Emunator ⚖️ Posted March 2 Posted March 2 Artist Name: Emunator, Chimpazilla feat. Pixelseph, Zack Parrish Emunator: Arrangement, instruments, mixing Chimpazilla: Additional arrangement/programming, final mixing, mastering Pixelseph: Guitars Zack Parrish: Electric bass Comments: This concept has been floating around in my head for a long time, but the timing was finally right to finish it this year. Mining Melancholy is my favorite sleeper-hit on the DKC2 soundtrack, the juxtaposition between the percussive, bouncy verses and the lush, moody chorus made it into a permanent earworm for me. I drew heavy influence from Tame Impala across the board here, but since I'm not Kevin Parker and can't play all my own instruments, I had to pull in some help. The guitar was especially fun because Seph and Josh were actually spending the weekend at my house, so we had a completely impromptu 1AM recording session where he laid down a metric-heckton of guitars over my demo. It was a thrill to see the man work in real time! I then passed the track off to Chimpazilla, who proceeded to make diamonds from my coal with her incredible mixing and ear candy skills, making some subtle but important changes across the board that really brought out the shine in this piece. She kept the original vibe intact but made it better in every conceivable way! Shoutouts to Zack for tracking some live electric bass that gave this the last bit of oomph and groove it needed to get across the finish line!
Liontamer ⚖️ Posted March 3 Posted March 3 Hits pretty hard. Felt like the source was getting marginalized during the extended buildup based on how it was placed, not that it affected my vote based on how the melody was loud and proud at 1:01. Crunchy spot at 1:22. Once the melody dropped out again at 1:30, I could hear the source tune in the backing writing, but it was so quiet. Nice quiet layering of the chippy line at 1:53, which was a cool way to double the theme. Sweet guitar soloing section at 2:14, though there was a sour note at 2:22. Would love to hear another mixing pass at this to not sideline the source so much in the back when the melody's not in play, but it's technically there. Bumpin', thumpin' energy! YES
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted March 3 Posted March 3 opens with percussion loops and some stuttered synths. 0:10's beat feels great. there's some guitar but it's pretty far back in the mix so it's a bit hard to hear. there's a break fairly quickly at 0:31, and then that takes off again after a short build. beat feels great, especially the snare. agree with LT that the original is taking a back seat here (unless i'm missing where the descending triad that the guitar's doing is coming from). it feels mostly original aside from some of the chord work in the first 20s. 1:02 finally brings in some melodic content, and this section feels oddly out of time initially but grabs the beat again quickly. the bass is pretty by itself and feels a bit boosted - there's no real tone there, just fundamental, and it sounds dull in this open section before the kick comes in (and difficult to parse once it's doing licks later due to the lack of higher-end tone). there's some fuzz at 1:15 that i'd call distortion in the lead. i also don't feel that the lead guitar is forward enough in the mix. it doesn't sound like the lead when more starts happening (like at 1:20). especially when compared to all of the super-bright blurbs and bobs going on around it, the tone feels pretty lo-fi - like either the recording wasn't very good or the reverb is filtering the freq range too much. 1:51 brings another drop and chorus, and when the beat comes back, it's a solo section. i heard another fuzzy bit of resonance in the guitar at 2:20 and 2:36. some more scalar patterns and it's done. i didn't care for the extra notes on the end, the bass dropping out so suddenly, or the amp noise (tbh i'd expect it to hang another second before fading, if you're going to lean into that). so the ending's a disappointment. this is surprisingly uneven on the execution front. the arrangement's fun if not overly complex, but the ending is pretty blah, and the execution of the guitar work isn't where i'd want it to be. we certainly have published lower-quality takes of live instruments in the past, but i think this is more noticeable due to how good the backing parts are. and the so this is pretty close for me. i think it's probably good enough, as we don't judge based on potential. YES
Rexy ⚖️ Posted April 16 Posted April 16 I've even had to run my own stopwatch here for a source check. The backing from 0:06-0:40 brought it in when introducing Seph's initial guitar work, and then the main riff at 1:02 carried things more thoroughly before becoming a call-and-response affair from 1:20 onward. The return of the guitar riff at 1:53 added another 18 seconds, plus some soloing and more call-and-responding on the rising arpeggios at the end of the track. I know this is a 3-minute piece, but my calculations barely showed over 90 seconds of anchoring. All of this and it's a downtempo-ish EDM track that hits hard in the right places, so I am also cool with the vibe check. As usual from Wes (and Kris on the assist), the sound palette is slick with fun effects and a clean mixdown, and they are also in some practical and ear-catching positions around the soundscape. But it also feels funny for Seph's guitar to be an outlier - which sounds clean enough but has more of a presence in the low mids and a hint of looseness that sounds like a 1 AM performance. Guitar fuzz is also real, though this was more prominent to me in the final minute when the noodling heightened it more. A re-balance would be nice, but it should not detract from the overall experience. As things stand, this track barely passes arrangement and production checks based on source quota and Seph's guitar presence, but everything else feels polished enough that it's seen as afterthoughts. It's all firm enough for me to see this work get posted. Good stuff all around. YES (borderline)
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