*NO* Kirby & The Amazing Mirror "Through a Mirror Darkly”

[Liontamer]

Artist Name: cosmoptera

It's pretty cool to have an opportunity to submit a track for OCR! I was invited to participate by fellow composer gravitygauntlet, thinking that I'd be young enough to remix a pre-1999 track. Turns out I'm juuuuust barely too old - so, I compromised and decided to find a track from a game that released pretty soon after OCRemix was founded. It took an unreasonably long time to figure out which game to pull from, though... I have very fond memories of exploring the world of Amazing Mirror on my Gameboy Advance SP as a kid. As far as I can tell, it's one of the first games I ever played, and once I realized the opportunity there, it seemed obvious that I should remix one of the coolest tracks from the game. I hope my old memories of how exciting this fight was comes through in this arrangement!

Also, shoutouts to Musescore user AnonymousRandomPerson, whose transcription of the original track was invaluable for figuring out some of the trickier harmonies. You're a real one.

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Games & Sources

Source game: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA, 2004)
Track: Last Boss / Second Form (Hironobu Inagaki or Atsuyoshi Isemura),

Edited 12 hours ago by Hemophiliac
closed decision

[prophetik music]

this is a -6dba version for the album master, so it'll need to be amplified before OCR mixpost if it passes.

opens with a chippy arp outlining the initial chords and some pads. by 0:21 we're starting to hear strings and some hints of melodic material. 0:40 is a shift towards a new vibe but still with some of the same elements still going, until we get the first big hit at 1:01. there's a big hole around 300hz in this section so it sounds a bit hollow, but i like the heavy percussion and the lead tone. percussion quickly proves to be a loop though. there's a hard cut for the B section to a different feel, again with a percussion loop below some fun lead synths. the A theme returns at 2:01 with chips and some sfx on the instruments before a return to the original vibe from 1:01 - this sounds like a straight copy from that earlier section. there's a subtractive outro with some filtering on the percussive elements and then it's done without landing on the final chord.

this is a fun energetic take on the original! you've got several distinct vibes throughout that i think are really solid. i don't think this is quite there yet though. the hollow feel to the first big section at 1:01 i think is easily fixed with some pads or a tweak to your EQs. the repetition at 2:01 was disappointing given how short the track is - maybe add in some countermelody there, or mix up the lead a bit? lastly both percussion loops being heavily used and never sliced and changed up even during fills was a disappointment - just a little shift here or there would be enough to really add even more energy to those sections.

i think those are easy changes if you choose to make them! and that'll result in a much stronger track overall.

 

 

NO

[Emunator]

Interesting choice to start out with an 8-bit demake - assumed that the original source would also start off in a similar way but I was surprised to hear how different this feels from the original. When listening to your remix first, I immediately thought you were remixing Dedede's theme from the original Kirby's Dreamland, and while I can totally see how you adapted the melody from the source, the subtle changes you made to the phrasing gives it a totally different feel.

On the production side, I'm hearing those frequency holes Brad identified and it's preventing this from reaching its full potential. The bass is not pulling its weight in the low-mid frequency part of the spectrum, so I'd consider combining EQ boosts with another layer to either your bassline, or another instrument entirely to fill out the parts of the spectrum that are lacking. The leads are also not cutting through the noise during the busier sections - it sounds like the lead volume level is set the same throughout the track, which leaves your lead perfectly balanced during the quieter sections, but nearly inaudible when the breaks kick in. The breakbeat sections are going to shine so well once you can strike a better overall frequency balance and get the leads to cut through more.

I also agree on the repetition - there's so much unique stuff going on within each of your sections, but when you hear it presented nearly identically a second time, it doesn't feel like a resounding climax like I'm sure you intended. Varying up the countermelodies, adding some glitches, and changing up the transitions in and out of the sections to be more distinct are all ways you can approach this problem.

Really cool stuff going on here, but it needs a bit more TLC to reach that potential!

NO (resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

This is a premaster.  Before busting this remixer on frequency holes, I put some quick mastering on the track and it sounds immensely better.  Proper mastering can cover a multitude of sins.   Even so, I had to crank up the low-lows with my multiband compressor to get it sounding bassy enough, so the low end is definitely mixed too softly and tamely.  But why submit a premaster to OCR?  

This mix definitely needs a volume rebalance.  Bass is too quiet, leads are too quiet, mids are too loud, there's a wide-panned pad that is way too loud.  The drums are comically quiet.  I can barely hear the kick, there seems to be zero sidechaining on any element in the track (oh the humanity!) and the snare and hats are too quiet.  The drums consist of one loop repeated over and over which makes the drum groove too repetitive.  A good DnB beat should have many, MANY fills and variations throughout the track, and the drums should be mixed loud and proud.  The total lack of sidechaining means this arrangement does not move or groove, and that's a darn shame.

