Emunator Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 (edited) Artist Name: BurningMagma I grew up playing the My Singing Monsters games in California ever since I was a kid, so I wanted to make a tribute for the series, and try to bring in that tropical vibe to the original songs. Also, I was inspired by another ReMix, titled Dovahkiin in Jamaica. It's amazing to see how far the franchise has come and how it impacted my childhood! Anyway, the VST plugins I used were: Instruments: Zebra 2, Kontakt 7, Kontakt Factory Library 2, Shreddage Drums, Shreddage 3.5 Stratus Free, Pearl Concert Grand, Freelodica, and Vintage Organs Effects: Fruity Limiter, SampleX v3, kHs Gain, Fruity parametric EQ 2, Fruity Reeverb 2, Raum, Initial Dynamic Eq, Ozone 11 Equalizer, Pulsar w495, and SSL Native Drumstrip v6 I hope you enjoy listening to this track as much as I enjoyed making it! Games & Sources Games: "My Singing Monsters Playground" (no quotes) by Big Blue Bubble Composers: Dylan Cole, Sam Clark, Tom Meikle 0:02 to 0:15 - the bass is a reference to the Air Island theme from 0:00 to 0:15 0:08 to 0:15 - original piano! 0:15 to 0:22 - the lead corresponds with the Water Island theme from 0:27 to 0:41 0:22 to 0:28 - the second part of this lead goes with Water Island again, but from 0:13 to 0:27 0:28 to 0:41 - in the background, you can hear a variation of the Hub World theme from 0:28 to 0:41 (hey, same timestamps!) 0:41 to 0:55 - the lead corresponds with the Air Island guitar from 0:41 to 1:08 0:55 to 1:08 - this part of the lead goes with another part of the Air Island theme, and it's from 1:35 to 1:49 1:35 to 2:01 - original melody! Sources: Edited April 11 by prophetik music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 opens with a backbeat feel. off-beat guitar is a little loud, as is the eventually melodica (??) lead. not having a pad here to fill out the chords makes it feel a bit empty in the early section. there's also a good bit of panning so the lead and organ that comes in later is a little wider than expected. there's a bit of a drum break at 0:41, and that goes right into the air theme at 0:55. that same lead finally stops playing at 1:08 and its nice to hear something else for a bit. i really didn't care for the tone of the melodica lead and it just kept going with no real break. there's a recap of the water island theme and the organ continues to do interesting things in the background. 1:35 is a shift in the drums and organ - sounds like the organ gets a chance to do a bit of a solo - and then we have a second recap of the water island theme (this is, i think, copied directly from 2:01). there's a fade-out and it's done. i think there's a lot going on here that's good. i like the overall vibe of the arrangement - i think you are pretty close to nailing the backbeat-style chill feel. i also like the use of drums and bass overall. i think the drums have a lot of copied patterns and could use a bit of variance once and a while, and i definitely found the melodica lead to be grating and over-loud - i can't help but wonder what it'd sound like with a different lead used for part or all of those sections. separately, i thought that there is a general lack of anything to help ground the chords for each section - a light pad would do wonders to help clean that up. lastly, mixing up the presentation of the water theme that's repeated several times (add some personalization each time!) and the countermelodic content behind it would be a great choice. i think this is fun, and pretty close. there's a few things to fix and then i think it's there. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 This is definitely a huge upgrade from your previous submissions, so nice work on that! You should be proud of the rapid pace of improvement. I like the vibe you've set here, and generally feel like you picked all the right instruments to accomplish this vision. It's simple, but I can see a world where this is over the bar! There are a few lingering issues I'm still picking up on. First and foremost, the melodica is too loud in the mix, and honestly, I can't say I'm a fan of the tone either. It feels weirdly balanced to the mid frequencies without a lot of high end bite, but it still feels shrill because of how loud it is. This could be partially resolved with EQ balance but prophetik's suggestion of trying to switch up the instruments, or perhaps layer it in with another lead (I've personally layered a harmonica and melodica together before to thicken up the tone and found it to be a good option!) might be a better route. Overall, I'm hearing a lot of distortion on certain peaks, especially in the left ear. This tells me that you're running some of your instruments too loud into your master chain, and the mastering plugin just can't keep up when multiple instruments peak on the beat. Bring back the volume level of everything a little bit and gradually reintroduce some of that gain during the mastering process to avoid this - here's a great tutorial on how to do this in FL Studio that I've found tremendously helpful: The lead performance on some of the instruments comes across as overly simplistic and lacking in expression. You've done some variations on velocity and timing but there's a lack of things like grace notes in your performance that makes it feel like you're sticking too much to the grid. I'm assuming these melodies are written in with a mouse in the piano roll, so if you have access to a MIDI controller and have some basic skills with playing it, that could worth exploring to immediately introduce more of that human element to your instruments. Otherwise, I'd suggest revisiting your MIDI sequencing to see where you can add some variation to the writing to make it sound more humanized. If you listen to Dovakhiin in Jamaica, you can hear the difference - even though the songs are at a similar laid-back tempo without a lot of complexity going on, there's subtle things going on with each instrument to make it feel more alive and groovy. This is surprisingly close, but I think there's still a couple areas that need improving before this is ready to post. You should definitely consider bringing this to one of our Workshop Office Hours in the discord with the Sages if this ends up being rejected, there's definite potential here! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted June 10 Share Posted June 10 I have to concur with the above. The approach is neat, but the harsh and loud melodica is an issue. And even though you do make use of three themes, the arrangement is only 2:40 long and leans heavily on the Water Island hook, the backing is repetitive (admittedly, intentionally), and the ending fades out, all of which combine to make the track feel underdeveloped. The judges above gave you some good advice, not the least of which was to hit up our workshop forum/Discord for more involved feedback, and I hope you take it to heart. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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