prophetik music Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 (edited) Arrangement: Mel Decision Bass: darmock Guitars: Siolfor the Jackal All percussion: DeLuxDolemite This arrangement was created for Dwelling of Duels' Party month in September 2024, and got 9th place out of 24 tracks. This was my first month participating in DoD. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to arrange—some of my first choices didn't fit all the criteria—and fell back on the first Mario Party on N64, since I'd recently played that with a friend. Yoshi's Tropical Island is a jam, and got me inspired to dive in the prompt. While it's a fairly conservative arrangement, I've taken a more laid-back approach to the piece's beach vibes. This is the kind of party where you sit back and relax with a piña colada in hand or bust out the grill. Collaboration, not competition, you know? I've subbed the steel drums for guitars performed by Siolfor the Jackal, added some additional movement to the bass, performed by darmock, and added a bunch of additional percussion including a full drum kit part, all of which was performed by DeLuxDolemite. DeLuxDolemite also improvised a conga solo for the piece. In place of some of the default percussion from the song, I subbed in some samples from Mario Paint and Yoshi's Story. With the guitars, bass, and percussion, I did more processing of live instruments for this track than I have on any previous track and learned a lot about mixing everything. The drum kit was especially a learning experience; instead of working on one or two midi tracks, I have audio tracks for each section of the kit. This piece also inspired me to go out and buy some additional percussion instruments so I can play some myself in future arrangements. In fact, I've already recorded some for the next DoD prompt. :) Games & Sources "Yoshi's Tropical Island" from Mario Party 1, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda Edited March 20 by XPRTNovice
prophetik music Posted October 24, 2024 Author Posted October 24, 2024 opens at a more sedate pace, which i like. drums are pretty thin in the mix - cymbals especially are practically just high sizzle, snare's very resonant as well and i don't hear the kick if there is one. there's a nice vibe right away to the track - the extra percussion is a great add. backing keys have a nice tone but probably could have been more active and creative in what they're playing - it's pretty rote throughout. the b part of the theme hits at 0:37 and it's a nice shift. there's a lot going on here tbh - i'm thinking the drums could stand to be a touch farther in the back (and the conga) to help balance it there. the rhythm guitar elements could also be farther back whenever they're playing, they're not a primary element and they're pretty loud. 1:25's a bit of a shift since the rhythm guitar drops and there's a marimba part playing. the marimba part is really not doing anything that's particularly idiomatic to the style - is it just arpeggiating octaves over and over again? - and if you're going to focus on something like that, make it say something interesting enough to stand on its own if it had to. there's another intro and a section recap at 1:49 - if you're going to repeat a section like this, consider mixing up the backing elements a bit to keep it distinct. 2:35's octaves in the marimba sound like what was in the back before. you've got a whole section here with just octaves playing - make it something! marimba solo, reference another track as a cameo, just mix it up a bit. that whole section is a real downer right now. 3:01's one more recap of the a theme, and there's some different guitar parts to mix it up which i like. rhythm guitar here is a touch loud still. one more recap of the intro as an outro with some extra guitar bits, and it's done. i like the overall concept. i think this definitely works, and all the added percussive elements really help make it stay fun. my main complaints are in the volumization of some of the elements (rhythm guitar is a touch loud, etc), the mastering on the drums (they're very high-dominant throughout and the kick is inaudible), how the marimba's used in a few sections (if it's gonna say something, say something interesting!), and some of the repetition like at 1:49. each of these individually is a fairly limited fix though so that's good! i think this definitely has a place on the site, just not yet. NO
Hemophiliac Posted February 24 Posted February 24 It's party time. A chilled-out party at the beach. I actually laughed at the usage of the sneaky Mario Paint sound usage, completely unexpected. Siolfor's guitar tone is perfect for this style. Great job letting everyone also take a turn at soloing and letting them bring themselves into the piece. This slower tempo fits this very well. This is fairly conservative until 0:52 when we get some small guitar noodling before it quickly comes back into the primary source idea at 1:01. Trading off between sections of source being presented with verses where the parts get to solo and improvise was a good choice to add your own interpretation. This is especially a good choice with how conservative the other sections are. 3:37 while it's a return to the head again, the extra energy here and countermelodies are very fitting and added just enough extra "oomph" to lead to the close-out of the piece. While the kick is quiet it is there, mostly being covered up by the bass. Some side-chaining could have made the kick come through more, but that wasn't a major issue to me. Having the kick come through cleaner would be great, but turning the volume up on it is probably not the way to go as it might take away from the chilled vibe this whole piece has. The guitar is more forward than the other parts, but those two things did not kill these beach party vibes. I can see a case being made on the balance between parts not being perfect, but as is I feel this is over the bar. YES