The instruments are placed oddly in the soundscape.  The pad is super wide, and the pad includes a lot of low-mids, and low-mids sound awkward and muddy when panned this wide.  It would be better to have the pad mostly centered, with its high-mids and highs appearing more wide.  Same for the leads.  Leads are centered 100% here, it would be nice to hear the upper end of some of these leads having some side presence.  Snare and hats also live 100% in the center, with no side presence at all, so they sound weak.

In fact, that pad feels especially odd to me.  So, I decided to listen to the track in mono in Cubase to see what is happening.  In mono, that wide pad disappears.  Like, 100% disappears, not just a little but totally.  Whatever has been done to this pad to widen it this much has made it go out of phase.  Anyone listening to the track played back on a phone speaker will not hear the pad at all.  The most obvious instance of this starts at 1:01.  Check out the mixdown in mono and you'll see that pad is inaudible.

Despite the mixing flaws, there are a lot of cool ideas in this arrangement, and great synth sounds.   The intro could use some kind of sfx or atmo to go with the chippy arp, it sounds very simple and plain until the first pad comes in at 0:10.   The ending is disappointing, there is a bit of a cooldown as the drums filter away, but then there is no resolution and it just ends.  It feels like at the very least it needs that last note of the phrase to feel complete, as the white noise whoosh is playing.

I love the concept of this, and I think it can be great with improvements.  I love the shift at 2:02 to chiptune, then back to the regularly-scheduled soundscape at 2:12, awesome idea!  I agree with my fellow Js that repetition is a problem, but that could be addressed with a few extra arps, countermelodies, varied lead patches, sfx coming into and out of the soundscape, or more filtering and effects.  But primarily the mixdown needs work:  volume balancing and placement/panning of instruments.  And some sidechaining would be nice.

NO

[Liontamer]

Listened in my car yesterday, but that's not my ideal set-up, so I didn't want to lay down a vote until I could hear it on headphones and better appreciate the soundscape. I'll firstly say though, fun source tune choice, which has a Mega Man X vibe for me in some ways with this sound palette.

If this was old-school OCR, this would have been a shoo-in and looked back on fondly. As is, the breakbeats all feel very stapled in and some of the synths feel generic. But the energy's solid and the interpretation's creative; if it were 20 years ago, this would have likely made it (I was on the panel back then, so I'm pretty confident in saying so.)

Good Game Boy sounds, then a nice synth at :10 and again at :21 as more elements came in for the build. Kind of murky, but no problem. More warbly at :43 with a changeup of sounds. Breakbeats start fading in around :54.

Yeah, at 1:01, the breakbeats come in and the mixing choices definitely don't make any sense. The melody barely sounds out over the pad-like sounds and breakbeats until 1:22. The breakbeats sound very lo-fi like you grabbed a very low bitrate sample; the contrast between how lacking in highs & clarity the first set of breakbeats is compared to the next set at 1:42 feels very sloppy and disjointed; and I get that this is purposefully jumping around the place with different textures and big intensity, but there's ways to have other sounds and effects create logical transitions to where sudden major changes in the sound quality/clarity makes sense, but there shouldn't be quality disparities in the mixing (Speedball "Speedy Guitar" is a good example of pulling this off).

The bassline from 1:22-1:33 has decent presence, but doesn't have a firm shape, so the notes it hits adds some textural body, but otherwise aren’t audible and don't register much, if that makes sense. I did like the brief chiptune transition at 2:02 before going back to the fuller texture at 2:12, which was better handled, even though again the full soundscape at 2:12's muddy until 2:34.

Since I'm not a musician, and the musician Js have tried to hone in on how you can improve the production side of this, all I can say is that this has a ton of potential and doesn't need to be mucked with in terms of the writing and structure. Again, super creative approach, cosmo, and I'm fully on board with the arrangement side.

To sum up the production side, look into reducing the overall muddiness and imbalance amongst the parts, ensuring you don't have such quality disparities from section to section. No more clean, then muddy, then clean, then muddy, at least not without more intentionality and transitions.

Varying the breakbeat loops would be cool, and the way they don't vary much does undermine the dynamics of the piece some, but it wasn't a huge deal for me; that would be a nice-to-have, but just addressing the mixing would be enough to nudge it over the line for me.

That's about it, and I hope you're willing to revisit this one!

NO (resubmit)

[pixelseph]

This remix is a fairly conservative, semi-chiptune take that would've been right at home in the late ‘00s OCR.

