OCR04679 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Cucco Feathers" *RESUB*

[Emunator]

Artist Name: Lucas Guimaraes, Charles Ritz

Previous Decision: https://ocremix.org/community/topic/52750

Here's my whole writeup from last time:
 

Quote

Oh man, this is a fun one. To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Ocarina of Time, Ro Panuganti, David Russell, and David Erick Ramos have all teamed up to produce a community charity album called Through the Sacred Realm. I knew that I didn't have much time, so I pitched a simple test: Can I emulate the style of Nujabes? I shopped it around to Charles Ritz with a demo that *kinda* got there. I was messing with every technique that I could. The main technique that got used on this track was writing the arrangement to be slower, and then speeding it up with changing the pitch. Similar to how hip-hop and video game music artists will often pitch samples, but with the full track being the sample. I specifically went after the sound of his second album, Modal Soul. I wasn't quite feeling what I had on the demo, but a few people gave me one piece of feedback that helped: It emulated Nujabes vibes.

Charles came back to me close to deadline with a piano track that REALLY vibed with some placeholder bass and loops from splice. It was already sounding pretty good, which gave me a lot of confidence in producing the rest of it. He came up with a revised bass track while I focused on getting the drums there. To go extra on emulating Nujabes, I threw in a lot of sound effects for the ~atmosphere~, I added some Oboe (performed on the EWI 4000s with SWAM woodwinds) and we worked together to add in some vocals. I then mixed it, and then mastered it separate from the one on the album. (Just wanted to get some mastering practice in!)

The biggest lesson this project posed is just how far a couple of well done pieces can take you. For a while I've been struggling with producing my tracks instead of just arranging, but this was one where every step of the way, we worked together to see if the changes we were making the track better. This was definitely different in the process, and I'm not quite sure how to replicate it again (I'll certainly try!) but I'm very glad we made it. It's the most collaborative experience I've ever got to have with a track and I hope to share more of those experiences with other people, - including Charles.

That said, uh, what about this time. Okay, I was a bit devastated when this got rejected at first, I won't lie. But more because I didn't know *how* to approach some of these problems. My main takeaways that J's didn't like was:

-Drums were repetitive
-Mastering wasn't blown out enough
-Ending was too abrupt

I had some ideas for the ending, but frankly when I submitted this I didn't really understand the concept of pushing things through a clipper. If there's a judge comment I've learned THE MOST from, it's Prophetik specifically saying "Blown out mastering". I don't know how, I don't know why, but something about his comment made me resonate with what needed to be done.

So I went back a few months later when I knew I was ready to revisit this. I reworked the drums ENTIRELY over several sessions. Emunator helped me with some awesome sound design advice. He even offered to step in on drums! That'll have to wait for another time, but I'm sure ya'll have been seeing my name with him at least a *couple* of times. After I'd got the drums locked in, I went back and redid the mix. It was mostly about raising background instruments up so more awesome background elements could have their chance to shine. Y'know, not JUST the drums. So you can actually hear the Oboe and vocal tracks now! AFTER that the mastering was pretty simple. Everyone I've shared it to dug it. I guess ear training's been paying off? I know this track definitely taught me the more creative things I can do with a compressor.

...

I've got nothing else.

Uh, go buy a copy of Through the Sacred Realm so you can support the Decolonizing the Music Room charity. Which honestly was half the reason I redid this track for OCR in the first place. Putting the spotlight on a good cause. :)

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Games & Sources

Kakariko Village from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[MindWanderer]

Whoa. Lots of faux age distortion making the whole track warble. There have been a lot of lo-fi tracks in the queue lately, but this is a whole new level. I'm surprised it doesn't have more of a crackle to make it sound like an old record.

The source wasn't immediately recognizable, but after a couple of listens it sank in. I'm amused that Larry had no problems with it in the previous vote, because his usual surgical timestamping method would result in cutting out like ¾ of the notes here.

