prophetik music Posted January 25 Share Posted January 25 Way back in 2010, I submitted my very first remix to OCremix, which was a remix of this very track. It did not make it to the judges panel, but that means that this is technically a resubmission! The Skitchin soundtrack is incredible and it's a shame that OCremix doesn't have an remixes from that game. (Yet!) Games & Sources Game: Skitchin for the Sega Genesis Original Soundtrack Link: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 is the name a reference to the track's waveform? really loud right off the bat. beat is pretty huge, bass peaks a bit high but it's big. there's some synth guitar chugs right away that are pretty obviously not guitar, but they are appropriately meaty. 0:40 is a bit of a break with some sfx. the beat drops at 1:14 for the B theme, and it picks back up at 1:29 with another rhythmic synth over the beat. there's a bass section at 1:46 and it builds up to the A theme soon after. the track goes through the initial riff a few more times with fewer instruments and then it's done. this track sounds blown out, like mega over the top blown out. the waveform is visibly deformed in several places because it's so loud. it clips constantly through the loudest sections, for example at 0:15-0:30 the chugs are audibly distorted most of the time. i believe at least part of this is due to the bass synth, kick, and chugs all being in the same area (among other instrument groups). so that's something that needs to be addressed. i think the arrangement itself is fine overall - there's a variety of synths being used, the track has a nice shape, and it does some fun stuff as it gets bigger and smaller over time. i think the ending is a downer and could be fleshed out more, but it also sounds like you ran out of ideas around maybe 1:50 or so and so just needed to get over the finish line. i think this definitely is a track that can be on the site someday. some cleaner mastering would do wonders. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 Although I can see the brickwalled waveform, I'm having a hard time hearing most of the problems Brad called out. It's crunchy, for sure, but it sounds to me like it's mostly the synths themselves that are crunchy. Most notably this is the overdriven "guitar," which is a synth I've heard many times before, and it sounds like that no matter what space it's in. Same with the kicks, the pads in 1:13-1:29, and a few other synths. A lot of PC game OSTs from the '80s and '90s sound like this, as do a few Genesis games. So I don't think this is a dealbreaker per se. I do think the mix would sound better if it were cleaner. But I'm on the fence about whether the changes are needed. It's actually the bridge at 1:13-1:29 that's pushing me over the edge. The distortion doesn't sound intentional there, and that calls the whole piece into question. I don't have a problem with the ending at all. It sounds intentional in a way that fade-outs don't. The ending sounds like a proper climax to me, and not at all like you ran out of ideas. I think this is a lot closer than proph gave you credit for. But in the end I agree that it sounds more "dated" than "vintage" and would benefit from cleaner synths and production. NO (borderline, resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 Well, I really like this! The mix does have a ton of distortion and bitcrushing on it, but I think it is a reference to the source tune and the era in which it was written. I think the arrangement is great, instrumentation works really well. I love the vocal clips and I even like the nod to the right-panned hat in the original starting at 1:46. I love the little details such as switching the grungy guitar-synth to mono at 2:30. Nice touch. I don't hear overcompression artifacts. I hear a LOT of bitcrushing. The master is uberloud, though. -5.2db RMS is uberloud. And because the peak ceiling is set to 0db, SPAN is showing me that it is clipping. I don't know why that is the case, but I always set my ceiling to -0.5db just to be safe, and it never clips when I do that. Yeah this track is heavy and loud and distorted, sausage indeed! But in a good way. I dig the grittiness and energy of this. I'm passing this and not even conditional. If it does not pass however, just revisit the file and make sure things are distorted purposely and not accidentally, and don't overdo it. (Often when you distort too many elements, you lose sonic contrast and everything sounds distorted.) Then lower your master limiter gain just a hair to reduce the RMS (something more like -10db RMS is better), and I suggest lowering the final ceiling to -0.3 or -0.5 to avoid any unwanted clipping. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 Opens up with some pretty vanilla leads, but they've got power behind 'em, so props on the production there. Nice guitar-like chugs at :17, combined with the loud "woo"-like synths doubling the melody. Nice dropoff at :41 to a thinner texture while preserving the groove and gradually rebuilding, including with the vocal samples. For the new section at 1:13, it felt like the bass and lead were both too loud compared to everything else, but nothing majorly dinging this. Overall, this has a fun Genesis+ kind of sound to it. At 2:01, the woo-like sound handling the melody was again way too loud; nothing where I'm saying this can't pass, but it felt imbalanced. Regardless of some mixing & volume reservations, the sound design's cool overall (whether "dated or "vintage") and I loved CJ's arrangement approach, which has a lot of character, and that easily trumps any minor production critiques. