*NO* Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow & Metroid Fusion "No Castle for Old Belmonts"

[Emunator]

Hi all, glad to be submitting another one!

Title: No Castle for Old Belmonts
Collaborators: pixelseph (composition, arrangement, guitars, engineering, mixing)
paradiddlesjosh (drums)
colorado weeks (bass)
mel decision (synths)

This one was made for Game, Set, Mash!! vol 2, round 1, and smashes together Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow's Heart of Fire (which is technically itself a mashup of Castlevania's Heart of Fire and Haunted Castle's Don't Wait Until Night) and Metroid Fusion's Sector 4 / AQA (Aquatic Control Level Area). The remix title is a play on No Country for Old Men and underscores a sort of what if..? scenario of Julius Belmont running through a strange castle on a different planet.

I'm not going to run through every single VST and virtual instrument here (though the NewGrounds post for this mix does contain all that info), but I will break down source usage and scope!

Scope: Progressive metal aesthetics leaning on guitars and keys for lead work. The usual Pixels & Paradiddles synthetic orchestra was replaced by chips and synths for this one to better capture the Metroid feel. Stylistically, we tried to bring elements of Metallica (The Thing That Should Not Be), Tool (The Pot), and Pink Floyd (Dogs) into the Castlevania fold.

Source Usage:

• Intro (12 bars; Sector 4 A section) - Pad swells on a unison A note; phaser and sound design elements
• A (8 bars; Don’t Wait Until Night A section) - guitars enter, playing the riff in Amin rather than Dmin. Bass plays Sector 4 octaves as harmony under guitars.
• B (16 bars; Sector 4 B/Don’t Wait Until Night C section) - guitar and Rhodes take melody, bass plays Sector 4 B section octave stacks but modulates key as in DWUN.
• C (8 bars; Don’t Wait Until Night D section) - Rhodes has melody, guitar has harmony, bass and rhythm guitar stab dotted-eighth hits for the chords rather than the groove
• D (8 bars; Heart of Fire A section) - Rhodes and seq synth round-robin the melody, lead guitar bends; band plays D5 - Bb5 - G5 - Amaj7 (i-VI-iv-V7)
• E (8 bars; Sector 4 B section) - Rhodes and seq synth round-robin the melody, band plays modified version of S4B. The riff is syncopated - the ‘a' of beat 4 is the accented hit, the 'and’ of beat 1 on the next measure carries the pattern (16th notes with a 32nd-32nd-16th gallop before the accented hit)
• A Reprise (4 bars) - band plays the riff in Dmin for the first time; Rhodes and seq synth carry the melody that was missing from the beginning of the piece
• Outro/E Reprise (16 bars; first 8 Sector 4 B melody, last 8 play Heart of Fire B melody) - synths/keys out, lead guitar takes melody

Intro, A-B-C-D-E-A'-E-A'-D', Outro

 

Edited May 30 by Emunator

[prophetik music]

opening is sfx. guitars are highly stereo separated when they come in, it's a bit distracting especially in the right ear. when the drums come in they're playing fun stuff, but they sound extremely notched into the soundscape so it's hard to hear the kick especially. the bass is the only thing in that freq range, and a glance at the spectrum analyzer confirms that in general the bass presence is way higher than i'd expect. cymbals also are pretty bright and cut through a lot. what the drums are playing is dope however.

rhythmic elements in the arrangement come in at 1:30, and we get what is kind of a chorus at 1:47. 2:31 definitely sounds like a castlevania remix all of a sudden - the galloping guitars and fast drums are just straight out of 2003 OCR for me, so that's super fun, especially when we get the arpeggiated bloody tears-esque line at 2:58. the arrangement blows through some reprise material and then is done.

this is a fun track! the mixing is bass-lite overall - looks like the big peak for the bass is in the 60-100hz area, and there's a surprising amount of sub-40hz content that i couldn't hear but was apparently clogging up some of the soundscape. the piece also overall just doesn't have a ton of dynamic contrast, but consistently changing up the beat and what's going on in the backing parts really helps keep it moving forward. the arrangement itself is fun and i enjoy how it continues to weave elements together as the track goes on. i think this is a great example of each of your unique talents.

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

This is pretty quiet, especially for a metal mix. I don't quite have to max my volume out to hear it well, but I don't see any compression or limiting going on at all, and there's a good 3dB of headroom discounting the peaks. There's plenty of room for bass in particular; the bass guitar is sitting very high in the the mix, and the kicks are very quiet and thwack-y. Meanwhile, the shrill synths are way high up there, and the lead guitar is also balanced unusually high in the spectrum.

The arrangement is a ton of fun, rearranging these two (really three) sources in an eclectic, exciting way. I love me some Castlevania music even on a bad day, and while this isn't the most memorable Metroid music, it works very well here. But I feel like this needs a lot more presence in general and bass in particular to be front page-worthy. Really fill out that soundscape and this'll be in good shape.

NO (resubmit)

[Hemophiliac]

The arrangement here is the star of the show.  The intro sets the scene nicely with some sound effects and dark pads.  Getting all of the parts throughout the track to work together from everyone's contribution in a week is no easy feat. Ending on a whip sfx is cheeky fun, especially coming from "Team Whip". I like how you worked the whip in as an actual percussive/rhythm element as well without over using it. I particularly enjoyed the recapitulation at 2:58.

Unfortunately, where this went wrong is the mixdown. The bass is pretty subdued and seems to have a lot of it's first harmonic coming through (or it could be something doubling it an octave higher). At times it almost feels as if that octave is actually louder then the bass itself. At times I'm confused as to what the focus is supposed to be because everything is fighting to be the loudest thing.  Not everything needs to be that, things can trade off and be either supportive or the lead. This is very evident during 2:31-2:57, I'm not sure which of the synths to focus on as a lead. They are also thin and very shrill in the upper range here.

Compression would also go a long way to help balance everything out too because the whole track is rather quiet with a max peak of -2.1 but average RMS of 19.1.  Great to have some dynamics but if it effects the overall loudness on a metal-esque track it suffers some for it.

For me to pass this, I'd like to see better blend between parts in the mixdown and consider changing up some of the synth design for better blend with the other parts.

NO (resubmit)

 

[Chimpazilla]

I agree with the NOs unfortunately.  This is a super cool track, everything about it is great, the arrangement, instrumentation and performances are stellar!  But it was mixed inside a potato I think.  There's no bass presence, and what is left is all midrange and it's all competing to be heard.  Drums are comically quiet; the kick has no low end so it is barely audible.  Snare is super quiet too.  Hats and crashes may be ok.  The track seems to lack any kind of mastering, and the peak is -2.2db which is unnecessarily quiet.

Awesome arrangement.  Gonna be a great track to post on OCR, after it is mixed and mastered properly.

NO (resubmit)

[Emunator]

I'm going to put this one out of its misery quickly, since I know the twins are already looking to revisit this. The mixdown and especially the mastering feels incomplete and doesn't do justice to your fantastic arrangement, I know you guys can nail it better than this. See you on the other side!

NO (resubmit)