*NO* Blood "Profane Grave"

[Liontamer]

Artist Name: Mike Norvak

My interpretation of Unholy Voices on a Darksynth approach, a more upbeat version compared to the original. It has also some break beat influences from the nineties in the climax of the song. With this one I tried to recreate classic FM sounds and vocoded/autotune synthetic voices/choirs for a somewhat "rudimentary" mood out of a FM chipset to give the remix a dark fantasy atmosphere.

This remix is part of REDOOMED, so check it out if you enoyed it!

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Games & Sources

Daniel Bernstein - Unholy Voices. From Blood (1997)

Edited Tuesday at 04:24 AM by Hemophiliac

[prophetik music]

definitely more of a darkwave approach than the original. there's no real intro - this is into the melodic content right off the bat. instrumentation is clearly more retro intentionally. the opening minute plus is just the same melodic ideas repeated with some added complexity each time in the backing elements. we get the 'chorus' themes at about 1:13 in a really odd lead that's got some attack modulation on it that makes it feel a little late. this continues to repeat for a while - we're at nearly two and a half minutes of this loop now, i think this is six or seven times through - and we finally get a break in the beat at 2:25. most of the synth elements are the same here and this is just a matter of dynamics.

there's finally something different at 2:50 when some of the backing elements start to loop and we get some build elements into the big hit at 3:14. drums are double-time here, and there's some slightly changed backing elements. i liked the acid bass here a lot, and there's a lot of space in the backgrounds in between some of the rhythms which i really liked a lot. this section feels a lot peppier. at about 4:03 the beat backs off and we're back to coasting through the earlier soundscape towards an outro. there's one last chord and that's it.

this is a lot of repetition. you've got a few synth lines playing literally the entire course of the song with hardly any changes throughout. that's just too much repetition. the layering build you've got through the first two minutes plus can work, but you need to be very judicious about how you're bringing in elements, what those elements are, and how you focus on them. leaving your synths on autopilot and not even automating volume to bring elements in and out of the texture, let alone automating some movement on really base-level synths, just results in a cluttered texture that feels like we've heard it before. the track is essentially one 24s loop that is initially a bit deconstructed and then repeated a lot. the change at 3:15 was great and really mixed it up, but you need a lot more of that level of change for this to not feel like a sound demo. there's not even an intro or a real ending.

from a mix perspective, most of the elements are clear, although i noticed that the voiceover is buried quite a bit (boosting the formant of that audio clip would help it cut). also i noticed that there's not a lot of content over like 1k pretty quickly - this is a very dark, gloomy mix from a freq perspective. i think that works stylistically, but it makes the few elements that do have content up there stand out a lot. balancing that out might make for a more cohesive track.

i would need to hear more arrangement and less repetition before i'd be willing to pass this.

 

 

NO

[Chimpazilla]

I love this concept!  But proph is right, it's just too repetitive.  The groove and energy stay the same all throughout most of the piece starting at 0:00.  The arrangement could use a proper (drumless, ambient) intro, and the drum groove and sounds should morph and change as the arrangement moves forward (adding percussive loops or sfx or something to change the energy here and there).  The writing needs variation, and there are many sections in here where an original motif or solo could sit on top of the soundscape (this is actually a perfect source to do such a thing with).  So many great ideas here, just needs more variation and interest, and some lead motif work would really be nice.

I do like the drumless breakdown, followed by a doubletime drum beat with a few cool fills, that's the right idea.  Having a few more interesting fills and drum groove/sound changes in the first 2 1/2 minutes would also help.

The mix is super dense, I recommend using EQ to make sure nothing is competing too terribly, especially in the low end and mid/high mids.  I don't hear any sidechaining, this soundscape would really be grooving with some sidechaining on almost everything.

Primarily, less repetition of the same phrases and ideas and instrumentation, and more unique ideas and writing, and this will be an absolute banger.

NO

[Hemophiliac]

Darksynth vibe is really cool on this, with a neat atmosphere.

You said it perfectly with your own description, this is "rudimentary". Static and repetitive, with not enough variation in the beat or the other parts. The 2:26 dropout did not come soon enough as I was finding myself fed up with the unchanged beat, progression, and melodic patterns.

The beat picks up the energy for the final section, but you still didn't explore any other development of melodies or parts above it. The stutter in this last section is cool, but not enough to give the variation this is missing.

The low end of the mix is very full and lacks clarity. A side-chain would go a long way to clean up things and create space for other interesting things to fill. Aside from the 2:26 drop, there is also a very little dynamic change throughout the piece. That contributes heavily to the energy feeling flat and not going anywhere.

At 1:13 when the new synth lead comes in, it feels awkward because the attack is slower than the rest of the other parts. Coming in behind the beat slightly in an almost syncopated feel. Because the other parts are very gridlocked this comes off as unusual. I agree with introducing something different there, but specifically the attack was an unusual choice. This didn't effect my decision in the end, just wanted to point out that it felt awkward to me.

The vibe is great, but this is static and lacking in variation in all parts as well as a dense mix needing space.

NO