prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 29 Posted January 29 (edited) Instruments used were electronic drums and electric guitars & basses. All instruments were played & recorded live by me. No sequencing was used. Some potentially questionable aspects of the song were deliberate stylistic choices. I have my suspicions about what may need to be changed or improved, but for now I'll let the music speak for itself. I welcome any questions, criticism, advice, and other feedback. Games & Sources Original Track: Tropic of Capricorn -- Original Composer: Chris Cristodolou2024 Game Details: Risk of Rain, 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_of_Rain Game Soundtrack: https://chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com/album/risk-of-rain Edited 6 hours ago by pixelseph
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 i've owned risk of rain for over a decade but never listened to the OST - clearly i've been missing out. opens with some percs and guitar chords. when the bass comes in, it's in the same range as the guitar, which is problematic from a clarity standpoint. there's also a heavy delay effect on it, which is a fun sound, but makes it tough to hear the differences between the two instruments. some EQ work there could help, as could changing the voicing of the guitar chords. bass line occasionally gets out of time a bit, as does the lead riff at 0:48. track coasts a bit until we get some new chords around the minute mark, and then the fast section at 1:14. i like the intensity in the drums here for sure, but the rhythm guitar sounds super flat and indistinct. it's hard to really hear anything that's going on, and the very simple guitar lead with no intensity increase from the earlier section doesn't help much either. the track goes through a quiet section and a fast section again, and then back to the B section of the slower section. there's some sound choices here that i don't think work - everything's very indistinct and dull. there's a short rhythmic section to end it, and it's done. there's a real early darren korb vibe going on here. if i heard this song while playing Bastion as it is right now, i'd think it was mixed poorly, but it wouldn't have stood out. but i like the rhythmic focus alongside the groove. i think right now none of the instruments sound good in terms of mix - the drums are lacking punch, the bass's delay effect and EQing make it unclear, the rhythm guitar parts are super indistinct and poorly mixed (at least double-track them!), and the lead guitar sounds very blase and simple. some better EQing and some padding instrumentation would do wonders to fill out what's going on, as well as probably changing the octave that the rhythm guitar parts are based around so it's not clashing with the bass. beyond that, you'll want to identify ways to add more ear candy to the arrangement. right now it's very straightforward in that each instrument never really changes what it's doing. personalizing the arrangement more with drum fills, interstitial riffs in the lead guitar, etc. will help a lot with making the arrangement feel like it's progressing and moving somewhere instead of standing still. i really dig the vibe, but tbh it sounds too garagey and more like a scratch or demo track right now. a cleaner mix and a more fleshed-out arrangement will really help a lot. NO
jnWake ⚖️ Posted 17 hours ago Posted 17 hours ago (edited) Before listening to the remix I listened to the source and wow, that's a nice way of making a track that evolves, awesome! Anyway, this begins with some simple percussion and then a guitar playing D-Bb chords (I believe, I find it a bit curious you're going for the Bb since the source goes for the dorian feel but it's still valid!). I played along on my keys and I'm pretty sure the guitar isn't properly tuned. Bass joins soon after and around 0:27 a guitar enters playing the main melody. Some notes on production here, the drumset sounds very dry and not super punchy, it struggles cutting through the mix. Bass sounds very clicky and it's way too loud, it definitely needs some compression and some EQ to tame its tone. We get a few repeats of the melody until 1:01, where we change chords and key, just like the source. I'm very curious about the chords you picked here, which I believe are D# and B. The first one fits the melody (descending D-C-A) if we think of it as major but then the B doesn't really fit and, at least to my ears, it sounds kinda wrong. At 1:13 we return to the first melody and have an increase of intensity on the drums, just like the source. Sadly, the mix here is extremely muddy and it's very hard to tell what's going on. I like the drum playing itself but the mix isn't doing it any favors. You do both versions of the melody and actually use the source's chord progression for the second one, making me more curious about the unfitting progression earlier. The madness takes a break at 1:49 with a return of the 0:27 approach but for the variation we return to the fast paced drums. Finally, at 2:25 we get the source's ending section, covered in a very faithful way and then the remix ends. On the arrangement side, I have some criticisms. One is that the first minute takes too long to build-up, with several identical repetitions from 0:27 to 1:01, you could definitely add variety there. Second are the chords on 1:01, they simply don't fit the melody well. Finally, I think the treatment of the source, outside of that particular chord change, is quite straightforward. I think some more interesting guitar writing, for both rhytm and leads, could let you craft something more unique. Production is, however, what's really putting this down. The mix is very muddy, with the bass in particular sounding extremely dirty. Sections with the fast paced drums are very chaotic and nothing really cuts through the mix. As an aside, the tuning on the guitar is definitely off. As a positive, the drum performance is sick. Overall, I dig the idea of covering this source with a standard guitar/bass/drums band, but both arrangement and production need more polish. Work on a cleaner mix, fix the guitar tuning and try adding more interesting guitar lines on a second version. NO Edited 17 hours ago by jnWake
pixelseph ⚖️ Posted 6 hours ago Posted 6 hours ago Oh yeah, that source is killer! Haven't gotten to check out Risk of Rain 2 yet but played some hours of the first one, very enjoyable. Opens with some dark chords on the rhythm guitar and some nice groove from the kit, with the bass coming in after with some filtered delay. The feel here is a bit looser than I'd like, and the delay on the rhythm guitar and bass make some sour notes in spots (:22, :30, etc). I'm a fan of the vibe, just there's some lacking here on the mixing execution that's holding this one back. One note about the delays on the guitars and basses - all the delay choices are mono, and when there's a walking groove going on in the bass (see @ :24), the notes start to clash. Consider ducking the delay while the bass is playing, and panning the delay to the edges of the stereo field (using a ping-pong delay or automating the instrument in one speaker and the delay in the other). :28 gives us the lead guitar, which has a nice neck pickup clean tone. Love the way the chord changes @ 1:01 set up the breakbeat change @ 1:13! This breakbeat section is incredibly muddy. The rhythm guitar is all but lost - some of it is from the amp tone and some of it is from where the chords are being voiced. Consider shifting the voicing up an octave here, or double-tracking the rhythm with a higher voice and separating them with panning left and right - they are competing directly with the bass here. I noticed earlier the drum mix was pretty bright (lots of information above 12khz) and while it's serviceable in the intro, here in the breakbeat section, the kit's sibilance buries everything else. The kick, in particular, is all beater and no body - is it being swallowed up by the bass and rhythm guitar? I'm hearing similar issues in the next few sections, though I'm now hearing the rhythm guitar is slightly out of tune after the second breakbeat passage around 2:40. I like the neck tone of the lead guitar during the calmer sections, but it lacks the leading presence during the breakbeats. Bridge pickup and a different amp tone would make a big difference here, though if the drumkit's mix isn't adjusted, it'll have trouble coming through. I'm going to echo Proph and jnWake here - there are some interesting ideas here that are being held down by the mix and stringed instrument performances. For me to pass this, I'd need to hear: A tighter recording of the bass and guitars Variation on the voicings of the instruments - chords, amp tones, etc Another mix pass to cut down on drumkit sibilance and make the delay FX not mask the source instruments NO
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