prophetik music Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Artist Name: Michael Hudak Tried not to overthink the arrangement here, and instead poured everything into the sound design. This is partially because the source tune is very short, making a potential remix fairly repetitive, at least without inserting a half-dozen different solos into it. The whole thing is played in free-time on one Europa combinator patch called "Antiformant Juno Voices" - Europa is one of Reason's wavetable synth plugins (similar to Serum, I think), with seemingly hundreds of different parameters to automate. And automate them I did. At length. Lots of envelopes and filters opening slowly as the song progresses, with tons of flourishes about, some subtle and some not. I wanted a washy kind of sound at the climax without it getting extra harsh. My definition of "harsh" is...harsher than a lot of people's though, so hopefully it's just on the cusp of being offensive without going over the edge. There are some send effects here and there, but for the most part I wanted to wring everything out of the synth itself (including the ocarina sound at 2:34, which I found accidentally from modifying the wave shape of one of Europa's engines). The source melody is very simple. At first I played a turned-around version starting at 0:37 and going to 2:00. After that, it's played straight until the end of the song, including a washed-out, reversed section the close it out. Huge thanks, as usual. - Mike Games & Sources Game: Zelda - Ocarina of Time (Koji Kondo composing) Source: Requiem of Spirit (YT link) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 (edited) starts out with some block chords that feel pretty out of time. took a second to wrap my head around that. the initial pattern (1 3 5 1) matches the pattern of the melodic line (la, do la mi, do, la) in a chorded fashion, and then we see it in retrograde (la mi do la). again at 0:37 we see a very slow version of the motif (clearer example: 0:58.5-1:04.5). this is an example of fragmentation, another motivic arrangement technique. the underlying rhythmic pattern is used regularly (1 note, 3 notes, 1 note, 1 note) as well. it continues to be spread out and weird and gets longer and longer in note value until 2:03. the remixer tones back the filter opening at 2:04 for one last motivic representation (this time with the rhythm normal but the notes in retrograde) before playing it straighter at 2:19. mister hu then hits the patch randomizer for the next several instances of this motif. there's some chordal changes, like at 3:27, but overall this is pretty straight in representation. this took a few listens to really understand what was going on, but once i recognized how the remixer boiled the motif down to component parts (the basic rhythm content, the ascending pattern following the minor i chord), then i started recognizing the different set theory techniques used to represent it. there are quite a few sections where this analysis is more tenuous than others - most of the part from 1:24-2:02 is not immediately recognizable even in the perspective of the aforementioned analysis, so that's something to consider. additionally at least some of this may venture "beyond recognition" (standards 4.3.) into graduate-level sound design class final-project inaccessibility. however, i do believe what's here - particularly in the first and last thirds of the piece - is recognizable enough knowing the source material and understanding how to listen to it. i'm willing to pass this, but i 100% understand if others aren't. this isn't a casual listening piece and the place for such a piece on OCR is understandably debatable, especially considering the above quoted element of the standards. YES Edited March 8 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 As with most of Michael's more experimental tracks, this one takes some concentration to get into. I'm a big fan of interesting sound design, and that's just as well because that's about all we get here. It's all synth work, no groove or beat, and no traditional arrangement structure either. For the first 2:13 the source is entirely unrecognisable, until you get the first real run-through of the Requiem of Spirit, and suddenly the stuttered, unfinished melodies for the first 2 minutes make a bit more sense. Source usage is thin on the surface, but digging deeper, there's enough there. I suppose the question really is: is the sound design good enough to carry the piece, given the unconventional nature and nebulous source usage? I think so. That's not to say I wholly enjoyed the piece from a listener's perspective. More that I appreciated it from a producer's one, in that I was able to imagine the processes and effort that went into creating the sounds. This whole line of reasoning sounds rather academic and a little dry, suffice to say I think experimentation ought to be encouraged on OCR, and when one pulls off their intentions in such a way, without it sounding horrible, there's no reason to reject it on grounds that it may be less accessible for a casual listener. Mr Hu always makes us think, and that's got to be a good thing, right? YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 The track was 3:53-long, so I needed to identify the theme in play for at least 116.5 seconds for the source material to be considered dominant. I'll just stick to IDing what I can immediately recognize from the key 6-note melody or rhythms (and sometimes the extra note from :18 in the source) and then go from there if it's not enough. :37.5-:42.5, :47.5-:53.25, :58.25-1:04.5, 1:09.25-1:15.25, 1:28.5-2:02.75, 2:06.5-3:30, 3:33.75-3:39.75 = 146.75 seconds or 62.98% overt source usage Fun little audio experiment. :-D To me, catching the melody in the simple rhythmic changes was straightforward enough. If there was other usage, I don't mind it going over my head. Wasn't too abrasive for me, or too difficult to recognize the source in play most of the way. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted April 16 Share Posted April 16 I'll be honest, and this may expose my lack of formal musical training, but like DarkSim, I can't recognize source material at all until 2:13. That's past the halfway mark, which makes this less than 50% source material. And I'm personally glad for that, because it gives me an excuse to not have to evaluate the rest of this. It's certainly interesting sound design, if utterly unpleasant. I would probably pass it if it started at 2:04. But I can't personally call the source "dominant" as-is. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 I know this source like the back of my hand, and yes the motif is hugely obscured in the first half. Larry's timestamp did help, but I can clearly hear the notes being played, in a totally different way from the source; the emphasis is on a different note than in the original (up until 2:13 at which point the source motif playthroughs are more straightforward). I generally love Michael's work and this track is no exception. I love the sparseness and the interesting sound design, as well as the reversed bits of motif. As Larry said, fun little audio experiment. I'm on board. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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