*NO* Super Metroid "Vermilion"

[Liontamer]

Remixer: LXE
Name: Alexis Gelinas

Email: 
Website: instagram.com/lexadex_yo

38753
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* Game: Super Metroid
* Remix Title: Vermilion
* Song Title: Lower Brinstar
* Notes: This is a lofi hip hop arrangement for piano, bass guitar, and drumset, reharmonized for a more laid back feel. 

Edited May 13 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Liontamer]

At 2:19-long, everything's gotta be clicking on all cylinders, IMO, with nary an issue to be found. The piano sample is decent in tone but too exposed (e.g. :15, :18-:25) as having stiff-sounding timing, which may be a limitation of the keyboard being used, I dunno. I liked the underlying piano chords as well. Something about the keys here doesn't sound as humanized as it should though.

The core beats starting at :13 shouldn't be so plodding and unvaried. The beats hit at the same intensity every time, no variations, so that sampled beat feels plodding and stapled on top.

Love that brush/shaker-style sound used right from the start, which had a nice organic feel; the looping of that sample didn't stand out as much, and it adds to the texture well. Bassline also sounds good.

Other than that, I dig the arrangement approach, the general approach to the textures, and the sprinkling in of SFX. Maybe the others will be on board; I'd argue that if this were a 3-4 minute arrangement with further development and/or variations, some of these other issues are able to be more comparmentalized; but at not even 2 1/2 minutes, there shouldn't be any loose screws. Maybe I'm making the perfect the enemy of the good.

Let's see what the others say, Alex; if this doesn't make it as is, the arrangement side sounds fine to me.

NO (resubmit)

[Emunator]

You know, I had a whole vote written out about to agree with Larry on this in which I rejected this track on the grounds of mixing and less-than-ideal sequencing. However, on repeat listens, I found myself charmed enough by what this remix got right that I think I flipped my own vote in the process. Yes, the right hand piano is stilted and overall, the tone is overcompressed which highlights the lack of realism in the sequencing, and the beats (especially the snare) is way too loud for this genre. The (lack of) ending is a downer.

However, the reharmonization that you did with the piano chords is really tasty, and there's a surprising amount of depth to the part writing across the board. Normally for me, in-game sound effects in remixes are, at best, transparent, and at worst, distracting or a total dealbreaker, but I'm happy to say that every one of them you used here fit quite naturally in a musical way and add some much-needed variation throughout the piece. The vibes are right here.

At the end of the day, I get the argument that Larry's making, but I feel like that applies to tracks under the two minute mark for me, which need to make a much more convincing case for why they are a fully-realized idea IMO. I don't think that a longer or more varied arrangement would necessarily do anything one way or another to outweigh the downsides on the production side, and for the genre, the duration and arrangement are appropriate, if not groundbreaking.

I'm curious to hear how this shakes out!

YES

[Liontamer]

8 hours ago, Emunator said:

You know, I had a whole vote written out about to agree with Larry on this in which I rejected this track on the grounds of mixing and less-than-ideal sequencing. However, on repeat listens, I found myself charmed enough by what this remix got right that I think I flipped my own vote in the process.

Totally get it, and I was close to doing that myself. :-D

[prophetik music]

very short remix.

i agree that the keys overall sit on the front of the beat and so feel a bit not quite right. i think the verby...shaker? maybe? sounds kind of weird too next to the very dry drums and fairly dry piano. i also agree that the tone is overcompressed overall (feels really blown out tbh) and the drums are super loud compared to everything else. the overall soundscape is very spare - it's piano, shaker, drums, and a very minimal bass, and some sfx - and as a result the mechanical-sounding piano's doing a lot of lifting. the ending is imo worse than a solid cutoff - it's very obvious the shaker's a loop with how it's handled and separately there's no preparation or arrival point.

i find the piano's ideas to be pretty fun! i like the use of sfx here as well, i think it fits in well. i like the very minimal bass usage. however, when a track is both short and lacking in variety of instruments, each of those instruments needs to absolutely nail it. the drums are overly loud and under-effected especially for the genre - it's hard to call something lofi hiphop when it's both very clean and lacking in filters, and also doesn't ever lean on hiphop tropes for the drum sequencing. the piano, as mentioned before, is on the very front of the beat all the time and so feels like it's rushing (delay your entire piano part by a ms or two and it'll magically fall into the pocket). the shaker's super wet and it doesn't fit at all next to the semidry piano and very dry drums. and, overall, it's heavily compressed, which would work if there was more pad work going on or some other elements to flesh out the harmonic backing, but right now just emphasizes the wrong stuff too much.

in general, i've found LXE's remixes to be undercooked. they tend to have very creative ideas in a few things, and everything else is just autopilot to fill in behind that. they're loop heavy and often have no endings. they tend to be very short. this is more of the same. it sounds fine as-is. but at just over two minutes, every part needs to be sparklingly perfect. this isn't there yet.

