*NO* Panel de Pon "Lip's Sticks"

[prophetik music]

For the Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon album project.

When reviewing the Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon soundtrack, this track immediately stood out as a bop. Of all the tracks, it resonated with me the most as a drummer. I already loved the original drum part, so it felt like the perfect choice for the "drum kit" highlight on the album.

I started with a basic arrangement, honing in on the drums. To emphasize their presence in the remix, I decided to feature both an acoustic and electronic kit—using ML Drums for the acoustic elements and crafting my own electronic kit from chip drum samples and sound effects. After several iterations of the drum parts, I asked @paradiddlesjosh for feedback on MIDI programming and articulation, refining the feel to make it as realistic as possible.

With the drum tracks starting to lock in, I moved to refining the rest of the arrangement around them. The energy felt a bit one-note, so I experimented with softer, dreamier sections to add contrast and break up the loop. This also gave me a chance to explore different drum textures and the full range of a kit. Once everything was in place, I fine-tuned the mix to really make the drum parts shine, with valuable feedback from members of the OCR community.

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Games & Sources

Game: Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack
Song: Lip's theme / Demo

 

Edited Monday at 06:34 PM by Chimpazilla
closed decision

[prophetik music]

opens with just drums, before we get an FMy bass and some distorted drum elements. it was a touch confusing what was going on in the drums at first, but once the more electronic/effected elements came in, it was more clear what was going on. coming in fresh, the opening drums sound strange due to the effecting on them, but they do fit better once i have context.

melodic material comes in at 0:16. i like the distortion on the melody line, and i like the little harmonic shouts in each ear when they come in. i don't like that it's pretty static of a sound with no lfo or delta on sustained notes. there's some backing elements here - bells and an organ maybe? - and they're very oofy and heavily verbed while the lead, drums, and bass don't have any verb that i can hear. those backing elements really feel surprisingly dense. being in the same range as the melody doesn't help, and when they go lower for the second part of that first melodic phrase, it sounds very dull and congealed. the cymbals throughout this section are also essentially just static - the part at 0:30 is actually kind of shrill. mixing up the lead at 0:49 is a good idea - it has some delay on it and sounds so different simply because of that bit of effecting. it also doesn't have anything that helps the sustains sound less grating, which is disappointing.

1:20's a recap of the melody. 1:30's the same as 0:49 to my ears, outside the panning of the melodic blurbs, but there's some minor added harmonic elements on the back half that help it not be completely copied.

1:50's a big dropoff - i wouldn't have minded a more gradual falloff there. the bells in this next section are nice but the hard panning felt a little weird in headphones. at 2:16, animal got tired of the slow dancing at Fozzywig's Annual Christmas Party and kicks it off for a bit, but after one pass, it's back to being quiet again with another hard transition for a bit before it builds back up for one last blow.

at 3:01, we've got (i think) the fourth time we've had the melody in the same instrument coming in with the same ascending line. luckily this time there's some changed elements in the melodic representation, but this would have been a great chance to mix it up and not do the same sound again. there's the ascending single chord bit and it's done. the different background synths end at different times, which i'm not sure was intentional.

for a track that's 3:30, it's surprising that the texture is the same for almost three of those minutes. the loose, heavily reverbed organ and bells in the background alongside the very not-verby lead, bass, and drums never changes. combined with the lead never really changing after that first change at 0:49 makes for a very static soundscape, and it got tiresome after a while. the melody's always in the same range, it's almost always represented the same way with only minor changes until the very last time, it always has the same chords, and while the backing drums do mix it up and do some neat stuff, the rest of the arrangement feels like it's missing some development. i liked the concept of the quieter sections to help give the band sound punch when it comes back, but in my opinion the first break comes too late (feels like it should be at least 30s earlier in the mix), and the transitions in and out of each section are very abrupt. the energy management feels lacking as a result. some transitional elements would help a lot to manage that, as would giving those transitions a bit of time to breathe.

i think you've got some really interesting ideas here, and there's obviously a lot of craft that's gone into the drum work especially. a set of backing elements that more closely fits the soundscape, some more intentional and careful transitions, and more attention paid throughout to making the melody line unique and different each time it's played (via instrumentation, lfo on the synths, altered chord work, more personalization, changing ranges...) would really move the needle on this one. as it is right now, it feels like you're close but not there yet.

 

 

NO

Edited March 20 by prophetik music
youtube link for the uninitiated

[XPRTNovice]

First thing that hits me is the kick drum, which I think might be my least favorite sample in here, because it lacks really any body, so I'm off to a bad impression here. It doesn't really fill out any more than that. We have all this rich tonality everywhere else in the mix, and then kind of a toy kick drum that's not giving the mix the support it needs to be successful, especially with this kind of 80s feel going on. 

I really enjoy the playfulness of the piece from an arrangement standpoint, but I am going to echo prophetik above that I feel like every section here is sort of a riff on the same theme, even though the source material has a lot more to work with, and there are a lot of imaginative ideas that could be poured into this. Because of that, I feel like I'm listening to the same 15-20 seconds of music over and over again with slightly different interpretation. Even though these interpretations are fun, it's like being told the opening paragraph to a story over and over again with a different character voice each time. 

That being said,  I really like a lot of what's going on in here. It's hard to critique and praise the same element, but I really do love the transitions to different ideas and moods as we go through the piece. All of them seem mostly smooth to me, and the progression from one emotional element to the next left me feeling good listening to it. It just needs more than this one source melody element repeated throughout the piece. You absolutely have the skills to take this to the net level. 

NO

[Chimpazilla]

Fun source and fun idea for a remix!  But I think the guys above me covered most of the issues well.  The soundscape is dense, muddy-ish, and repetitive.  The same sounds are used all throughout the arrangement, which could work if the writing was varied enough.  With the writing being so conservative and also repetitive throughout the piece, the instrumentation, sfx and ear candy have got to be varied and dynamic.

Many of the elements are lows-heavy, causing the low end to feel heavy and muddy; some EQ on the midrange elements would help clear up the low end.  The drum kit feels weak compared to the rest of the instrumentation.  As XPRT said, the kick is extremely weak with zero body.  The 8-bit squelches and sizzly crash don't feel right to me, in this arrangement.  There's no sidechaining that I can hear, so the mix lacks groove it could otherwise have (not dealbreaker, but a shame).

I like the soft breakdown with just drums and bells, with the chippy synth leading us back to the melodic material.  The arrangement overall I think is working well.  This one would be a winner for me with a bit more instrumentation variation, some EQ to tame the lows on the midrangey elements, and better drum sounds and drum mixing (and a little sidechaining never hurt anyone!).

NO (resubmit)