*NO* Sonic Frontiers "Night and Day"

[prophetik music ⚖️]

Hey everyone!  It has been a while.  I hope all is well.

Due to some big changes in my career, my focus shifted a bit from making music for the past a couple of years, so I have been relatively quiet on the forums.  I wanted to return with a new and improved style, so I took some time to read over comments and feedback from previous WIPs and posted songs, and really tried to figure out what I'm lacking in comparison to other remixers (A LOT).  I also wanted to learn more about FL Studio, mixing and mastering, and how to use my Native Instruments samples better.  I'm still struggling a bit, but I think I am making good progress.

Now, as far as my remix is concerned, I have been having trouble trying to decide exactly what genre this mix would fall under.  Maybe, chillhop(ish)? I really don't know... I just make music that feels right, ya know?

I made 3 different versions of this particular remix, and I think this version is my favorite one. Though, this is a remix of a Sonic Frontiers song, it was actually inspired by the "Rusty Ruins" track from Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Saturn ver.) and one of my older remixes that was posted waaaaay back in the day, "Day & Night."

In previous remixes, I struggled making my music sound natural and non-robotic, so this time around, I focused on adding more variation to note velocities and timing.  I still suck at playing my midi keyboard, but I decided to keep some of the minor mistakes and imperfections in the mix, and move away from grid-based composing.

I hope you all enjoy the song!  Thanks.

---

Games & Sources

Sonic Frontiers - Theme of Koko: 

proph note: this is the same thing for almost 2min and then has a B section at 1:54 that i almost missed

Edited Saturday at 04:16 AM by paradiddlesjosh

[prophetik music ⚖️]

Quote

I also wanted to learn more about FL Studio, mixing and mastering, and how to use my Native Instruments samples better.  I'm still struggling a bit, but I think I am making good progress.

i would actually say exactly the same thing about where i am right now as a musician =)

opens with some arpeggiated elements and the concept of a beat. we start getting the funkiness that i associate with damon's music soon after. 0:22 has some other instrumentation coming in - there's some really fun filtered attacks on a lot of these synths and that causes some neat soundscapes to pop up here and there. melody starts in a woody vibe sound at 0:44, and it's a little far back and to the left so it's harder to hear. reducing the vibrato on it too will help it pop forward in the mix more - kind of like the wind instrument that comes in after it (i think i have that vst also, it's a classic!). this section's a touch loud, i think, and everything feels a bit squeezed but just a bit.

fun fill going into the drop at 1:50, and this leads into another recap of the melodic material. 2:15 brings in the B theme, and the transition here is a little sudden. this might have been an opportunity to change up the drums some more. 2:58's another transition, this time to a more muted feel as the track starts to wind down. some sound design here or even a cymbal on the transition would have helped. the ending is similarly unprepared and just kind of happens, which is a real bummer as i think it really would have benefitted from a real ending.

it's fun hearing how damon's style has changed over the years, and also hearing what's stayed the same. i really like the focus on fun drums and unique textures. the lack of an ending is a big deal for me, but i think what else is here is enough to carry this over the bar.

 

 

YES

2/2 edit: adding in some more transitional elements and a real ending makes this so much better. bravo. still a yes but much stronger.

Edited February 3 by prophetik music

[jnWake ⚖️]

Ok, wow, the source is definitely not what my mind thought of after reading "Sonic Frontiers".

Anyway, this begins with the same arpeggios and bass notes from the source. Tempo is slower though, which with the addition of percussion creates this "chillhop" vibe you mentioned in the description. There's some piano ornaments on top, also similar to the ones from the source. At 0:21 there's a sweep effect that leads into a more defined rhytm with a bass backing. A quick comment on the mix here, things often get very loud, way more than one would expect from something with this vibe. If you look at the track's waveform, it has many "sausage" sections, which honestly doesn't fit what you're going for. Checking with a LUFS plug-in, the section starting at 0:21 is around -7.5 to -8 LUFS, much louder than it's needed. Now, I don't think I hear any artifacts from the loudness but certain effects make it reach unpleasant levels IMO. In any case, things continue with the same vibe until 0:46, where one of the sources' melodies enters on a woody synth. 1:02 marks the first bigger departure from the source with the addition of a flute lead, that goes for melodies that feel similar to the source but also sound "original". Lead then switches to a piano on 1:28 and we keep on a similar vibe. There's a cute breakdown near 1:50 that leads into another section led by a piano melody. At 2:14 we move to the (very pretty) second section from the source. Similarly to previous sections, the melodies don't change much, but I think the chord progression is slightly different. Just like the source, at 2:58 we return to the first motif until the track ends.