No question about source usage here. Source has an intro-ABC, where the intro is reused as a tag in the C section to loop back to A. Timestamps for the remix using the source A section (:00 - :40, 1:01 - 1:21, 2:02 - 3:02), source B section (:41 - 1:00, 1:21 - 1:41), and source C section (1:42 - 2:01). Sections have been swapped around from the usual ABC loop, with filter builds and breakbeats. The drops at 1:41 and 2:02 are stylistically appropriate, as is the resonance sweep on the reese bass at 1:01. The breakbeats are handled well, though each distinctive breakbeat loop (sounds like there are 2 total, and a third drum loop for the chip refrain at 2:02) seems to be only about 4 bars long. There aren’t enough variations in the loops throughout to make each section feel distinct from a percussion perspective; this can be achieved by doing unique chops of the snares at the end of every loop, or adding different fills. The overall structure is solid, and the arrangement has enough variation compared to the source so I'm satisfied on that front.

I agree with my fellow Js that the mixdown and additional variation on the leads and drums are the biggest things to focus on to get this one over the bar. Add some more snare chops and fills for variety, balance out the mids to bring the lows and highs back, and address the phasing on the pan. There is plenty of room to add more stereo ear candy as well, after addressing the previous points.

NO (resubmit)

[paradiddlesjosh]

Howdy, cosmoptera! Glad to see another newcomer for the TimeShift album.

Source usage is straightforward: the intro is a reduction of the source A section, full A section at 1:01, B section at 1:22, C section at 1:40, and A section from 2:02 to the finish.

Interesting arpeggio pattern on the intro, something like an inverted double-tresillo. Strings and pad begin to fill out some harmony around 0:10 in – like Chimpazilla pointed out, the rhythm-gated pad’s very wide and phase-canceling, so it just disappears in mono. It’s also quite loud for being a side element.

The fuzzy lead synth carrying the melody is shrill at 1:01 – worth addressing with a lowpass filter before mastering the track because this will get abrasive at higher volumes. Missed the opportunity to chop the breakbeat in this segment – the loop isn’t interesting enough to push along to 1:42 with only filter automation at 1:22-1:32 as a noteworthy change.

The orchestral hits at 2:01 are a nice touch. So is the full collapse to mono for the chiptune A section before the side channel fade-in at 2:12. This full band recap afterward sounds copy-pasted from 1:01-1:22 – this is an opportunity for a cool countermelody or some other variation to make it stand out from the first presentation of the theme.

The drums at 2:43 seem to filter away too quickly in my opinion – having them disappear just before the woosh at 2:54 seems like a stronger finish to me, but this is a nitpick.

I agree with the other Js that level and mix adjustments are needed. The drums aren’t loud enough for the genre and the mix is mids-heavy, especially during the full band A-section segments.

Your piece has many great aspects – the intro arp pattern, the chiptune segments, the orchestra hits – and the arrangement structure is rock solid. These are outweighed by overly repetitious drum looping, the lack of variety in the return to the A section, the stereo image, and the level balance. Unfortunately, this one’s not ready for the front page without addressing the issues.

NO (resubmit)

[jnWake]

Ah, Kirby boss themes, my beloved. The world needs as many remixes of them as we can get! For reference, I’m gonna refer to the track as having A, B and C sections on the review, each section representing the main 3 parts of the source’s loop (in order, naturally).

Chiptune arpeggios to start, following the source’s A chord progression. As far as I can tell there’s no arpeggios like this on the source, so this is a neat start! Some pads join in quickly and then we get a hint of the main melody on a whistly synth around 0:20. We get hints of a build-up here but it instead leads to another build-up at 0:40, with a bassline following the chord progression until, finally, the beat drops around 1:01. Drums go into some sort of breakbeat pattern while a synth repeats the A melody. On this section the mix is a little muddy. We then move to the B melody on a different synth, with a less busy soundscape now. Section C hits next, in a section that feels a little calmer because of a simpler bassline. After a transition we get various repeats of section A, first on chiptune, then with the “busy soundscape” and then as a reprise of the intro until the song ends.

On production I’m a little mixed as this feels unbalanced. Main example is the 1:01 section, where the main synth is completely overshadowed by the drums, bass and pads (partly because it starts at a lower octave). However, there’s also lack of balance between sections as, for example, the one at 1:21 is kinda randomly much lower energy with both bass and drums being super low in volume. At 1:42 the bass is once again super loud and this all creates a very unbalanced soundscape. On the other hand, I do enjoy the sounds themselves, I like how the drumkit sounds in general (although a beefier kick wouldn’t hurt), the synth leads sound good, as do pads and the synth basses.

Arrangement is pretty close to the source, I think all chord progressions are kept the exact same from the original, as are the melodies. However, I think you added a lot of your own touch with the instrumentation, like the breakbeat drums and small details like the chiptune arpeggio in the intro. That said, there’s definitely space for more personalization like, for example, adding some flair to how the original melodies are played (especially the section A melody that is played like 5-6 times during the track).

Overall, I don’t think this one currently passes the bar, since production issues hold it back. I really hope you're able to go back and fix those for another attempt as this track is great!

NO

Edited 14 hours ago by jnWake