jnWake Posted March 11 Posted March 11 (edited) I remember this one from DoD! Begins with the source's intro on electric piano and some percussion/bass. Right away something sounds odd on the drums, very airy. At 0:13 we move to the B section of the source with melody and chords on guitar. Vibes are immaculate here, really nailing the beach sound. Siolfor's tone is great. I also really dig the additional percussion Delux added, he has a talent for adding the right sounds! Unfortunately, there's some issues with the mix. First, the drum is lacking in power, the kick is extremely quiet (almost to the point of not being there) and the snare has no body. Second, the volume balance is off, with the rhytm guitars being too loud. Guitars in general also sound too dry compared to the rest of the ensemble. As an example, the electric piano lines get quite lost here. At 0:37 we move to the C theme and there's now marimba on the mix, fun! I enjoy how you mixed up the rhytm on the second repeat. At 1:02 we're back to the B melody with a guitar harmony at times. There's a guitar solo and a little after we get a repeat of the intro. There's another repeat of B later, now with marimba on the backing as well. 2:26 has a fun percussion break, love it! 2:37 has a bit of a marimba solo but it's mostly octaves, wish it was a little more elaborate. There's yet another repeat of the A section and an intro repeat to close things out. On the arrangement side, this is very conservative. There's definitely no question about source usage here. However, the instrumentation and structure does a good job of personalizing this so I have no complaints there. My main nitpick with the arrangement is that some of the backing instruments do extremely basic lines. As a simple example, on the 0:13 section the electric piano seems to be doing single notes on the backing, when it could be doing chords or maybe even simple arpeggios. As an aside, the arrangement is quite repetitive and although it's not a dealbreaker for me it'd be appreciated if there were more differences between repetitions, particularly of the intro and B melodies. Production is my main issue here, with both volume balancing and the drumset being the main issues. For the first one the fixes are simpler, toy around with guitar volumes until the track sounds better balanced. For drums though things are tougher. The kit sounds very airy and lacking in power. I went to my DAW and started playing with a high shelf and noticed that there's a ton of high frequency content and that if you start removing some of it the drums become very quiet. Similarly, there's very little low frequency content. I fear the drum recording itself may be causing the issue, which would be a hard fix. In the past I've encountered similar issues with live drums and opted to layer a drum sample over the live ones, but it can be time consuming. It may still be worth a try to fix the drum issues through EQ though (especially if you have tracks for each section of the kit). Overall, this a is a very fun track, immaculate beach vibes. Performances are great and the arrangement, while repetitive, is also pretty good and nails what it's going for. However, the production definitely needs a second pass for this to get posted on the site. NO Edited March 11 by jnWake
pixelseph Posted March 19 Posted March 19 Beach time with Mel and crew! I'm immediately sold on the vibe from the start - chord voicings and comping from the rhythm guitar and bass are emblematic of that ska/reggae/calypso style. Great performances overall! The arrangement is a conservative take on the source, though the personalized soloing and breaks add enough for me to sign off on it. As I'm listening, I agree with my fellow Js on the drums and rhythm guitar mixing. The kick drum is mostly low-end thump with very little click (not uncommon in reggae, to be fair) and the snare has almost no body to it, so it comes out thin despite it being pretty audible in the overall mix anyway. Both lead and rhythm guitars could do with more reverb to fit them better in the space; this would help reign in the forwardness of the rhythm guitars. The marimba lines like @ 1:25 might feel better if they were doubled by steel pan (or moved entirely to steel pan to shift the voicing @ 2:01). I do agree with Brad that when they have the spotlight on them (such as @ 2:37 - 3:01), the voiced octaves feel more like a harmonic reinforcement line rather than an actual melody - if this doesn't pass and DeLuxDolemite is willing to retrack, this would be an excellent marimba solo spot! This is just below the bar for me. The arrangement is good, and the performances are solid for what they are, but the production needs another pass. Assuming retakes are not possible, focus some more attention on the EQ imbalance of the drum kit mix (more presence to the kick drum, more body to the snare) and reign back the rhythm guitars to be more of a background element. I definitely want to see this hit the site once it's ready! NO (resubmit)
XPRTNovice Posted March 20 Posted March 20 The vibes are fresh, salty seawater, and I love me an OCRemix that includes so much live instrumentation. Something that I don't think anyone else has said here: the lead guitar sounds really, really close to the rhythm guitar, which I think makes the lead get lost, and it confuses the ear. MAYBE if the rhythm gtr was really hardpanned to give that lead space in the middle you could get away with it, but even a small setting change on your pedal chain would make for a more distinct standout soloist in there. The content of the solo itself could probably use some melodic variation - performance wise I feel like the player is relying very heavily on the major scale of the key of the piece, and not necessarily following the changes in a way that could make for a more interesting melodic line. The drum kit is really missing some body. I think you can achieve the laid back vibe you're going for here but still make sure that we get a good base on which the whole tune can sit. I was iffy on the tightness of the group as a whole, but given the vibe it can be forgiven and maybe even enhance what's going on. The drum kit though does feel very top heavy, and as a result the whole piece feels top heavy because there's just not much to support it on the low end. I'm cool with it feeling like a beachside band that isn't perfectly mixed, but we're too far away on this. This is really really close and doesn't need a lot of work. I think a little beachy OCR is just what we need, but we're not quite there yet. NO (resubmit)
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