Liontamer Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 (edited) Artist: Magoo A fun, hip hop inspired take on the original Puzzle Bobble theme. Wanted to keep the playful vibe of the original while making it into more of a head-bobber. Sax solo for extra good vibes. Highscore achieved! Games & Sources Puzzle Bobble // Neo Geo MVS Edited February 7 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 Intros with the sampled original audio before transitioning into the arrangement at :18. The mixing's not clean at all, but the bassline's phat and the overall sound's impactful; will look to the musician Js for feedback on cleaning the soundscape up. Even though the percussion pattern wasn't changing (and should have varied more), the textural change at :37 was welcome. Sax solo at :57 was a fun idea over the top of the source and a nice way to further personalize the sound. The ending was relatively abrupt, IMO, but if a longer and more developed arrangement ended this way, I'd have to live with it; if you're not going to fashion more of a resolution, consider some sort of trailoff so the ending has some room to breathe. At barely a minute's worth of arrangement, Magoo, you'll need to flesh out this concept more, but you're moving in the right direction. See what more you can do to continue varying up the presentation of the theme; a variation on the beats, dropping them out and changing the overall instrumentation for another iteration, adding a wholly original composition section or adding other original countermelodies; there's lots of potential directions to take things in to achieve a more substantial arrangement. Good start here! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 yeah, opening is a direct sample with some sfx. 0:19 brings in a trap style beat and bass, with the original melodic material over top in a mostly unaltered state to my ears. i like the bassline, especially at the bridge section. the hats get a little weird around 0:45 - sounds like there's a shaker and a hat in there in the same range. solo sounds good over the top but it's drowned by the backing instrumentation most of the time. was that liquid instruments used to do the solo? there's an odd sustained organ tone at the end, some more sampled material for a few seconds, and then it's done. this needs more arrangement unfortunately. it's already very short - it's pretty hard to pass the arrangement guidelines with a track that's under two minutes, and this has a solo for half the song - and there's not a lot to differentiate it from the original already. separately, using sampled audio in general is a nono, even more when it's 15% of the track (a few seconds is one thing, but this is a measurable percentage). lastly, from a mixing perspective, your elements are mostly all over the place. there's no intentionality that i can hear around what instruments are louder than others at different points in the song. i'd highly recommend revisiting each element and ensuring that it's placed appropriately in the soundscape rather than leaving them all at the same mixer volume setting the entire track. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rexy Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 The original Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move theme is so happy! That makes it an excellent fit for trap/hip-hop, and you managed to get at least a good foundation going. However, as mentioned, we have a sampled audio intro, a rendition of the theme, and some sax noodling over the accompaniment of the A section before a closure. In a fuller remix, splitting the track at 0:55 would turn the two halves into bookends, and with the kind of groove you have, the best suggestion I have is to allocate yourself more track time for re-interpretation and other ideas. Passing a shorter track isn't impossible, but I doubt the pacing and style would suit something of this current length, so adding more would have to be the better solution. Then, we have the current production state. Yes, the instrumentation is relentless, the subtle sidechain worked well with your kick, and the render surprisingly doesn't have any clipping despite the emphasis on your bass. But at an RMS level of -10 dB and too many details trying to appear all at once during said B section, there's not a lot of thought going on to balance overall. You buried the sax underneath the higher-frequency percussion, source melody and sudden arpeggio textures. Rather than have everything go full-throttle, it'll be a good idea to balance the instruments' volume based on overall importance, pan similar elements to get them to stand up against each other, and if there's still some frequency clashing, either opting for some EQ cuts or shifting octaves depending on the part. As of right now, the submission you sent in sounds more like a two-minute rough sketch of what would hopefully become a stellar developed track. I'd like to hear a revision with more source interpretation and an overall cleaner sound, so I hope you'll be able to keep at it. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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