prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 27 Posted January 27 (edited) Yet another remix of DOOM. I'm submitting 1 or 2 more remixes from the series in the upcoming weeks since I haven't seen any of these and a new Doom game is coming in May 15th of this year, I hope this date can be taken in consideration for OCR release pipeline if this or other of my arrangements are accepted. I already saw "Dark Toxin" was accepted. Thanks guys! For this one I fixed the tempo at 88BPM (the original is almost the same) The genre is an Industrial Rock/Dark Synth mood that really fits the pace of the song maybe even some mid tempo at the last quarter of the track. Think about a blend between Rammstein (without the guitars), Powerglove, and Rezz but less aggressive. I hope you'll enjoy it. Games & Sources Doom II. Robert C. Prince. - The Demon's Dead (1994) Edited 7 hours ago by pixelseph
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 27 Author Posted January 27 opens with a big wall of synths and most notably a really unique snare sound. there's no real movement on the synths or anything and they're pretty static, although they do follow the chord progression. a bit of a shuffle works into the beat around the 0:27 mark. melodic material enters in the bass at 0:44, and around here i noticed that the drums feel like they're using the same few tom fills every four and eight bars. this is really obvious in this section because of how static the background is. we do get some more fuzz on the lead synth over time and i like that movement and change a lot - but the drums doing the same thing the whole time really becomes obvious and irritating after a while. there's some offbeat material coming in around 2:05 and that's a nice little added touch. i think there was more room for movement and interstitial stuff between 0:44 and 2:30 or so when the initial melodic material reaches the peak but i did like the big change to the synth over time. there's a bridge with some gated stuff, and then it builds into a big melodic section at 2:55. the drums here lack some punch but i like the synth lead and the fuzz on everything. i sort of assumed this track was coming to a close here and then realized there was another three minutes of material! so the change at 3:38 was welcome. again the drums are on autopilot which is really irritating once you notice it. this section goes on longer than i'd expect it given how repetitive the melodic material. there's a fill that kinda sounds like dragging your finger down the keyboard like a gliss, and then a neat bridge that features a lot of gated elements. i think there was some opportunity here to really get different with the synth work, but it stays fairly static in the section itself. 5:03 brings in some organ, but again it's just going through the chord progression and doesn't add a ton during the section. we get the gliss tom fill again, and a bit of a callback to the opening in the chords. the snare here is super echoey as a transitional element and while i didn't care for the sound i did like the use of it to hallmark a change. my issues here are twofold. one is that it's a very long track but doesn't really have a lot of content. each major section feels like it could have been halved in terms of time and it'd make it a much more succinct statement overall. my second issue ties into this and that's that there's not a lot movement in each section. there's a lot of autopilot drums and repeated fills, and usually what you hear in the first few seconds of a section is what you're going to hear for the next 30s+. that's boring =( the overall static nature of the arrangement method really is highlighted in how repetitive the melodic material is - if it'd been a more active line with more chords, it wouldn't have been obvious, but the original's super repetitive as it is. i think overall the track sounds good and i can hear what's going on. for the most part, the synth choices are fine (although i don't like the reliance on choices with no or very limited movement over sustains). and i like the pop of the drums, i just wish they had more power to them in a few places. i'd need to see a lot more complexity to each section - or a significant trimming of it - before this would be at the bar for me. NO
jnWake ⚖️ Posted 23 hours ago Posted 23 hours ago (edited) Opens with some synth strings and heavy bass/percussion playing a B-G-E-G progression (taken from the source) before returning to B. For some reason you left out percussion on 0:21 where a neat A# is played, I think that transition would work better with a drum fill. We then focus on a sort of drum build-up until 0:43, where the main riff of the source enters on synth bass. The sample you picked struggles to cut off at times but as the track progresses you start adding some extra fuzz that makes it clearer. Although the evolving sound is cool I think it starts way too tame and eventually becomes arguably too loud. This continues for quite a while with some extra elements added over time. We reach a break around 2:32, similar to the one in the source. Main riff returns at 2:55 on a weird lead while the bass now highlights root notes, there's some fun variations here and there with how you use the bass or how you play the main riff. At 3:38 a new layer doing the main melody is added. This section lasts until a silly tom heavy drum fill at 4:21 and we move into a new section similar to the one at 2:32 but with more active drums. At 5:07 there's some strings/synths added on top that create a cool mood. This section actually last up until the end, where the snare starts getting more and more dramatic (biiiiiig reverb) until we're done. On the production side I dig this, it's very synth heavy which is always a plus for me! There's definite work put into varying the samples over time, which is especially evident with the introduction of the bass synth. My main nitpick would have to be that drums could be punchier, especially in sections where you up the volume or presence of the bass, since the kick gets almost completely lost in those. On the arrangement side, however, I'm mixed. As something to put on the background this is quite neat as it has fun sounds, but there's too much repetition. In my description on the first paragraph you'll notice most sections last quite a while, the first bass riff lasts from 0:43 to 2:32, the repeat from 2:55 to 4:21 and the final section lasts from 4:21 to 6:16 (the end). Long sections can work if there's enough variety in the writing and I think that there's potential to improve on this front here (prophetik's comment on the drum fills is pretty important here, but there's also the option of changing the drum rhytm more often). Overall, while I do like the track's vibe and how it sounds, I really feel it could use the equivalent of a radio edit since it's just way too long without enough variety to justify it. I'd love it if you could attempt a second version since this has a ton of potential. EDIT: On a relisten, the issue with the drum patterns being very repetitive became extremely obvious. That's also something that definitely needs a revision. NO Edited 16 hours ago by jnWake
pixelseph ⚖️ Posted 7 hours ago Posted 7 hours ago Sheesh, that source material is like 90% A section, 10% B section. :P The opening has some evolving synths, putting the A section melody in the bass with a low-pass sweep. There are lots of small changes across the sound spectrum despite maintaining the actual A section for 2 and a half minutes - the filter sweeps, adding the ride cymbal to the drumkit, then ride bell for time-keeping, side-chain choral synth. There's an over-reliance on drum fills here, like Proph mentioned - I do hear different fills in places, but the majority of this early section uses that same tom run-down. I am a fan of slow burns, but I'm feeling like the piece is dragging hard by the time we reach the break @ 2:33. The change up to the B section here is great, though I can't help feeling like it's arriving late from a macro sense. The drums in the second act of this sound noticeably different, which is another welcome change, though they suffer from the same issue the earlier drum kit does in that these are one-shot samples that are static throughout. In a shorter piece, this would be less grating on the ear - 2 minutes for each section, and the snare sounds basically never change throughout, makes the whole groove feel plodding. @ 4:22 we get a more exploratory section that focuses on the side-chain choral element, feeling much more like another B section from the source. We add some sweet bends @ 5:05, and it trucks through into the outro and out. There are elements here that are working great - it's super easy to grok different instruments from one another even with the mix being loud, and I do really enjoy the filter sweeps and sidechain bounce! However, I'm in the same boat with jnWake and Proph - this one suffers a lot from overly long and repeated sections, which exposes the static nature of the sound palette. For me to sign off on this one, I'm going to echo Proph specifically and say: less repetitive drum fills, and a more compelling composition shorter sections would be preferable, but more interesting rhythmic or dynamic changes in each section would also work. NO (resubmit)
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