On the arrangement side, I'm a little torn since melody/chord treatment is very conservative. Outside of the flute melody around 1:02, most of the leads play the exact same melodies from the source under almost exactly the same chord progressions. You also followed the structure of the original very closely. Now, the addition of percussion + the tempo drop does add your own mark but it's quite on the edge of what we ask for IMO.

On the production side I'm also torn. First, the positives, most samples/sounds are great, I don't have many nitpicks there. I also think parts of the mix are quite solid, the percussion is punchy and most instruments are easy to hear. However, the track is just way too loud and that disrupts what it's going for. Arrangement is chill, percussion is chill, but then you're hit with a very loud soundscape and that almost ruins it. The sweep effects, in particular, are grating. There's also a lot of reverb, making this even more of a wall of sound.

Overall, while I love the intended chill vibe, the current version of the track is too loud and too much of a wall of sound to be pleasant. Doing a second pass of the mix/master with a focus on controlling unintended peaks due to effects, controlling reverb and also controlling the final volume would be nice.

NO

[Chimpazilla ⚖️]

LOOOOOUUUUUDDDDD.  Why?  This is a chill piece, it does not need to be this loud.  The waveform is a brick, and I hear sizzle that I don't think is intentional.  The gain needs to be brought down on the final limiter.

I like the dreamy instrumentation, the smooth bass, pads and soft arp pattern.  I like the plucky piano-y lead, and the flute lead.  This is a nice take on this source, keeping it recognizable and dreamy while adding groove to it.

The drum groove does have some variation, but it sounds repetitive a lot of the time, and the groove does not always match the mood of what's happening in the arrangement.  If the feel is meant to be groovy rather than floaty and ethereal, some sidechaining needs to happen on the instruments, at the very least on the bass and pads.  As it stands now, my mind cannot decide whether this is meant to be soft and dreamy, or groovy.  It's a weird emotional disparity.  And the drums being mostly the same loop a lot of the time does not help, it doesn't feel natural without more rhythmic variations.

I like the ideas here, but for me it does not feel cohesive overall yet.  Honestly just some proper sidechaining will make the drum groove gel with the instrumental components, it will be so much more luscious with proper sidechaining done.  Please lower the master limiter gain somewhat, too.

NO (resubmit)

[XPRTNovice ⚖️]

Crazy loud all over the place. Lots of wall of sound, I feel like it's distorting quite a bit. 

Overall, though, I like the arrangement. It needs a mastering pass. The flute sample that comes in at around 1:15 actually made my head go backwards it was so forward.

The piano at 2:00 is also piercingly loud, and to my ear almost all the cymbals sound like they're distorting (or perhaps they're running through some filter that makes them seem that way, but if the piece wasn't so wall of sound I wouldn't be thinking that.) 

There are so many great creative elements in here, and I think the groove is really cool. This doesn't feel repetitive or boring to me at all; it takes a source and does something interesting and new with it. My only beef with the arrangement is that it feels like we fall off a cliff at the end; we have no real climax to the piece, and then we just end - it almost comes off like you ran out of ideas. 

I do want to emphasize that this piece is cool as hell, but it needs another mix/mastering pass to fix the loudness issue. There's a lot more to play with in the soundscape there; move instruments R/L, automate some of the sound so that it's not all at one volume the whole time, etc. 

NO (resubmit)

[paradiddlesjosh ⚖️]

Howdy NoTuX!

I'm dropping a quick co-sign in line with the other Js. The biggest issue holding this track back is the current mix/master: like XPRTnovice called out, the flute at 1:15 and the piano at 2:00 are too hot, and the crispiness of the cymbals on the high end could be the result of pushing the limiter too far on the mixbus. I want to emphasize that your arrangement is solid; the transitions you added help maintain an interesting flow through the track. While the ending could be stronger, I think this would clear the bar with another mixing pass.

NO (resubmit)