prophetik music Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 Artist Name: Hitrison This song was made in Ableton Live, and attempted to keep some of the ambient feel with the main ostinato being played on piano, but most tracks I work on end up being a bit noisy and/or intense and this is no exception. There were no samples from the game or any other media in the song, but I did use Sonic Bloom's Mellotron (https://sonicbloom.net/free-mellotron-live-pack-bundle-10-packs/) pack for the main melody flute and choir as well as some Taiko drum samples (https://www.subaqueousmusic.com/free-taiko-drum-rack/), and I recorded a few guitar tracks: an ambient noise track in the background (basically just rattled a bracelet on the headstock of my telecaster) and a melody track in the second half. The first half of the track is an ominous buildup, and the second half a trebly explosion. Games & Sources The song is "Lower Brinstar" from Super Metroid, composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano. It's a somewhat slow, almost minimalist ambient piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 opens with a fairly dry piano that's more in the left ear. flute comes in at 0:17 and really feels like it's in a different place - totally dry and doesn't fit the piano at all. there's some drums and other elements that come in at 0:32, as well as static and a choir. the overall feel is still very dry despite the big drum and choir tones. melody comes back in at 0:45. there's some fun arp stuff going on in the right ear, and some rhythmic static elements that are probably too panned in the left. taiko and choir comes back in at 1:03, and this feels like more of the same that we've heard up to this point. we get some new material at 1:34 with a more synthy lead (sounds like it's played exactly as the original does). it's hard to hear the exact notes being played here. there's a bit shift at 2:00 on the button, with a very treble-driven drumset coming in. there's a lot of the same here - same taiko, same lead still - but there's some fun new elements like the guitar coming in. i like the idea of the drumset but it's very treble-heavy and not pleasant to listen to. this continues on a bit of a loop for a bit until it hits 3:22, and then the same piano and static elements play us out. you've got some really neat ideas going on here. i like very much the layering of organic (piano, choir, taiko) elements with electronic (the hyper-compressed drums, the static, the mellotron flute). there's a very specific feel being evoked and that's hard to do. overall though there's not much delta on this piece. you've got the same piano being played the entire time, the same mellotron lead playing the same stuff the whole time, same taiko, similar ideas with the static in the left ear, etc. there's a nice shift at 2:00 but it becomes clear quickly that this shift is still doing the same thing overall, just with mildly different window dressing. i'd love to hear more focus on the guitar, on shifting away from the elements that drove the first minute, and expand out a bit from the original method you used to represent it. from a technical perspective, the track is panned very widely, and that's hard to listen to especially on headphones. the taikos are also completely crushing anything in the 100hz range so the low end is pretty dirty. there's more balance later in the track which i think sounds better, but reducing some of the super-high content overall and especially in the left ear (there's a spike around 3khz that's really bright to me) would also help. i think you've got a lot of good ideas here! i'd love to hear more development and less reuse of the same elements over and over for nearly four minutes. i'd also like to hear a bit more attention paid to EQing of various elements to help notch them in next to one another. but you've got good bones here. the workshop forum and discord channel would be a ton of help fleshing this out, i think. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 I'm not sure why we are suddenly getting an influx of Lower Brinstar arrangements, but I love that source so let's do this! Again! Opening piano is very mechanical but has sufficient reverb, and the flute that follows is painfully dry, so they don't sound cohesive. I am also not a fan of the hard panning of instruments. There are several elements that are panned left or right (piano left, choir right, clanky percussion left, etc.), and proph said the track is widely panned, I assume he means the hard panning of various elements as opposed to overdoing the overall stereo spread. When the soundscape opens up at 0:31, I like the distorted electro textures that are added, along with bells and metals and delays. Great soundscape! However, the arrangement itself is not developing much as it goes along, it is just the same motifs over and over, played with the same instruments each time. The writing is 100% from the source tune. Some writing interpretation or original bits along with the source writing would help break up the repetitiveness of this arrangement. I love the bell timbre starting at 1:33, it is a wonderful creepy sound and fills the soundscape beautifully with just the right amount of reverb and delay. I also really like the guitar synth that begins around 2:50 with some little original flourishes here and there. *chef's