 

 

NO

[Chimpazilla]

Aw, this is a tough one.  I really love this approach, and the piano playing is good and the bassline works well.  The chord interpretations are super nice.   I'm finding the arrangement repetitive though because the soundscape never changes, and more importantly the drums are on autopilot.  I really feel like more drum variation would cut the repetitiveness a lot.  A proper drumless breakdown in the middle would help too, it would only need to be a few bars long.  

The track feels much longer than it is, due to the repetitive feel of the writing and stagnant soundscape.  I appreciate the sfx, but they aren't enough to vary the soundscape by much.  The arrangement has no outro, no resolution of the ideas, things just.... stop.  Disappointing.

The mixing is problematic.  The kick seems to be at a good volume, but the snare is so loud and so dry, hats are dry, and the shaker loop is way too reverby.  This is not a believable drum kit being played, and that feels distracting.  The piano sounds good enough to me.  Bass could be a couple of db louder.  

I can see why Wes went YES, I really can.  The ideas are ace.  But I think for me a lot of little things are adding up to a

NO (resubmit)

[MindWanderer]

The drum kit is definitely the weak point, being fake and very much on autopilot.

But I'm not hearing any major problems with the rest. The timing of the piano is a little rigid, but not the velocities. The jazzy piano is creative and fleshed-out enough to me that it doesn't feel repetitive. It doesn't loop until 1:27, and it's not copy-pasta when it does; the chords change around and it doesn't go long before wrapping up with a subtractive section, which I felt was a perfectly adequate ending. The SFX mostly work: I particularly liked the use of the damage effect at 1:05, although some of it (like the charge beam and power bomb) were more obtrusive.

I'm just not feeling the bulk of the criticisms above; I either don't hear the issues they're describing at all, or I think they're overblown. I think the strengths of this are enough to earn an unqualified

YES

[Gario]

I think it's easy to see this track's obvious strengths - the arrangement has so much fun changing up the harmonic make-up of the source, and it works deliciously well. The melody ain't changed a bit, which really emphasizes how well the arrangement works "under the hood", so to speak. It's far from a complex arrangement otherwise, and it repeats it's harmonic ideas once it's done running through them once which causes them to lose a little flavor as the track progresses, but it's a short track so it's not like it wears out it's welcome, either.

The instrumentation is simple, but it works for what it is. The piano is the centerpiece of the track, being it's essentially a piano piece with some backing drums and SNES SFX, which is fine. The sequencing on the piano is acceptable for what it is - if it's not a few MIDI controller performance inputs it does a solid job of adjusting velocity to give the parts life in a believable way. The instrument choices are nothing complicated, it knows what it is and runs with it. Might've been more interesting if the arranger was willing to spice it up with other accompanying instruments, since the drums and SFX take away from it being a solo piano arrangement (and the arrangement itself would've been too repetitive had it been piano alone), but it's not bad as it is, either.

I could easily see this track expand it's ideas into a more thoroughly explored arrangement, but I don't think I'd reject it just because it could have been more fleshed out. It's a short and pleasant idea, and it plays itself out and exits center stage - it does exactly what it wants to, and what it wants to do is something cool that others should be able to enjoy.

YES

Edited March 11 by Gario

[DarkSim]

Listened a few times through before refreshing my memory of the original. I think the reharmonisation is very clever, and much more pleasant to listen to than the original. The short duration of the piece fits with a lot of the music you find on LoFi streams - looping a couple of times before fading out for the next one - so is thematic in that sense, however there could have been more adaptation and expansion on the theme. The ending is particularly weak, fizzling out without any sort of satisfying conclusion.

Despite seeming simple on first listen, I think LoFi production is actually a fine art to get something sounding cohesive and believable. You've not quite got everything in the right space with this one - the piano and beats are very forward in the mix, with some heavy reverb on the shakers putting them in the back. There's some token crackle FX in there as well, and some decent samples for emphasis. I enjoy the softness of the piano next to the grit of the snare, even if the snare is on the loud side.

