*NO* Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom "Jukebox from the Sky at Lookout Landing"

[Liontamer]

Artist Name: minusworld

Alright, so first things first: This is a VERY transformative arrangement. The key is minor, melodies are edited to fit the groove, and the solo sections aren't really tied to the source. I realize the liberties I took with this one might DQ it outright. With that said (er, typed), let me draw a map from source to cover. :)

SOURCE ---------------- COVER

Flute intro ----------- N/A
Piano chords  --------- Synth stabs

A Section ------------- A Section

Piano melody ---------- Guitar melody (rhythm and pitch changed to fit)
- Phrase 1 --------------- Ending pitch changed to fit minor key
- Phrase 2(chord change) - Changed to 2 notes
- Phrase 3(I chord again)- Modified to fit rhythm

- Phrase 3 2nd time ------ Phrase is very different, only superficial similarities
- Transition Phrase ("hopping" piano to horns) -- N/A

B Section ------------- B Section

Woodwind melody ------- Guitar melody
- Phrase A --------------- Some note pitches altered, rhythm extended for longer, embellishments (slides) added
- Phrase B --------------- Extended phrase
- N/A      --------------- Added ascending scale back to Cover Phrase A, which isn't repeated in source
Piano melody ---------- Guitar melody
- Phrase A --------------- N/A
- Phrase B --------------- Some note pitches altered to fit key

Transition ------------- Transition

Woodwind chords -------- Evolving synth chord

A Section ------------- A Section

(same as A Section above, plus)
Flute countermelody --- Sax countermelody - phrase ending cut off

B Section ------------- B Section

(same as B Section above, but with different instruments)

N/A ------------------- Solo Sections

N/A ------------------- Flute solo (Zelda main theme motif at the end)
N/A ------------------- Sax solo
N/A ------------------- Guitar solo

N/A ------------------- Outro

Features A section piano melody, but with an extension at the end to fit the rhythm

Track credits

* SableProvidence - Flute
* Jess Destramp - Alto & Tenor Saxophone
* minusworld - guitars, bass, VST programming, arrangement, production

This was my submission for DoD's Silent Protagonist month.

The inspiration for this track is the synthwavy tunes on Jack & Owane's albums, such as the song "Glitter". I didn't really listen to synthwave before working on this, and I discovered The Midnight, mitch murder, and others during the process. I wanted to focus on the interplay between instruments, so SableProvidence and Jess Destramp join me to trade some soaring lines. :)

Games & Sources:

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Lookout Landing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qtwKvFxHRY

 

Edited July 23 by Liontamer
closed decision

[prophetik music]

thank you for the very clear breakdown.

synthwave vibe is clear right off the bat, and i love the minor version of the main melodic line. the flute is a nice layer on it as well. there's a little less going on in the background than i'd have expected based on the influences, especially at 0:32 where it's just buzzy mono synth, drums, and bass behind the guitar. the A melody comes back quickly and is layered again with flute and this time sax. i really like the articulation elements that are used here. i will note that i think all of the leads are a touch loud in the mix.

the sax section after that is great, and the flute section right after is also great as a palette cleanser. there's a short falloff and then a slick sax solo. the tone is a bit treble-ly and maybe doesn't need to cut so much through the mix in this particular section, but what it's saying is dope and i love it. guitar solo after it is also fantastic and i love the mirrored sections.

after the solo section, at 2:50 we get some layered melodic lines starting at different times as well as a rising tempo-synced pad in the background that really does a great job building up to a final big note. there's a few rhythmic elements and then it's done.

this is a great blow from start to finish. i didn't consider it to be too transformative given the very minimal source tune. taking the piano melodic line and combining it with the initial chord-blip-blip section in the piano to make a singable melodic line is a fantastic idea and it's executed in a cohesive and successful manner. the track sounds good from a mastering perspective, and most of my complaints are nits at most. nice work.

 

 

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Very transformative take on this source.  The synthwave and minor chord structure really change the vibe.  Arrangement is very good.  The guitar, flute and sax work are excellent!

