Liontamer Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 (edited) Would need a unique title if it passed -LT Artist: Astroverse Dimensions i have redone almost the complete soundtrack in rock/metal style tried to keep the sequence the game pretends and put in as much themes as possible and mixed it with original samples to keep the feeling Games & Sources: TMNT II Back from the Sewers (Gameboy) Almost complete Soundtrack Tsuyoshi Sekito Yuko Kurahashi Edited January 30 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 holy crap, this is a 262mb wav. i am not going to go through and timestamp somethinig >750s long, so i'll call out my general thoughts. i'll note that usually medleys get judged harshly here since it's hard to do something transformational with 30 seconds per song. as a whole, you've certainly got some stuff in here that's significantly arranged, but there's also a lot that's just a cover and that's not great. the mix is super treble-ly. this is probably due to using whatever synths you're using to simulate everything. i grabbed a random 30s section and the lowest bass content was at 68hz and then it was hard scooped under that, and there was a lot concentrated around the fundamental freqs through maybe 250hz before it started to drop off like expected. this is not a great freq balance and my ears confirm it - it's very dense in the mids and there's no bottom to the track at all. i can hardly hear a kick, and while i can hear the bass regularly because there's no pitched instruments aside from the guitar leads and the bass, there's no meat to it. speaking of lack of backing content, there's no backing elements. it's all lead guitars, occasionally a synth lead with the guitars doing rhythm elements, and a bass and drums. i don't consistently hear any rhythm guitar behind the lead, backing synths that aren't doubling the lead parts outside of a few sections, countermelodic components, etc. it makes for a very bleak and empty soundscape despite some fun drum programming in a few spots and some neat synthy guitar work. i'll note that it does get better as the track goes on, but i shouldn't need to listen for eight minutes to get some synth flourishes in the background. the synth guitars throughout sound like synth guitars, which can work, but it sounds pretty vanilla here. this really needs either some more intentional and better-sounding guitar elements, or else a shift away from synth guitar as the lead entirely. from an arrangement perspective, there's a lot of drum loops. each song's got its own loop, but they essentially don't change for the entire section. the fills that i hear are fun, but again, you can't just be on autopilot aside from transitions. there should be some more variety in there to make it less obvious that it's programmed. i think there's some really fun ideas here! some more love and intentionality to the guitar and drum programming, fleshing out the soundscape some more, and then starting over on the mixing and EQing would do a lot. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Okay, I'm not going to listen to an entire hour-plus-long OST to review one track. This also opens with an 81-second rendition of the main TMNT theme song, which is originally from the cartoon. Our guidelines say the following: The music must have been composed specifically for the game or first published (or recognized) as the game's soundtrack. Movie themes such as Star Wars or licensed songs from games like Gran Turismo do not qualify. Any incorporation or arrangement of source material not from games (mainstream, classical, etc.) should be extremely limited. So that's immediately disqualifying right there. As for the production and arrangement, proph hit all the relevant notes. It's a thin, treble-heavy soundscape, and the arrangement is an overly-conservative medley with no connective tissue. proph gave plenty of good advice, so please take it to heart. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 The treatment of the cartoon TMNT alone until 1:22 was extremely repetitive (and using it so much violates our standards re: non-VGM source tune usage, as previously mentioned). Ignoring that though, it's definitely going to be tough to do something stylized enough where a faux electric guitar sample isn't going to sound relatively low quality, even if it has flair to it. The percussion for the 1:22 section with those rim hits was just mixed in too loudly. Lots of shrill mixing here; the overall textures would sound stronger with appropriate EQ cuts. No transitions from theme to theme either (e.g. 1:22, 2:32, 3:51, 4:08, 4:49, etc., etc.), which means we're in medleyitis territory where the track doesn't flow like a unified composition and is full of quick themes and abrupt transitions (also frowned on re: our arrangement standards). Would love to hear you, Astroverse, flesh out one of two of these themes with an interpretive and personalized arrangement approach though! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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