Liontamer ⚖️ Posted February 7 Posted February 7 (edited) Artist Name: MET∆TRON Originally called "Link and the Wind Fish Go Clubbing," this ended up becoming more of a piece about Link having a nightmare about battles past, and the looming threat of Ganon's return. I had the drums done first and wasn't sure what to do with them, and I had just played through Link's Awakening again, so I dreamed up this little ditty. Games & Sources Legend of Zelda - game over Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - light world dungeon, ganon's message, final battle Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Final Boss, Miniboss, Ballad of the Wind Fish Edited yesterday at 12:05 AM by Rexy
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted February 13 Posted February 13 opens with some next-room kicks and bass, and builds up some percussive elements over time until 0:31 when we get the nightmare battle theme with pulsing bass underneath. there is little adaptation on this initial presentation - it's almost exactly from the original. there's a transition at 1:16 and it's into the middle of Final Battle, i think. this is mostly based around the middle section with the descending chord progression, but in 4 instead of whatever the original was in. i found the brass bit at 1:46 to be a bit strident. there's a recap of Nightmare Battle at 2:07 with some wind fish bits interspersed and the game over theme making a cameo at 2:38. 2:40's ganon's message, i think? in the organ, and subsequently some bits of light dungeon, i think. there's a few small bits of the miniboss battle lead at the end, and it fades out over the course of maybe 15 seconds. the section from 0:31 to 1:14 and again from 2:07 to 2:23 are, to my ear, straight from nightmare battle with a very small amount of blurbles added in to mix it up and some bass/drum. the chips even sound mostly the same. that's approaching dealbreaker territory right there. the opening 30s are just a bass/kick buildup, as well, so that's a sizeable chunk of the remix that isn't really arrangement. most of the other track callouts except for Final Battle were just cameos, but the adaptation of Final Battle was way more involved, although i'd have liked it if more of the actual track was included. from a mixing and mastering standpoint, i felt that most of the time each instrument was clearly balanced and spoke well, with the exception of the organ stacks being way loud compared to everything else. that felt like it was volumized for the quieter section with no automation to balance it. there's also a lot of sub-40hz content that just served to fill up the mix instead of give it a booty, i'd have liked to see more rolloff in the lower freqs. the overall dynamics are varied however and there's a good shape to the track. i don't think i can pass this with the amount of material cribbed straight out of Nightmare Battle. if there was even the slightest bit of variation in what was represented there - maybe adding some alternative patterns in the bass around transition points, or personalizing the 'lead' part - then i'd be ok with this and it'd be a pass. or even if it was only like 20 seconds. but it's like a quarter of the song depending on where you put the start and end points. i think it's a bop! add more metatron to the nightmare battle section and i'm good with it. it's probably a ten-minute fix for someone of your caliber if you want to do it. NO
Chimpazilla ⚖️ Posted February 14 Posted February 14 My main problem with this arrangement is how simplistic it sounds. The intro is just adding an element every four bars, which isn't all that interesting. The secondary kick and the snare sound so loud in the intro, with just the bassline and some hats for company. Two kicks are probably too many kicks. Once thatrelentlessdrumgroove.exe is established, it does not vary much throughout the piece, other than a few 4-bar sections where the snare is dropped out. The bassline is the same throughout a good chunk of the arrangement. The writing is all very stiff and gridlocked The church organ is so loud when it plays, and it doesn't fit well with the bassline underneath it. (some sidechaining would probably help glue it together with groove) The writing does seem to be almost entirely from Nightmare although the other themes are worked in pretty well as cameos. The Nightmare content is extremely conservative, especially since the instrumentation is so similar. Could this be a midi-rip? The arrangement just feels so stiff and the transitions are weak or non-existent. The drum groove and general energy of the piece feels so static. Elements enter and leave this arrangement without much transition so the changes feel too abrupt. At 3:00, the drums and synth arp patterns stop dead with no signaling and we just have the first kick, some hats and the organ. The hats and then the kick drop away in predictable intervals leaving just the completely conservative organ chords, then the arp from the miniboss battle comes in and it feels completely tacked on with zero transition rather than sounding like a logical ending to the piece. I like the concept of this a lot. It does sound very conservative to the Nightmare source, I think varying the instrumentation somewhat would help, as would bringing some more unique elements into the soundscape: some ear candy, some atmo, transitional elements etc. to make it more unique and groovy. I also feel that the drum groove gets old as it stays the same for so much of the arrangement, giving the arrangement an overly repetitive feel. The intro would also benefit from some ear candy or transitional elements so it isn't just "I'm adding one thing every four bars" which sounds way too simplistic. NO
Rexy ⚖️ Posted yesterday at 12:04 AM Posted yesterday at 12:04 AM The sound selection for this mix is not too shabby. I like the lead tones chosen to anchor the mix; the bass tone has a nice subtle glide when not in staccato; and most of the instruments feel clean enough in the presentation. Two obvious things were louder than they should have been - the snare when in play and the organ for the Ganon sections. As usual, I back up Kris's suggestion for side-chaining, though that should also expand to having additional pads outside of the Ganon sections, also going under the side-chain effect. Anything to soften the blow of that organ would benefit it well. The arrangement also leaves a lot to think about. A simple 16-bar intro with elements getting slowly added over time is one thing, but so is hearing your Nightmare presentations with the same notation as the original and similar synth tones. Credit where credit is due for putting the Ganon fight BGM into 4/4 instead of 7/8 (there you go, Brad!), and with all the little cameos thrown in - but it veers so heavily into conservation and similar tones that it doesn't feel personalized enough. You can add some additional textures, change up backing patterns, give the main melody a personal touch, and so on - anything to make it sound less like Minako Hamano and more like you. Ultimately, I have more problems with the conservative arrangement than I do with the organ balancing, and so I can't see myself passing it until this gets further personalization and a presentation that moves further away from MIDI-rip territory. It's still a bold effort, so I hope you have the project files so you can continue working on it. NO
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