prophetik music Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) This is my take on the track with a metal/guitar-driven focus. I recreated the chiptune elements myself from scratch to accompany the more modern guitar/bass/drum sound to blend the two eras. All guitars are performed by myself and I used the Neural Petrucci amp sim to transpose the rhythm guitars down by 10 steps to create a more 7/8-string guitar vibe, although everything was tracked on my 6-string. I felt as though that prominent bassline was crying out for a super low-tuned guitar sound and I think it came together nicely. I tweaked the timing a little to give it a bit more of a punchy staccato vibe which also lent itself well to guitar. I threw in some ad-libs to the arrangement, referencing the main theme of the game on guitar at times, with another cheeky reference at the end of the track that foreshadows the melody of the syndicate headquarters in the sequel to the game. Games & Sources Original track: "The Last Soul" (Round 8) from Streets of Rage 1, by Yuzo Koshiro. Edited March 26 by Rexy
prophetik music Posted January 9 Author Posted January 9 classic original. opens with some sfx and a screaming guitar riff. lots of verb on everything. bass has a really weird tone - the fundamental isn't the loudest element, so i'm guessing it's been layered with something to make it fuller (the distorted tone somehow isn't the only bass tone there?), or else a super-notched EQ. that opening section sounds very strange as a result. the petrucci-esque guitar that comes in right after is fun, and it's also super loud but the bass sounds better with it. it sounds like none of the instruments are in the same room - lead has a ton of verb on it, rhythm and bass don't, and drums have some arena long-tail verb on them. lead guitar riffs at 1:00 sound great. tom groove going into 1:29 sounds like a fill pattern that got reused a lot - doesn't really feel like a tom groove, although i like the idea. 1:29's drums are the same as the opening - guessing the chips are as well. i like the addition of strings that happens partway through this section. it adds a lot to the feel. 2:27's section is the same as 1:00 (backing is the same, lead is up an octave initially). that said, i love the escalating elements of this section, and it's easily the best part of the piece. the opening in the bass is enough for me to say no on this, and the subsequent reuse of drums throughout isn't a great thing either (although i do like most of your fills, they really feel nice and keep it rolling forward a lot). i'd love to hear some more variety in the drums and fills in the first half, so that the second half (which currently has a lot of repeated parts) can stay the way it is now. you may also want to consider unifying your verb throughout so that the instruments sound like they're more in the same area. this is a fun track! i don't think these tweaks would really take a long time to execute on, so hopefully we see you back soon. NO
Liontamer Posted March 24 Posted March 24 The intro wasn't promising as far as standing apart from the original, but there was more edge to the guitar performance after :23. I did catch what proph noticed about the bass sounding odd from the intro until :22; it didn't bother me personally, but it's arguably too much. The drums did feel underwhelming and with a quality disparity of those uncanny valley samples juxtaposed with the very lively guitar. The plodding snare writing was sapping energy from the killer guitar work, even though the fills were good. I liked some of the fills and writing, but the overall feel of the drumkit was repetitive, plodding, and underwhelming with the core snare pattern. The melodic line of the beginning of the chorus (:50-:59) was very quiet compared to the backing guitar; it doesn't HAVE to be punched up, but didn't necessarily seem intentional. I did like the brief moment from 1:19-1:29; even though the drums sounded thin, it was an extremely cool way to adapt that brief part of the source, and easily the most transformative part of the arrangement. 1:29-1:48 had some good original writing on top of the theme via the guitar soloing for some more personalization of the approach. Nice use of the 1-Up SFX at 1:18, that was a nice touch. Not a huge deal because they were couched reasonably well in the soundscape, but the strings from 2:17-2:26 were pretty fake-sounding; they're actually a decent element and add good texture throughout the piece overall, but they were higher in that particular section and more exposed, so it was worth calling out. 3:05 with "The Street of Rage" cameo was a nice piece of personalization, especially as the finish; I would have loved the instrumentation approach here to sound/feel more distinct from the source in the way that you did with the "Street of Rage" cameo, but I don't inherently have a problem with what's there. Fairly solid for a more cover-ish/sound upgrade arrangement approach. Definitely want to get this posted in some form, and I could also see the case for passing this as is. IMO, the snare drum pattern being bland, mostly metronome-like, and seemingly lacking round-robin style humanization/variations from verse to verse (i.e. not overtly different-sounding enough) was holding this back. proph seems to think this only needs some minor adjustments, and I get where he's coming from; aside from the drum issue, it's otherwise well in the right direction, Andy! If this doesn't make it as is, I definitely hope you're open to some tweaks to the drum writing/programming to really get this sounding its best. It's a pleasure to see something from you in the inbox once again! :-) NO (resubmit)
Rexy Posted March 26 Posted March 26 This is one of my fave sources from the OG Streets of Rage! You've definitely hit a chord with me, no pun intended. So, obviously the arrangement is very meat and potatoes - started off as a straight-forward metal cover, though the shoutout to the SoR1 theme at 1:37-1:48, the additional strings, the guitar harmonies and the ominous closure in the final reprisal were beautifully done. Arrangement-wise, it's hit a solid direction that stayed fresh all the way through. I do love your guitar tone going into this - and considering what you said about recording your parts, downtuning it and feeding it through an amp sim, it sounds a lot like an actual 7-string, so kudos on the idea. Though, as much as I love the production-based ambition, this does have flaws. As Brad mentioned, the bass has a very awkward EQ shift that sounds like it's trying to be a Chapman Stick even though it feels too tinny to do so. I wouldn't have minded going in for an ordinary pick bass rather than the direction you're going in there, but if you're able to resolve the tinniness another way, by all means go for it. And then there's the drums. Yes, to a casual ear, these would be hard-hitting - but I noticed the machine-like constant velocities and writing. Larry already touched upon the former, but for me, what I want to emphasize is the same two-bar groove - down to the kick, snare and open hi-hat placements - getting copy-pasted with only some minor variations on fills, a couple of ride cymbal breaks (0:51-1:00 and 2:17-2:26) and the tom breakdown at 1:20-1:29. With fills also mirrored between sections and in similar places, I had come to the conclusion that this component of the track is underwhelming and needs some revision before I could see it get posted. I really want to see this track get out there, Andy. I did mention my gripes with the bass shaping and I hope you're able to address it at some point, but for me, the stale drums were the biggest dealbreaker and I hope you're able to go back into this project and vary up those grooves. Please send it back - there's never enough Streets on OCR! :) NO (resubmit)
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