I'm not entirely happy with the production however.  The leads are all very loud compared to the rest of the soundscape.  The drums are difficult to hear, which feels like a problem to me.  Kick and snare are soft and apologetic instead of loud and proud, hats are way too quiet.  I can hear that the bass and pads are heavily sidechained (which is great) but those loud leads and countermelodic elements have zero sidechaining on them.  Lowering the volume of the leads and countermelodies and sidechaining them gently (like 3-5db of gain reduction, fastest possible attack and release) would mesh them all nicely into the soundscape.  As it stands now, the leads feel like they are just riding on top of the arrangement instead of being nestled into it.  The volume balancing needs another pass, methinks.

Also, I feel like the mix is slightly abrasive sounding while at the same time missing some highs and presence.  I think it is the loud leads, because I can barely hear the hats or the top end of any of the synth work which would contribute to the presence of the soundscape.

I may be coming down too hard on this, and I'm fine if I am outvoted because it's a great arrangement, but I feel this is not the best iteration of this track.  The mixing needs a rebalance (lead volumes are comparatively too loud, drums are inaudible) and a sidechaining improvement.

NO (fix mixing and resubmit please)

 

[MindWanderer]

While breakdowns are always nice to have, I don't think I needed it. The source is distilled to mostly the melody, but that melody is prevalent in the remix. It's a very cool and original take, and I think the arrangement portion works well.

I do see where Chimpazilla is coming from, though. The snares and hats are clear to me, but the kicks are a little quiet. I don't think the leads (either the guitar or the sax) are too loud at all; the guitar is muffling the flutes a bit (to the point where it's a bit hard to tell what they are, but not what notes they're playing), but otherwise everything is coming through clearly. If anything, I think the bass is the light end of the soundscape, but not so much that I think it's a problem. If this were to get sent back, the only thing I'd ask for is some separation between the guitar and flute, but even just stereo separation might be enough.

Strong work. Creative, catchy, and makes something great out of very little. Let's get this posted.

YES

[Hemophiliac]

Synthwave is one of my favorite things to listen to from the last few years, and I love all of the live elements in this. The sax, flute, and guitar are all superb.  I really want to hear more people add live elements to synthwave styled tracks, and your choice to add them is great. Very cool.

No issues with the arrangement as you cover all the bases with it and you have done so much to add to it by adapting the genre alone.  I like that have some clear contrast between sections with actual dynamics that are more then just loud and soft as well.

I do however, have to concur with Chimpazilla on this though. The mix is very rough with a heavy imbalance between the parts. The leads are much louder then the other parts.  They could all be brought back by attenuating their channels ~2-4db each, and/or utilizing side-chaining can absolutely help them sit within the rest of the mix better. Let them sit back into the mix so everything can work together and create a wave for the listener to ride on.  The kick is also quieter and feels like it's lacking some punch/weight to it.

I want to see this through, but I can't in the current state with the mix imbalance between the parts.

NO (resubmit please)

[Liontamer]

Many thanks to minusworld for the source usage breakdown. :-) I get what the NOs are saying about the relative imbalances (e.g. the volume of the sax first used at 2:04's absurd :-D), so I wouldn't mind another mixing pass at this, but if we couldn't get another version of this, the arrangement are performances are solid, so we ride!

YES

[Emunator]

I'm in 100% agreement with Kris here - this is an incredible arrangement but the mixing is not suited for the genre and is contributing to a LOT of mud that makes this difficult to listen to and fully enjoy. All of the performances and the way that you integrated them into the synthwave soundscape is flawless, I wouldn't change a thing about this. The main thing that needs to happen is to clear up the soundscape by attenuating some of the unnecessary frequencies, rebalance the volume levels of your instruments with a bit more precision, and go a little bit further with your sidechaining to clean up some additional space so you don't have to crank your leads quite as loud.

Unfortunately I do feel like the production issues significantly dampen the experience on this track so I'm going to send it back for another round of revisions. I hope to hear this again!

NO (resubmit!)

[Gario]

Very creative direction for this one, must've been tricky to take what's for most intents and purposes an atmospheric source and pull every bit of source out of it and come up with the material to make a fully fleshed out synthwave track. Among everything else, I give props to that. The soundscape is pretty cool, with some eclectic leads keeping the listener guessing what's going to compliment the synthwave texture next. It's definitely an interesting arrangement!