Considering both arrangement and production have their pros and cons, I suppose this one comes down to overall feel. Coming away from this one, I find I enjoyed the track and I think it deserves the benefit of the doubt, largely on the strength of the initial idea and presentation.

YES

[Hemophiliac]

You've replaced the lava and acid underneath Lower Brinstar with smoke and water with this reharmonization.  The reharmonization is biggest strength in this arrangement and those chord changes fit very well.  The sparseness of the arrangement isn't a factor as you fill the space with the percussion and SFX.

Because this is a short compact arrangement everything is really needing to fire and all cylinders.  I would've liked to have seen some melodic embellishment in the second half to help differentiate it from the first half, but not necessary.  The ending with the shaker isn't feeling 100% complete, this could have been stronger.

The shaker is very wet with reverb in comparison to the other percussive elements.  I'd like to see the drums matched so that they share the same amount of reverb.  The snare is very much the same from hit-to-hit, and needs variation in velocity or even just alternating between different samples.  You've shown that you're capable of doing that in the usage of the shaker, it has accents and deemphasizes the weak beats.  More variation in the drum pattern would also help this track progress as it feels fairly static in the percussion.

I can see this one going either way, but I can't get past the drums as the snare and other percussion issues detracts from my overall enjoyment of the piece.

NO (resubmit)

Edited April 14 by Hemophiliac

[Rexy]

I've been hovering over this track for so long primarily because of the reasons behind this split - whether this is substantial enough to see on the site. The genre adaptation spoke for itself - changed up jazzy chords, modified the melody when required, transposed it halfway through, and all the fun sound effects accompanying the overall mood. There are two variations, so on paper, it feels like it shouldn't work, especially with how the ending just petered out with just the shakers and the notation - but we do have two unique textural run-throughs of the theme with different bass patterns, percussion riffs, and overall textures riding the top. I'm all for the change-ups for the BGM.

Now, this mixdown, on the other hand, is as dry as a bone. Most of your instruments barely have much reverb compared to your shaker and some of the sound effects. There are attempts at humanization with the piano, but the velocities on the bass and the percussion are both very stagnant. When the percussion is inorganic like this, especially the kicks and snares, it gets difficult to change their tones while making them feel like the track flows. Hemo did mention the idea of changing up samples and velocity, though layering other types of percussion sounds, like claps and other blemishes, could offer them a different tone of life depending on their usage. Additionally, some percussion layer combinations could even fix the dryness problem we've got going on with your percussion.

I like the ideas, and the arrangement is enough to sign onto the overall feel. But there needs to be some humanization tweaks to the bass - my best bet is dealing with layers or changing up key switches - as well as livening up those drums. I can see this going either way, but I think, "I want this, but it needs more TLC first." I hope you still have your project file because I want to see you get that sorted. :-)

NO (resubmit)

[Flexstyle]

No need to stretch a vote out here -- I'm on the side of "gotta be more substantial." This could probably work if the genre execution was better, but as it is, you've got a lifeless drum kit paired with a too-simple piano and some tasty bass that could stand to be a little more featured.

For lo-fi hip hop (or boom-bap, for the old heads in the room), you need to execute your drums, bass, and the tone of your instruments very precisely. With the sharp, reverb'd shaker, the extra-crispy-and-dry snare, and the lack of anything resembling dynamics, this misses the mark. Gotta add some more realism and probably don't let it sound so very quantized...a J Dilla-style beat would have a lot more "humanity" to it in small imperfections in timing. Shaker with all the reverb contrasts poorly with the rest of the drum kit, and all of it sounds too "crispy," aka there's too much high end there. Saturation and low-pass filters are your friend here. Also, playing with more than just a few drum samples throughout will help. Get us some variety in sounds...remember that a lot of old hip hop music sampled MULTIPLE drum loops that would appear at different times in the song, creating more timbres to work with. You're on the right track with those vinyl-sampled tom fills -- if you can get that kind of texture on more of your drums, you'll be on the right track.

For mixing, the piano as-is can work, but genre-wise it's probably better to add some low-pass filtering to it to soften it up. Making the performance more dynamic would also help, since right now everything sounds quantized to grid and to velocity. 

Bass was decent but not featured prominently enough for the genre. 

 

This one should come back with more dynamics, better drum processing and wider variety of sounds, and an overall tone that feels less crispy and more dusty (less high end frequencies in key areas). You'll be helped by embellishing the arrangement as well...don't just make it the same throughout but add some variation to the themes, maybe do some call and response with the piano and another instrument. 

 

NO (resubmit)