Liontamer Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 Artist Name: Outset Initiative I originally composed this remix in 2019 for the Materia Community album "EXILE: A Tribute to Supergiant Games". This song has always been a personal favorite of mine from the Bastion soundtrack, and it was certainly one of the more challenging pieces I've to worked on to date. Darren's guitar performance makes up so much of the feeling of the original, which isn't something that you can just translate into midi. Since I wasn't using any guitars in my composition, I decided to directly follow the chord structure from the original to make sure there was always a clear link back to the source. That gave me a bit of freedom to have some fun and riff on the piano, which gives the track a loose jazzy feeling that I really enjoy. Due to some poor mixing decisions I made on the first iteration of this track, I decided to shelve the remix after the album launched and not to submit to OCR. The community album ended up getting pulled from distribution a few years later, which was a bummer... but it did give me an opportunity to revisit the track. I had some inspiration and free time a few weeks ago and decided it would be fun to resurrect the project and re-mix it from scratch. It was an enjoyable process and gratifying to see how much my process has changed and improved over the last few years. It's amazing how much you can do with tight EQing and a clear vision of how you want the track to feel and how each instrument should fit into the mix. I ended using probably 1/4 of the plugins as the original version and the difference is night and day. It's a good reminder that less can certainly be more, especially in our digital world where there's a plugin for everything. I'm quite glad I took the time to come back to this one – I hope y'all enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 oh man, i just love darren korb's compositional style. thanks for giving me a reminder to listen to all of his soundtracks today. opens with some highly filtered pads that have a lot of motion on them, which is fun. there's some tempo-synced elements that come in at 0:30 - very patient opening - and some piano. beat comes in at 1:05 in a way that i didn't expect, which is fun. bass is highly filtered, almost sounds like it's next door vs. in the room with us. piano performance has some jazz elements in how the melodic material is rendered which is nice. 2:05 is a new feel, between the new beat and the really effected wind synth (i can't really describe it). that's out quick though, because it's soon after into a much more ethereal section noodling with that wind synth and sustained rain sfx. beat is back at 3:01 and this is a cleaner soundscape, focusing on the keys. the subtle tempo-synced gated synth in the background is nice. the drums and backing elements fade down over time, leaving just the keys and bass eventually. and that's a wrap. this is a great adaptation of a really fun original. i was very curious how you'd be able to replicate what is essentially a guitar groove with some big string swoops with what you opened with, but this is definitely a super interpretive arrangement of a motif-driven original. your arrangement is just full of space, which i think is a really neat parallel to the game itself. excellent work. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Some nice chill piano with a vaporwave influence. Neat sound design, and a very different take while retaining a similar mood. I think the long bridge of near-silence (2:35-3:00) is a bit much, and it starts to fade out a little early (I can hear it getting quieter about 40 seconds from the end), but otherwise I have no complaints. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 This arrangement has such a unique feel, as proph said it is full of space. Really nice 3D soundscape. The low end is full and satisfying, and there's just enough going on in the mids and highs to keep it interesting yet sparse. I love soundscapes like this. Piano sounds terrific. Such interesting sounds in the mix, like the breathy synth starting at 2:06. Balancing, mixing and mastering are on point. What a cool arrangement of this material, love it. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 Y'all, this is what sparse instrumentation looks like when executed right. Those drums? Simple as heck. Not super dynamic samples, but sequenced in a way that stays interesting the entire time, creating movement in exactly the spots that need to move forward, and groove where it's time to just sit a spell and vibe out. The bassline is simple, very relegated to the low spectrum, but it moves in a way that lets everything else shine through without letting the low end feel empty. Piano? Not busy, but still melodic and intentional. Pads? Not dense, but they lift the song up right where it's needed. Sound effects? Right where they need to be to fill the soundscape. The panflute sample lead? Plenty of subtle movement on a patch that could have been dry and boring without careful, judicious treatment. This hits like a lot of late '90s/early '00s lounge vibe music, but maybe with a more dynamic lead line on that piano, and I think it works REALLY well overall. I love the original song -- Bastion is in my top-5 favorite OSTs for games I've actually played (and the game itself is fun and thoughtful) -- and this absolutely does justice to it. Can't wait for this to hit the front page! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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