Nujabes's stuff does tend to cut out pretty abruptly, with no ending to speak of, so I see where you were coming from. This track is much the same. You ended it with a mass of distortion, so it's clear the track wasn't simply cut off, but you didn't write a musical ending of any kind. It's a cop-out; while better than just ending in the middle of a note, it still doesn't do what an ending needs to do. Even a fade-out would work better.

I don't like the age effect, but that's mostly personal preference. My big beef is that ending. I almost never NO a remix based just on the ending, but this one's really bad. Even the distorted warble doesn't end on the tonic, which would be so easy. Maybe not a 5-minute fix, but not much more. So I think my vote has to be the same as Larry's was last time.

NO (resubmit)

[prophetik music]

hey, just a side note to a point mentioned in the writeup - i know some of us judges are more available than others, but we're always willing to talk further if you've got questions about why something landed the way it did. just message us and we'll be happy to help. most of the time =) i'm also going to be honest and say i don't like my previous vote much. i was not clear about what needed to be done and that's on me. i had some specific suggestions that i didn't write down for whatever reason and that's not good enough from me.

opening run through the chord progression is a lot better on this one, through like 0:47. piano feels good and the saturation feels more comfortable than it did before. drums feel better as well if i'm remembering correctly. 1:09's transition is nice. the kicks here are a little confusing due to where they're falling initially, but when more drum bits come in it's easier to track them. 1:35 has some nice keys licks. i don't remember the vox stuff at 1:59 but i really like it. stylistically that fits really well, although i'd expect more grit on them based on the rest of the instruments.

ending is fine imo, i get it based on the style and the old-record vibe that's going on throughout. me being an old head would in general prefer a normal ending of some kind but that's personal preference.

this is a great track. it may not be 100% on brand with what you're trying to ape, but it's a straightforward and fun arrangement, showcasing less is more from an instrumental side. thanks for taking the time to rework this.

 

 

YES

[Emunator]

I hard-disagree with the idea of rejecting this on the grounds of the ending - I think it's fine and I've certainly heard the tape stop/record skip ending used in other contexts both in and out of the OCR sphere. "Mass of distortion" feels like a hyperbole compared to what I'm hearing, it's just some tape warble effects and saturation. That decision feels like like a stylistic decision to me, I'm very surprised to see this with a NO vote on solely that reason.

Ending aside, this track represents a significant improvement over the original submission. This boasts a much fuller soundscape that better matches the production quality and richness of the material that inspired it. The drums could still stand to be a little more organic and humanized (most drum kits in this style were sampled from actual live breaks rather than sequenced, and there's certain times you can really tell that this was programmed in manually from one-shot samples) but it's lightyears ahead of where it was in the last version. Thanks to the revamped mixing, you can even hear elements like the wonderful vocla harmonies that, apparently, were always in the arrangement but never really grabbed my attention before. It's a vibe.

YES

[Liontamer]

The bass is too boomy, IMO, and chews up too much space as a result, but it's not a big deal. Don't recall the voices around 2:04 being in there before; they didn't add anything due to being so quietly mixed, but didn't detract, so we'll say it's a wash there.

/checks track

Is there an actual ending/resolution this time? It's so bleh, but it's there this time. :-D I agreed with MW's comments on how it would have been easy to make it resolve better, but I'll live with what's there.

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Wow, this is a HUGE improvement in writing and creative ideas!  The writing variations on the source are groovy.  The vocal pad really gives this a new flavor when it starts after 2:00, I wish it played just a hair longer than it does.  The drums have been varied just enough to avoid so much repetition, and they feel more natural now.  The new drum production fits the soundscape just right, good job there! 

I don't find the bass boomy at all on my system that includes a sub.  The bass hits pretty hard at 100-ish Hz, perhaps that is agitating Larry's headphones and offending his ears?  It sounds fine for me.  The production overall is working well I think.

I really like the new reverse/slowdown ending!  It's still abrupt, but it's an actual ending.  It is weird in a cool way.  The warbley production is an artistic choice, and I like it.  This one gets the job done for me!

YES