There are some concerns with the mixing on this arrangement, and I'll mirror my collegues on those concerns - the leads are certainly something that could've been mixed down to better balance the arrangement. The loud leads also affect the balancing to my ear - that guitar in the beginning sounds like it pans too much to the left and thrown my sense of balance off. When there are more instruments in the mix that issue becomes less apparent, and the issue would be less of a concern still had the leads been mixed with a more levelled out balance.

That being said, while I agree with them that this could've been better, there's little under these leads other than the chords, bass, and drums that lose some attention in favor of the leads, so I don't think the issue is one that sinks the arrangement below our bar. The sudden start of the arrangement surprised me, as well, but perhaps that's just me being too easy to shock in my getting-older age. I like this, it's creative and while the mix could be better it hardly is something that drags the arrangement down too much. Nice work!

YES

[Flexstyle]

I'm gonna be brief -- this is a sweet, very tasty jam session over a backing instrumental that just doesn't change very much over the course of the song. Like you had a really cool drums+bass+pads loop and then had everyone take turns soloing. I can click around the song and the bass/hats don't really change their presentation substantially. It sounds really neat. It doesn't hit what I think an OC ReMix is. There's more feedback I could give on the execution of the genre but I don't want to drag this out further. Happy to coach synthwave details via PM or something if desired. 

 

NO

[XPRTNovice]

Okay. This arrangement ROCKS but needs mixing fixes bad before it passes the bar for me. 

 

First note suffers from being a copy paste and we get like, half a measure in there. 

 

LEft-panned guitar solo is jarring, too far in front and...left panned. Should be much more center. Fixed a bit when the ocarina ?? synth? second guitar? comes in on the right side, but it's still very imbalanced, and having all the important parts come out almost hardpanned left is really distracting. 

 

When more instruments come in at 1:06, it fixes some of the panning for like a second, but then we get another strong instrument (the sax) ALSO being panned to the left, keeps me leaning one way on my chair in not a good way. These pannings can be automated to move the balance around as the song requires it so that we're never feeling like the song is lopsided.

 

Love the instrumental performances all around. Very solid. 

 

2:09 saxophone feels like it's missing a huge part of the soundscape and you need to add that EQ back in. If I dropped this into a parabola, I'd see a gigantic lack of data below 1k, and then when the solo ends, we sort of mysteriously get a change in the EQ and it all of sudden appears on the right side of the sound spectrum with no clear transition as it fades away. Not sure what was going on there. Great solo though

 

2:35 guitar suffers from Left Ear Syndrome again. 

 

The ending is the part of the song where the arrangement falters. The rest of it is so great, and then we get the sense at the ending like everyone just sort of decided to stop playing. The kickdrum alludes to more coming, and then just sort of stops. But to me, it's the panning of this that really needs fixing. I would have passed this track easily without it, so I think it just needs some adjustments. 

 

NO

[Rexy]

The "liberties" you were worried about are okay, so don't worry about those! The melody was loud and clear until around 1:45, and the arrangement map was simple for us to follow along and understand what you've done. Adapting an atmospheric light-hearted source into a dark synthwave feel is an excellent example of taking something in a different direction, and combined with the writing's execution, your writing fits together seamlessly.

But then there's the production to take into consideration. Performances are on point, and I didn't mind the hard pan on the guitar as it's a solid way to separate it from the sax and flute. But these three leads have so much prominence in the mix that any side-chain effects (yes, the pads get pushed down subtly) are difficult for a casual listener to pick up on. Though some of my fellow Js mentioned mud being a problem, from the presence of the leads, I feel it *doesn't* have much warmth coming into the soundscape, currently covered by the pads and percussion. One way to address it is to find a way to give more power to the kick and snare, which, at this point, don't cut through the pads as well as I'd like. That would mean adding a stronger side-chain on the kick and making some EQ tweaks elsewhere to get the snare through. Cap that with finding a way to get the leads to sit better on the backing track, and several minor mixing issues are holding it back.

For now, this is something that I can only see on the front page with another mixing pass. But trust me when I say the "liberties" in the arrangement are okay, so never stop taking those liberties in future projects! :-)

NO (resubmit)