Emunator Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 **Impact of Iwata Album Track** Credits: Production Main arrangement, production, programming, additional editing: Emunator Additional arrangement: CNDR Mixing, mastering: ErichWK Brass arrangement, string arrangement, orchestration: Lucas Guimaraes Additional string arrangement: Marissa Turnage Additional Audio Editing: Zack Parrish, Emunator, Ridley Snipes Band Keys/Synths: Emunator Guitar (Lead/Rhythm): CNDR Bass (Writing and Original Performance): CNDR Bass (Performance): ErichWK Drums, Percussion: ErichWK String Section Violin 1/2: Marissa Turnage Viola: Andrew Steffen Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Brass Section Trumpet: TSori Trombone: Brandon Harnish Winds Flute, Alto Flute: Gamer of the Winds Bassoon: Andrew Gossett Sax - Alto: Lucas Guimaraes, Steven Higbee Sax - Soprano: Gamer of the Winds Sax - Tenor (Ensemble): Lucas Guimaraes, Steven Higbee Sax - Tenor (Solo): Zack Parrish Extra shoutouts to Ridley Snipes, Paradiddles Josh, and Hemophiliac, who also made contributions that were ultimately cut from the final track, and provided invaluable feedback along the way! Comments: Emunator: So, this was supposed to be a lo-fi track. I was supposed to be done with this in 10 hours maximum. But sometimes, when the white rabbit presents itself, you have no choice but to follow and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. In this case, my white rabbit was CNDR casually commenting on my lo-fi work in progress: "Hey, this reminds me a little bit of Earth, Wind and Fire." He laid down some scratch guitar tracks to illustrate the vision (some of which are still present in the final mix at 3:50.) From there, we took that concept to the logical extreme - recruiting an entire band and orchestra ensemble to transform the stunning National Park into a bonafide 70's soul jam. The arrangement started with CNDR and I swapping audio recordings and chord progressions over Discord and Facetime to build out a skeleton arrangement, and him laying down guitar/bass riffs to build off of my keyboard instruments. If I had to pick two words to summarize the next 7 months of work that ensued, it would be this: scope creep. Everything that could be performed live, we found a performer for. We went all-out with the orchestration. We spent days on end in melodyne and iZotope RX polishing the recordings. Even the final mix and master was nearly a month-long process, with some full restarts along the way. From the first concept to the moment I finally had a finished WAV in my hands, the process took me over 150 hours of working time and 7 months, and countless hours of work from a host of collaborators who I am now eternally indebted to. Everyone involved put an irreplaceable touch on the finished product, but I do need to shout out a few key players who really made this possible: CNDR, for being the muse for this arrangement and your tireless effort to help work out an arrangement that captured the essence of 70's soul music, and for your killer guitar and bass chops that brought an unmistakable character to the track. ErichWK, for being an absolute machine on the drums, bass, and behind the console - you put in SO MUCH WORK getting the mix to shimmer in a way that I never could have accomplished myself. You are a true professional, my friend. Lucas Guimaraes and Marissa Turnage, who, in addition to performing many of the parts on the track, took my rudimentary MIDI arrangements and transformed them into a full orchestration and also battled MuseScore and Sibelius to get functional sheet music that our performers could actually use. And Zack Parrish, for volunteering countless hours of his valuable time slaving away in Melodyne to get all of our live recordings to line up perfectly, and for dropping in a smooth tenor sax solo at the 11th hour for good measure. Ultimately, the final product exceeded even my wildest hopes and dreams, and I'll always treasure what this team put together. But more than just the outcome, the process of getting to the finish line was worth just as much. I can't stress enough how under-qualified I was to tackle something of this scope, but I've absorbed such an incredible amount of knowledge from each of my collaborators that I'll carry with me into future projects. I'm proud of what we've made and what I've learned about collaboration in the process. I'll leave the final word to CNDR, who, when prompted for submission comments, summarized it all better than I ever could: "Long live the funk." Games & Sources Pokémon Soul Silver: National Park Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 Holy shit, this track... This may come across like an insult, like invoking another artist is somehow an unfair comparison -- I feel like if we had asked J Damashii to contribute and arrange this track for Impact of Iwata, he could have made this. I hold J and his musicianship in the highest regard, so I actually mean this as a massive compliment. And for those thinking "But his tracks are so wild", he's totally capable of dialing it back. What an amazing job, everyone, CNDR especially. Wes, I owe you an apology. I wasn't really familiar with your game. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 This is going to go down in OCR history as one of the best mixes ever posted. Silk Sonic ain't got nothing on y'all. No further notes. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 I've heard versions of this amazing piece as it developed. Not only has Wes upped his own production game, but he has a new ability to assemble a team of expert musicians to make his visions reality. There's no stopping him now! My one gripe is that the flute lead is mixed too quietly. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 (edited) i'm going to actually do a vote on this rather than just drooling like my fellow judges opens with some super interesting ensemble goofball arpeggiated chord stuff. i like the ensemble here. we get some melodic content at 0:24, with an eclectic combination of instruments. the guitar's a little not in the mix compared to the rest here. when the beat comes in at 0:36, i can definitely see the J Damashii comparison. the vibe is excellent, guitar especially. imo the drums here are sticking out of the mix more than i'd expect, but the brass and strings are just so great. the flute is indeed too quiet when it comes in after 1:00. this trucks along until 1:25 when we get some delicious rhodes stuff. rhodes is quiet and brass is a bit loud here. there's a drop at 1:56 and the vibe/celeste/bell thing is doing some really fun stuff here. when the melody comes back in at 2:06, the flute's again a bit quiet. there's a funky note in the background at 2:11 in the strings - sounds like the strings are playing a Bb when the flute's playing an A (i think that's supposed to be a predominant to the Ab chord that comes after it, so i'd assume it's supposed to be a fully diminished 7 chord...so, the flute's playing a B double flat, technically). it happens again at 2:22, Bb next to B double flat, but closer so it bites even more. there's a big drop at 2:30 and the string work there is nice. overall energy is much lower here. there's some delightful percussion through this as well. 3:11 is a guitar lead section and i love the tone. it's mixed a little quiet, so when it goes lower all i can hear are sustains in the background. 3:50 has a lovely string tune that is straight out of a disney movie. this functions as an extended outro. there's some guitar notes here that are a bit out of tune. it settles down nicely into a final sustain and it's done. this is a great track! it's super thematic and the style is nailed pretty much across the board. those crunchy notes are unfortunate and i'd love to see them fixed before release, and there's a few times that the lead is stuck behind the (admittedly usually pretty interesting) backing parts. overall though this is a superb work and clearly represents a ton of work. nice job. YES but plz fix those notes Edited February 15 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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