Liontamer ⚖️ Posted February 11 Posted February 11 Artist Name: M. Bulteau This is an orchestral suite written and mixed in 2016, consisting of 4 themes from Donkey Kong Country 2 laid out as such: 00:00 - Jib Jig 01:11 - K. Rool Returns + Klubba's Reveille 02:21 - Boss Bossanova 03:27 - Jib Jig (reprised) When I noticed that K. Rool Returns directly quotes Klubba's Reveille with barely any transition material, it occurred to me that the same could be done with a couple of other themes sharing similar tempi in ternary time signatures: I opened with Jib Jig, establishing a theme on solo violin and introducing the full orchestra later on with K. Rool Returns in layers: the string ostinato first, the horns with the melody, and then the big brass and percussion drop with the thunder SFX. The Boss Bossanova ostinato functioned as a dip in intensity, sustaining the unresolved harmony of the tail end material that K. Rool Returns appends to Klubba's Reveille, and also as a gradual crescendo towards the arrival of its own theme. The closing motif of Boss Bossanova just so happens to be Jib Jig in minor, which is exactly why I chose to open with the latter: changing the mode of the melody offered a direct return to the main theme, back on violin, before being joined by the entire orchestra. LIVE VIOLIN: Tomás Costa ARRANGEMENT & ORCHESTRATION: M. Bulteau PRELIMINARY MIX: M. Bulteau FINAL MIX & MASTER: Miguel Jesus Games & Sources DONKEY KONG COUNTRY 2, composed by David Wise Jib Jig: K. Rool Returns: Klubba's Reveille: Boss Bossanova:
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted February 14 Posted February 14 opens with foley before we get some percussive elements and some well-played live violin. lots of character in the performance, nice work! accordion is an interesting choice initially but does a nice job providing chordal elements within a specific stylistic scope. this really pops at the 1:00 mark or so. there's a hard transition to k.rool's theme, and we get the horns with the lead here. the following section follows the original's concept of putting the theme in the low brass and then following with a pizz line, but there's some extra bits and bobs throughout that are really nice to flesh it out. there's a whole section of 127-velocity samples right after this (the trumpets especially don't sound very real at all), and then a very nice transition over to boss bossanova. i liked the little quiet callouts to the melodic material before it really hit at 3:04, as well as the dynamics on the strings in this opening section of this theme. the main melodic material at 3:04 is again at turbo velocity for the samples, but it's fun and sounds solid. we then get the transition back to jib jig with the associated live violin, and this is probably the highlight of the work. it's vibrant, engaging, and most importantly, highly personalized compared to the original. there's one last big chord and it's done. i spent a lot of time on the fence about this one, actually. so much of the best little bits in this come directly from the original tracks, and there's not actually a ton of personalization done to the main elements - most of it comes in supporting formats and in the adaptation to a fuller orchestra. separately, i don't feel that the loudest orchestral sections are particularly well-realized - there's a lot of just cranking the sampleset up to the brassy edge of the notes, and the overall volumization and lack of compression also affects the final product. ultimately, though, what's here is mostly fine in terms of audio quality and realization, and the jib jig sections are truly well-done. so i think this lands on the side of passing, although there's a lot of meat left on the table. YES
Emunator ⚖️ Posted March 2 Posted March 2 Prophetik did a great job with the play by play here and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this piece, but overall, I walked away from this feeling like this comfortably passed the vibe check! Although the ensemble instrumentation doesn't feel as realistically programmed due to the lack of dynamics at times, there is plenty of personalization in the more intimate ensemble sections from the live violin as well as the other programmed Irish instruments that really keep me engaged! It hews closely to the source material, for sure, but not to its detriment - you built off of a strong foundation and, without changing anything fundamentally about any of the pieces, wove them into something that ramps up the expressiveness and drama. Nitpick time - the ambiance is mixed REALLY loudly, which isn't a big deal in the middle of the track but hits like a truck when it hard-cuts in at the beginning of the song. I'm not going to go conditional on it, but it jump-scared me every time I listened through this and I feel could still set the stage without the sudden blast of noise. I love how you incorporated it into the arrangement, don't get me wrong - the volume at the beginning just feels jarring. Aside from that, there are certainly areas where the production could be punched up or the transitions could be executed a little smoother, but I thoroughly enjoyed the end result, and think it holds up pretty darn well for being almost 10 years old now. Thanks for throwing this one our way! YES
Liontamer ⚖️ Posted March 3 Author Posted March 3 I didn't mind the ambiance, but ugh, that first theme transition at 1:12 was just so abrupt and medley-itis grade; gotta smooth it out better than that. Anyway, the rest was fine, and the gradual theme transition at 2:21 was so much better. The sound quality peaked at the first section, which was disappointing, because there's such a quality disparity when the brass hits at 1:16, though I'm glad the close of the track finished pretty solidly in that regard. Arrangement-wise, it definitely gets it done though through a solid beefing up of the sounds and additive, complementary part-writing. Glad to finally welcome you aboard! :-) YES
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