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemophiliac Posted May 4 Share Posted May 4 (edited) More like Infinite Sausage Clippings. ? The source is well represented and I like what you've done to expand on it. The source is very minimal to begin with so everything that was added both in terms of parts and sound design were welcomed. The arrangement is good enough for me. Where I do have problem is all in the production. Wow did you make this loud. I generally don't have to touch my volume knob on my audio interface, but I had to turn it down here. 0:18-0:42 absolutely has some overblown kick and bass combination here. Again we get some heavy distortion that is getting overblown at 1:34-1:45, 1:53-1:57, and 2:02-2:25. You're gonna have to play with it some to get it to a spot where the track is still loud and powerful but the tops aren't getting clipped too much because it does feel to be affecting the way the overall sound itself is supposed to be. I suggest reducing your master limiter to -0.5db like Chimpazilla recommended. Consider reducing the amount of volume or distortion on that bass/kick combo at times, because it gets to be too much for me. This one is close. NO (resubmit) Edited July 20 by Hemophiliac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 You really are playing with fire by including the word "sausage" in your track title and then mixing/mastering it like this 🤪It's strange how audible and clear everything is, but Brad hit the nail on the head - this feels blown out, even without looking at a waveform or a frequency analyzer. It's bringing out the harshness in the transients on things like your kick or some of the crunchier synth sounds in a way that's just unpleasant. I think you could dial this back a little bit without losing the impact you were going for. Also, that ending felt really sudden to me, not from a compositional standpoint but due to the lack of any sort of tailing sound effect or impact to resolve things. The mastering on this is simply not ideal and is a dealbreaker for me in its current form, but it should be a quick fix - get this back to us! NO (resubmit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 y'all being babies, just turn your headphones down if the loudness is a problem because this thing slappppps. Neat source, fresh take on it, love the retro+modern sound set. ...okay, I can hear the issues in the breakdown section. Still not enough to prevent me from saying YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 Skitchin'? Man, I only learned about that a few weeks ago with someone bringing this up as an edgy 90's fad. Funny to see the genesis game based on it come up here. Well it definitely melts your face, with those heavy as hell beats and chunky textures. I might've lightened up on the brickwalling so that people could hear the textures better, but that's just me; the brickwalling is the reason this sounds as big as it does. That middle part definitely sounds too crunchy, though looking at the waveform that's probably the least brickwalled section of the track. Even still that section starting at 1:13 could use some better mixing to bring out the chips, mixing down that bass would also help make it less crunchy and actually stand out from the rest of the arrangement. Bring down the sections so that the entire track isn't booming and it'll make the big parts sound, well, bigger by comparison. Not sure if a section that could use better mixing for 16 seconds should be considered enough to sink the arrangement, but if this gets sent back I'd sure appreciate that part being tweaked. Otherwise while it may be too big for my tastes I don't think it needs to be sent back, hope to see it on the front page. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 Really ace job on the mixing on this one - the dance soundscape is full without being a wall of sound, you've got everything space right. The loudness is a feature, not a bug, and it's managed well by spreading out the source instruments in a way that doesn't make it feel overwhelming. Arrangement wise, it's a touch repetitive even at 2:45, but you vary things up enough to pass muster for me. The source isn't exactly rich with ideas, and you have some nice variety breaks like around 1:18 with the synthy stuff (and tubular bells, nice) coming in. We keep the driving feel of the dance beat throughout the track without fatigue. You also bring in a lot of different soundscapes that blend old and new, like Flex said, which I really found fun to listen to - and I really don't like dance music. Nice! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 This arrangement only touched the A section, which is fine enough for what it set out to do sonically. The first 18 seconds of it simplified the progression over the established chords, then at 0:18, that progression was carried straight with some textural shifting, with the chopping of the first measure getting carried between 0:42-1:14. A whole bunch of original noodling later and the source returned for textural variations from 1:46 onward. There's more than enough source content, with the groove carrying the textural choices, and no sets of four bars within those two sections sound verbatim. I can get behind this. But I had to think of the literal production sausage big time. According to Audacity, it's loud at an average -8dB RMS, and that made me try to decipher whether the fuzz is either clipping or a whole load of bit-crushing. Everything sounds clear, though, aside from the breakdown at 1:29, when it sounds like the retro guitars overtook the soundscape to the point of smothering everything else. The sound design combines modern sound design with the 90s Yamaha textures, which has continued that sense of identity that your return here has signaled. That said, the whole thing is loud but not to the point that it detracts from the entire experience. I'm all for seeing it on the site, but let me close it with some food for thought. You said you're approaching middle age, and you want to sunset your time as a mixer due to changing technology. Let me say right here and now that age should never change what you enjoy doing, so if you feel more relaxed with remixing and sound design in your 40s or 50s, go all ham. Keep being the best version of you, CJ. :-) YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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