Liontamer Posted July 11, 2024 Posted July 11, 2024 Artist Name: CJthemusicdude This was one of the only games that we had on our shared family computer back when I was a teenager and I played the CRAP out of it. This series of games has had some pretty awful titles, but this game seems to be the better of the bunch. The game is very clunky and the NPC ai is wacky, but it is a game I still enjoy playing, if nothing else than for the intense challenge of trying to finish the campaign on hard without a single loss. The soundtrack is very solid, and I'm glad I could shine even a tiny dim light on it with this remix. Games & Sources Source: Ultimate Paintball Challenge for the PC. Source track: Office.
prophetik music Posted July 19, 2024 Posted July 19, 2024 original has some pretty interesting timing issues. was it recorded live? no surprise, a cj track is lots of weird stuff happening right off the bat. individual elements don't sound particularly real (like that guitar) but alongside the super-panned leads and the other goofy stuff happening, it fits more than i'd expect. there's a break right away at 0:25, and it builds up again over time before another drop at 0:53. there's some synth guitar with some issues with sample retriggering in a build until we get to 1:23 when it's paintballs to the wall for a bit. the guitar does not sound good unfortunately, which stinks because this would be an absolutely killer payoff section. the drums lack punch in this section as well - i would really love to hear some straight-up metal drums in this section along the buttrock guitar part, as the drum part felt pretty stale by this point. there's another drop at 1:51 and build through the brickwall at 2:20. i loved the edm shift here - what a great way to keep the energy going but change it up! - but was disappointed to hear another repetitive drum beat with no variation again. it hits a few more times and it's done. my big issues here are the quality of the guitar in the middle and the very, very repetitive drums. when you're working with a shorter track, it's critical to make sure nothing is too repetitive - because on subsequent relistens, you're going to catch that repeated element every time, and it's going to wear the track out for you quickly. there's a lot of ways to mix up the drums under the every-beat snare you've got going on. as for the guitar, the repetitive nature of each hit makes it so obvious so quickly that it's fake, and it really draws away from the energy there. i know you're active in the discord - recruiting a guitarist for something this simple should be cake! it'd add so much to get live guitar through the build and rock section in the middle. ima no this, but honestly it's pretty close for me. as with several of your tracks, a few tweaks and it'll be an instant favorite of so many. NO
Emunator Posted October 4, 2024 Posted October 4, 2024 "paintballs to the wall" LOL I think Brad has a solid read on this track that generally aligns with how I'm feeling about it on a personal level, but to be totally honest, I find myself torn on whether or not it's sufficient enough to pass. There's a lot to love here - the goofy concept is well-supported with a variety of well-utilized vocal clips and strong sound choices. There's a lot of repetitiveness on paper, but I don't feel it that strongly because there's enough frequent changeups, one-shots/fills, and new ideas introduced that it scans as more of an inherent quality in this style rather than laziness in production or arranging. Sure, there's a lot that I would have done differently if I were producing this, but just based on what's in front of me, it passes the vibe check. Not very scientific, I know, but to my ears, there's enough variation going on that the plodding drums don't really have that much of an impact on my experience. The one area where I'll diverge from Brad is with the guitar - I actually found it rather charming in a very-obviously-MIDI-programmed sort of way. It'd be one thing if the rest of the track seemed to be striving for realism and these guitars just missed the mark, but I don't think it is. We're very clearly in silly territory here with the sound choices and programming. I do have to give credit that the mixing quality of the guitars and synths feels really satisfying and well-balanced. Yeah, I'm okay with this actually. I do wish the ending fadeout was cleaner, so that might be something to fix before posting, but it's a "nice-to-have" for me. YES
Chimpazilla Posted October 4, 2024 Posted October 4, 2024 That source tune is weird! Does it have timing issues or is my brain broken? The snare seems normal but the kick seems to be having a seizure? I'm with Wes on this. The sections of this arrangement do get rather repeaty as they move along, but the sections themselves don't repeat verbatim later in the track. There are a lot of fun changeups, instruments, ear candy and sfx. I do think more could have been done within each section to spice them up, some extra or replaced element every eight bars would do it. I dig the synth guitar, it adds to the cheesy vibe but it has been programmed and mixed very well. I find it totally appropriate. And I'm an absolute sucker for great vocal clips. Fun stuff! YES
Hemophiliac Posted October 12, 2024 Posted October 12, 2024 Another high energy, wacky submission from CJ. Fun and short. Almost too repetitive, but I'm picking up on tiny differences between the first A section and the repeat at the end that makes them stand apart from each other. Foley + SFX are good and are fitting. Even though there is a contrasting middle section with less stuff going on, I don't feel like this goes anywhere. That could be a product of the length, and nearly same repeat at the end, but I can't say for sure that's the cause. I'd really like to see more development and progression in a future CJ track because this seems to be a reoccurring problem in your work. Anyways, this is perfectly fine and it should be on the front page...some random person is gonna think, "Ultimate Paintball Challenge, never thought I'd see that on OCR". YES
Liontamer Posted October 13, 2024 Author Posted October 13, 2024 Interesting... so the original's basically just a groove. Sounds like there's a lot of room for vamping and expansion, or textural variations, so we'll see what route CJ went. Loud and the lead's slightly piercing, arguably, but nothing bothering me. CJ's truly got a penchant for loud tracks that don't feel like they're overdriven. Nice lil' sweep transition into the distant-sounding guitars at :52, then dropping some "paintball" voice clips while mucking around with the stereo field. So, the textural variation route it is, and he's done a great job with it! proph mentioned the beats not changing, but I didn't even notice because the overall textures never stayed in one place. I mean, you can listen to Tupac's "How Do U Want It", where, once the beat's established, it hardly ever changes (it does occasionally, like in CJ's piece), but it's fine because everything else around it evolves; obviously a different kind of track and featuring vocals, but the development fundamentals don't change on account of that. Ooh, a skulky-style dropoff at 1:50 which set up a gradual rebuild, culminating in intense beats at 2:19. Man, this is awesome. The final moments at 2:38 nicely gave some prominence to the odd timing (for me, anyway) of the beats compared to how they lined up with the melody. Loving it! It would need to be even grungier and more militaristic, but this has amazing Command & Conquer-style vibes. CJ could do this formula all day and I wouldn't get tired of it, because he really knows how to explore a theme and vary up the presentation. :-) YES
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