Liontamer Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 (edited) No samplings are used. Klonoa is one of my favorite games. For my first game music arrangement, I tried arranging my favorite song from this game. Baladium's Drive is a really cool song and there are a lot of intense arrangements, so I deliberately created a song with a calmer tempo. Changing the time signature to 4/4 was also a key point. Games & Sources Game:Klonoa Door to Phantomile（風のクロノア door to phantomile） Original Composer:Kohta Takahashi（高橋弘太） Edited November 16 by Hemophiliac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 what an original! super fun. i've never heard it. very slow opening. most of the first 25s are empty, which is certainly a choice. 0:17 has some synths come in that feel a touch out of tune with the piano - sounds like their overtones are a little funky. they set my teeth on edge a bit. there's some nice rolled piano chords at 0:33, and then a shakuhachi comes in with the main melodic material. this is super breathy and doesn't mesh with the clean tone of the piano much at all - i think the tone'd work better with a much bigger section. there's some fm-y plucks that come in at 0:59 along some strings, and again those plucks are very loud and have a lot of high-pitched overtones that are hard to listen to. this section is over quickly and we're into a more rhythmically oriented section, at least in the bass, at 1:37. the chord progression here is driven by fifths in the string pad, and we get some drums and a lead tone coming in eventually as well. there's a lot of patience in this build which is nice, but the instruments lack punch and so the intensity isn't really there. there's a lot of dynamic elements though which i like a lot. after a big build and a fun reversed piano drop, we finally get the big kick/beat pattern at 3:06. this section is audio sausage and is mashed against the limiter. the bass notably isn't really audible. it doesn't sound like there's much sidechaining - i recommend sidechaining at least the bass if not also the string pads to help the mix breathe. the lead through here has some parts that sound out of tune again, and in general isn't always clearly audible over the string pad which seems backwards. we get an intensified section at 4:30, with the violin as the lead. this is well automated, but it's so dense in here that it's hard to hear a lot of the countermelodic elements you've got going on. there's a bit of a drop around 5:35, and another key change (and time change!) at 5:57, which is good since we had like two minutes straight of 4x4 and it was getting repetitive. this section is more intense still and has more complexity in the kick, and then we get an amen cadence and it's done. this entire last section - from maybe 3:06 onward - really meanders. it's hard keeping track of where we are at all - there's little clarity or phrasing, so it kind of just mushes together, and then suddenly it's done. this is a pretty audacious attempt at a banger original. you've got a lot going on from the arrangement perspective - but essentially you've got two songs here. i'd recommend finding a better way to integrate them to each other. beyond that, most of your synths or instruments lack punch - especially the percussive elements - and the instruments that are intended to be realistic are mostly not particularly realistically used, especially the string pads that are so loud throughout. i think this track has legs! there's a lot of work to do to mix everything better, get away from brickwalling the last half of the song, and making the arrangement flow together better instead of being disjointed or mushy. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted November 5 Share Posted November 5 Interesting original for sure! Seems to be in a fast 6/4, with sections of 3/4. Fun stuff. Remix opens so sparsely with just piano flourishes and a ton of silence. I hear why that first instrument to come in set proph's teeth on edge, I'm having that same effect, and even more when the first wind instrument begins. After the harp flourish there's a plucked instrument that literally hurts.... but not as badly as the following violin.... yowza I am 1:30 into the piece and my ears are bleeding from all the screechy sounds. And I am headed toward a literal brick in the waveform, next. I like the buildup beginning at 2:33, the subtle bassline and squelchy synth sound great. The string pad sounds mid-heavy and overly full. I really like the piano reverses leading into the heavy section. When the beat kicks in, so many elements are playing, wow is this dense. The whistle is screechy, and I feel like too many melodic patterns are playing at once, what is the focus here, I can't tell. There's a 4x4 kick, but without any sidechaining, the soundscape lacks groove, it is just a massive wall of sounds and patterns. The drum pattern is simple and repetitive the entire time it plays. The drum pattern's simplicity makes an odd contrast against the overly busy and dense and melodically hectic instrumental soundscape. At 4:29 there's a very sudden modulation to a higher key, which is interesting but almost totally unsignaled (other than a short cymbal/drum riser). The drum groove stays exactly the same as the previous section, and the violin is making my ears bleed. It cuts through, but I wonder what you had to do to get it to cut through this incredibly dense soundscape. I am overwhelmed. There is also a gated synth pattern playing during this section, that doesn't fit with the rest of the instrumentation at all in my opinion. At 5:52 there's another modulation and this one is extremely awkward to my ears. There's a change in the rhythm and time signature here too. 6:06, another modulation. The outro arrives quickly after that, and I'm hearing a synth pattern that doesn't seem to fit with anything I have just heard, and I wonder if that was playing during the previous section too, although it is so dense I can never be sure. MAN this track is loud. -5.9db RMS is the highest number the track hit for me in Cubase, and that is like.... heavy EDM loud.... it's just too loud. But the worst aspect for me is the screechy sounds, this is unpleasant to listen to. All that said, I love the concept! I also really like the arrangement, although it has so many modulations and some of them are executed too suddenly and/or awkwardly. This will require a mixing overhaul to get it to a listenable state, as well as making those modulations make sense. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemophiliac Posted November 16 Share Posted November 16 I have to echo what the two previous votes have said on their points, I agree with them. The leads are often much too bright and forward, really making a harsh unpleasant tone to listen to for long periods. A few things that I want to add: 0:37 shakuhachi-like instrument enters and it's very dry and present. 3:07-4:20 there are many notes during this section that just sound wrong. Something is dissonant and not in a pleasant way, at times it just sounds like the shakuhachi/flute is playing in a different key entirely. Many transitions and direct modulations don't feel prepared and as a listener you're jarred from section to section. The overall macro-structure of the song is fine, and there's a journey taken and a story told. There just needs to have a lot of work done to improve the detail work and production. After 3:07 think about what's the most important part of the arrangement and have that be the focus. Not only are there a lot of parts going on, but the balance between parts is off. As the lead is much louder and forward then the other parts. This whole section is brickwalled too, give the listener some breathing room here to be able to process everything that's going on. Prophetik mentioned side-chaining for this section, and I'm not hearing any being used here. It would definitely help clean up this section some with minimal effort. The ending after 6:23 having an echo-like coda that fades to nothing is much quieter than the section proceeding it, I honestly thought I had something else accidentally playing in the background at the same time. I do like that some attention has been given to the articulations on the leads with some glissandos as well as shaping of phrases with dynamics and crescendos/decrescendos. However, the actual instruments used are still feeling unrealistic. This can be helped some with better application of reverb on them and pushing them back into the mix so that they aren't forward and as present. When something stands out as much as these leads it's easy to hear their imperfections, easier to get away with less realism when it is pushed back into the mix. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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