Emunator Posted December 9, 2023 Share Posted December 9, 2023 Artist: Lucas Guimaraes, Charles Ritz Oh man, this is a fun one. To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Ocarina of Time, Ro Panuganti, David Russell, and David Erick Ramos have all teamed up to produce a community charity album called Through the Sacred Realm. I knew that I didn't have much time, so I pitched a simple test: Can I emulate the style of Nujabes? I shopped it around to Charles Ritz with a demo that *kinda* got there. I was messing with every technique that I could. The main technique that got used on this track was writing the arrangement to be slower, and then speeding it up with changing the pitch. Similar to how hip-hop and video game music artists will often pitch samples, but with the full track being the sample. I specifically went after the sound of his second album, Modal Soul. I wasn't quite feeling what I had on the demo, but a few people gave me one piece of feedback that helped: It emulated Nujabes vibes. Charles came back to me close to deadline with a piano track that REALLY vibed with some placeholder bass and loops from splice. It was already sounding pretty good, which gave me a lot of confidence in producing the rest of it. He came up with a revised bass track while I focused on getting the drums there. To go extra on emulating Nujabes, I threw in a lot of sound effects for the ~atmosphere~, I added some Oboe (performed on the EWI 4000s with SWAM woodwinds) and we worked together to add in some vocals. I then mixed it, and then mastered it separate from the one on the album. (Just wanted to get some mastering practice in!) The biggest lesson this project posed is just how far a couple of well done pieces can take you. For a while I've been struggling with producing my tracks instead of just arranging, but this was one where every step of the way, we worked together to see if the changes we were making the track better. This was definitely different in the process, and I'm not quite sure how to replicate it again (I'll certainly try!) but I'm very glad we made it. It's the most collaborative experience I've ever got to have with a track and I hope to share more of those experiences with other people, - including Charles. Source: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted December 9, 2023 Share Posted December 9, 2023 I haven't heard of Nujabes before; listening to some of his tracks on Modal Soul now. His style is heavy on smooth jazz, simple/repetitive drum loops, lo-fi production, piano loops. The production sounds so minimal and dry to me, feels very flat. I get the aesthetic, but I gotta say I'm not a fan of it. Ok on to the remix! Wow that's a warbley piano. The piano playing is fantastic, I love the interpretation, but it is really making it hard to pick up on the source song. And this is a source I know extremely well (too well, it is an earworm). The source motif is more implied than played. I can definitely grok the source from 0:00-1:04 and 2:19-2:43, even thought it is super sparse. From 1:10-1:55, this section is 100% interpretation, and while the playing is ace, I get no recognizable source in that section. So that works out to 53% source, if all of the sparse motif is counted. This is going to be a tough sell. I understand the vibe you were going for, now that I listened to a few Nujabes tracks. But a simple, repetitive beat paired with an unchanging backing soundscape played in an energetically static way typically does not pass on OCR, unless other elements of interest are added. This is a very simple and repetitive arrangement. The snare is so dry and upfront, and the piano sounds like it is playing in another room. The piano playing is very good, the piano sample and its effects are on the odd side. I will be interested to hear other opinions on this. What happened at the end? In the middle of playing, with no slowdown or resolution to the ideas, the track just... ends. This is a dealbreaker for me, even if I overlook everything else I have mentioned. I'm not really sure how to suggest improvements, since this was such a specific vibe being emulated. For me though, this arrangement is not developed enough for OCR. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted December 13, 2023 Share Posted December 13, 2023 lot of headroom on the track. initial piano performance is really nice. vibe is really dry, bass is doing some nice stuff but due to the style sounds like something your neighbor's listening to than anything else. the middle section is definitely more solo over the chord changes than anything. there isn't a ton of kakariko in the solo either, although the solo itself sounds fantastic. there's no ending. it's not even a tape cut, it just stops. i didn't hear any tracks on modal soul that had zero ending, although i heard some fadeouts. this is not particularly adjacent to nujabes. listening to modal soul, there's a lot more going on there overall. the drums tend to either be very realistic with their mastering or else are loops doubled on top of themselves with other spacing elements in there and a lot more verb (don't hear much that's very dry). the bass pretty much is just fundamental like it is here, but the other backing elements are in general pretty complex and have a lot going on. there's also a much different mastering perspective applied - there's a lot of heavy limiters and intentionally blown-out tone to the keyboards and other chordal instruments, rather than the very light mastering touch applied here. i don't think this is really there yet. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 13, 2023 Share Posted December 13, 2023 prophetik did some comparisons and said this wasn't very Nujabes-adjacent; not that he was saying it mattered to the vote, but I'm clarifying for Lucas and others that whether the stylistic objective was achieved or faithful is immaterial to the decision. Noting the inspiration for our reference is definitely appreciated. I disagree with Chimpa's assessment that the source tune's more implied than played, since it was clear as day to me; totally was jazz expansion grounded in the theme, and I'm all for encouraging it. Got worried at the transition into soloing at 1:08 not because I didn't like the idea, but because I was hoping things would wind back to the theme, but that finally came back at 1:56, so those source usage worries got erased. I liked the piano vamping using the source theme as the foundation. Chimpazilla called this an "unchanging backing soundscape", which I didn't agree with. The backing has a nice sound but did feel autopilot-y due to the beats; there's nonetheless still a lot going on behind the lead because you hear the bassline move around to accompany the melodic movements and the quieter supporting piano chords. Maybe it felt samey due to the rhythms being similar throughout, even though the notes changed?? While I can see the point about wanting some beat variation, there's lots of overall movement in the track, so I'm not hung up about this beat at all and didn't feel it was a meaningful ding amongst the overall picture. prophetik said the mixing made it sound like it's something that your neighbor's listening to, which is a fair enough point, but I didn't hear anything in this mixing that obscured any of the writing or made it a difficult listen. On a sound design level, there's the faintest tapping from 1:56-2:14 and then a metallic rustling I'm picking up on from 2:20-2:39 that sounds like a chain jingling a little. It's all very quiet, but I appreciate the subtle bits of texture and character they add here; just nice small details that I heard in my headphones. I was like "man, these judges are high for rejecting this", then the track just stopped deader than Kelsey's nuts at 2:42. Bro, what? Huh?!? Is THAT a Nujabes tactic? (Does it even matter if it's a Nujabes tactic? Because it doesn't to me. :-D). Other than an ending, what more is this needing to do? The melody's arranged nicely in an arrangement-solo-arrangement sandwich structure, the mixing's fine to me, and the backing writing does have a beat that can feel repetitive but has meaningfully more than that going on. Bump these others; I love the concept, beats are phat, arrangement is strong. Juuuust needs a resolution for the finish and I'm on board. Wish I could YES it on a conditional level and encourage more votes/POVs, because I feel like the positive qualities here were undersold and encouraging things to be more complicated than they needed to be arrangement-wise, but I can't lay down a vote I don't actually agree with just to extend things. To me, minus the ending, this is solid, transformative stuff and a creative treatment. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts