Emunator Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 Artist Name: MET∆TRON I was set to perform for the first time ever at VGMCon 2023, but my car broke down on the way there and I was forced to go home. The theme of that year was Zelda and I thought it would be fun to do something from the dreaded CD-i games. I wanted it to sound like something that would have been made around that time, so it's got a lot of Korg M1 in it for maximum 90's cheesy goodness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted September 5 Share Posted September 5 opens with some podcast-quality voiceovers (that are legitimately hilarious-sounding). the instruments come in around 0:10 and are, as far as i can hear, exactly what the original is playing. we get some real drums at 0:28 but it's still the same as the original through here, and with how short the track is that's a concern. we finally get some added content at 1:03 with the sustained key bits, and some NES Zelda theme riffed in. it continues this way through about 1:58 where we start to get some fun arrangement elements with brass, a synth solo, and some funky riffs. but that's only maybe 20s and then the track's done =( there's nowhere near enough arrangement on this unfortunately. from a mastering standpoint, it definitely feels like it's coming out of a 386's speakers for better or worse. i wouldn't have minded a bit more punch to the overall feel - the bass synth in particular was pretty lacking. but the main knock here is that this just doesn't have much arrangement until the last 20 seconds. you can make an argument that we get something halfway through, but then half the song is just dumped from the midi at that point. it's unfortunately not enough based on the submission standards. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted September 13 Share Posted September 13 Agree with prophetik, cool vibe and idea but this isn't enough arrangement and it sounds too similar to the source song for too long. The voiceovers in the intro are hilarious but I don't think they add much to the arrangement since they are completely detached from the main body of the arrangement. The sounds used are very simple and vanilla, and the drum groove never changes once it is established. I do like how you included bits from the LoZ intro theme starting at 1:22, and the horns, organ and synth vamping near the end are great, if there could be more of that kind of thing throughout the piece, that would sure be fun! The mixing is adequate if not very interesting; the volumes are balanced well enough. If there has been any mastering applied, it's super quiet. I see the loudest peak of the track is -1.5db and most of the piece lives around -5db peak. Primarily, the arrangement is too simple, repetitive and similar to the source song (at least until the final 20 seconds). I do like this vibe quite a bit though, and I'd love to hear it again with the arrangement fleshed out quite a bit more with proper arrangement dynamics and a lot more variation and interest added. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted September 29 Author Share Posted September 29 LOL, I never thought I'd hear a Youtube Poop sentence mix in an OCR submission, but there's a first time for everything. I just played Wand of Gamelon for the first time this weekend... man, that is a bad game. As much as I appreciate the concept here, this feels sadly underbaked to my ears. The percussion lives on auto-pilot, and isn't a terribly compelling groove or set of sounds for most of the arrangement. The first half of the arrangement is highly simplistic, which is unfortunate because the back end of the arrangement proves that you do have some sauce, it's just that everything comes together far too late in the game for it to feel complete. If more of the arrangement felt like the last 30 seconds, this would be a slam dunk for me, because I really love the brass and synth noodling and the richness that they add, but it takes too long to get there. If you could beef up the first half of the arrangement, I'd love to see this on the site, but we're not quite there yet. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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