kiss* I love the idea of the big crushed section starting at 2:00! This section could be so cool, but the mixing of that section is off. Everything sounds mono after 2:00, crowded in the center, and lacking impact. The bass growls, percussion, sweeps, that smacky snare, everything is in the middle and that is a wasted opportunity to really grab the listener. When using so many timbres that live in the same frequency range, the mixing has to be on point, and everything is competing here. If some of the elements in that section were stereo-spread more (NOT panned, but spread), that section would have so much more impact. The actual mixing also needs to be revisited in this area because you've got some very badass bass and growls there that I'm not feeling. SPAN shows me there is plenty going on in the low end but it sounds muted, and I suspect the issue is stray lows on your other elements. EQ should be used to remove everything below 100-ish Hz other than kick and bass, that will clear up low mud and give you more clean mastering headroom. I think this can really be a great track, as proph said it has great bones. It just needs a little more TLC. Do a small bit of piano humanization, at least when the piano is the most exposed. Make sure the flute has a reverb that sort of matches the piano so they sound like they are in the same room. Try to add some writing variation here and there, even adding more flourishes like you did with the guitar synth will go a long way toward breaking up the repetition of the continuous source-writing. And that big section needs a mixing overhaul: EQ elements (other than kick and bass) to remove lows and inaudible mud, tame some of the hard left/right panning, and give some of the elements after 2:00 some stereo spread so it doesn't sound so centered/mono. I really do look forward to hearing this one again and seeing it posted! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted June 10 Share Posted June 10 Easily one of my all-time favorite sources, so I'm always eager to hear what folks have done with it. The panning in the intro is indeed awkward - I think it's okay to more intense panning in a mix but it's almost always going to sound awkward when there's nothing balancing it out in the other ear. It's not as big of a deal when the rest of the instrumentation kicks in, but you should really consider panning those elements closer to the center at least for the intro, and maybe reining them in more during the rest of the track. There's a lot of really cool sounds at play here - the big booming kick drums, the creepy mellotrons and bells... I love the sound design here. Around 2 minutes in, we get into even more interesting territory, but marred by some mixing issues that the other judges above me have correctly identified. Although you do a lot to add personalization to this arrangement via your sound design and percussive elements, I don't think there was quite enough done to the actual part writing to distinguish it from the original or keep it from becoming too repetitive. Some slight variations in the presentation of the melody would go a long way here - you don't have to go overboard with it, but the looping piano is just not holding my interest, considering how exposed and robotic the programming is. Apply some of that killer sound design creativity that you used for your bass and percussion elements to the piano as well! I really love the vibe here and wanted to pass this but it feels like it's at least one iteration away from the OCR bar. I have no doubt you can get it there! If you're having trouble, our Workshop forums are great for feedback or you can pop into the OCR Discord Server anytime - we even host weekly WIP reviews where community members can get involved with your track on an individualized basis and help you improve your craft. Hope to see you there! NO (resubmit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted June 10 Share Posted June 10 Opens up with some very fakey piano, but the tone has some character. Wind lead at :17 has exposed attacks, though those also had character. Beats at :31 felt kind of hollow and the panning being so wide was questionable on headphones; I wouldn't mind it as much if things ended up being recentered after a brief instance of very wide panning, but since that never happened, that's a problem, IMO. At 1:34, the chorus line on those airy belltones was too loud relative to everything else; it sounded piercing. From 2:01-on, things were again too loud and piercing. I did like the sound design in a vacuum, but the track's too shrill and abrasive, particularly in the right ear. The countermelody added in on guitar from 3:07-3:20 felt like too little too late in terms of differentiating the melodic presentation. It'll sound like I'm saying this wasn't creative or well in the right direction. Right now, despite good, gradual escalation in the textures -- arrangement-wise, the melody was on auto-pilot, so the track still plods as a result; consider introducing other variations of the source melody, even if it's just varying the instrumentation rather than the writing. as everyone else has said, great potential here, Hitrison! I hope you're willing to see what more you can do with this and will consider resubmitting it. :-) NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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