	Original	0:13	5%
	Source	3:50	95%

 

[prophetik music]

track oozes style right off the bat. i wish the nylon guitar at the beginning was a little brighter and more forward in the mix, but the whole ensemble sounds great together. the break at 1:02 is stylistically appropriate, and the following section at 1:16 feels like a solo break, so that transition worked. the main band sound picked back up at 2:13 after handing off melodic elements to various instruments, my only nitpick at this point is the variety of sources you're trying to cover makes this previous minute or so sound a bit disjointed. the themes don't lend themselves to sounding like true solos and they kind noodle around. what you did works, it's just not as strong as it could have been.

2:33 brings back the nylon guitar lead and this sounds pretty similar to the initial section until the silence break and subsequent solo section in the guitar. 3:11 introduces some shuffle which is a nice shift, but unfortunately we don't stay there. we get some more stage 1 theme, and then the track is done. it's a little sudden of an ending and doesn't feel particular prepared as compared to other transitions in the track.

overall, i think this gets a bit noodly due to the variety of themes that are being used, but the strong performances and overall solid arrangement of the most commonly used theme (stage one) carry it over the finish line. the track sounds good and all instruments are clear and audible when they're supposed to be. nice work.

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

Thanks for the breakdown. It was needed with this many sources involved, especially since the main hook is somewhat liberally interpreted. And that hook is needed, since it ties the whole thing together. I only found a few sections to be noodly non-sequiturs, notably 1:06-1:45. Most of the "noodly" riffs blended in as fun solos, and I think they work great. The ending was fine; a bit abrupt, but better than half of what we get.

Sounds great, with mostly solid performances (just a few minor flubs here and there), and a creative approach. Strong work.

YES

[Hemophiliac]

All-star breakdown, made that very easy to identify the source and get through that quickly.  Thank you.

All-star cast of characters!  Well performed all around!

I particularly liked 2:27-2:42 and how the themes jump back-and-forth between instruments as a call and response.  That was a great idea and works very well to bring separate sources together seamlessly.

Really cool how Siolfor managed to get the slide steel sound on the guitar.  Also how cool is it to have some live steel drums?  Get me drink with a little umbrella in it!

My only nitpick is the piano and the steel drum step on each other's toes at times, particularly when they're occupying the same space such as 1:17-1:40. Changing octave of the piano or sitting either would remedy that. Doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment though.

YES

 

[Emunator]

There's a lot going on here but it doesn't ever feel like there's too much going on at once. Every instrument knows its place and how to step aside and share the spotlight when it's appropriate. This lends itself to the "live band, but not really" vibe - even though you've got a ton of different contributors adding their own touch to the piece, it takes a skilled arranger to make it all fit together tastefully, so props to you TSori for making that happen!

I would have to say that my only gripe with the final product is regarding tone shaping on certain instruments. The slide guitar is a cool addition but it's drowning in a ton of reverb so that it doesn't really feel present in the mix, which feels extra strange when combined with the distortion on the guitar tone. I wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to perceive that instrument and it stuck out in a negative way. Similarly, the piano performance is great but the tone itself feels timid - the piano is almost all transient and not much perceivable sustain, so even though I presume this was performed live with a sustain pedal and/or manually sustaining certain notes, it comes away with this paradoxically-fake sound as if it was programmed in with MIDI. This was a tough issue to fully articulate so I might not have identified the source of it perfectly, but it caught me off guard.

Thankfully, despite a few weaker spots in the mix, this is still a joy to listen to and positively highlights all of the contributions that everyone brought to the table.

YES