*NO* Sonic Colors "Planet Wisp - Act 1"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: AshleyXR

to be honest, there's not much thought process that goes into remixes for me when i do them. the main thing i like doing when i do is to base it off the song, of course, but it's also really important to add stuff that i thought maybe would've been cool for the song to have. sometimes the ideas aren't the best, and they're part of why they're not in the original song, but sometimes i just think it'd be nice to have it there, i guess LOL

if it matters, none of the instruments besides synth (orchestra, electric bass) are real, and are VSTs. i doubt it's too hard to notice, though.

most of the ones i used were Omnisphere (bells), Trilian (bass), Serum 2 (pads), and the touhou soundfont (which i unfortunately use a lot) for the piano. other than that, there isnt that much to this remix. 

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Games & Sources

Planet Wisp is a song made by Kenichi Tokoi for the 2D/3D game Sonic Colors, in the first act of the stage which is named after said stage, "Planet Wisp". Kenichi Tokoi joined Sega in 1996, and first composed for was Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition. The stage, Planet Wisp, is an area which holds the important race of Wisps, which are having their own powers abused by the antagonist, Dr. Eggman.

Edited 15 hours ago by pixelseph

[prophetik music ⚖️]

i've never heard this original track, but it's a bop.

opens with a big, bass-heavy approach right off the jump. drums come in soon after, but the bass is super-loud and way over the top of everything else. i think what the drums are doing is interesting, but it's hard to hear what it is. i like the significant verb and delay on the lead piano and the tone as well. there's some definite stepping on chords in the 0:44 range and right after - several pad chords overlap each other and makes for some crunch.

there's a very random and funny break at 0:52 - for real, i'd love to hear more of that! - and a recap of what we already heard at 0:07. i believe that was pretty close to a copypasta. 1:21 is a big shift, complete with amen break and some other material that we haven't heard yet. again there's some pads stepping on itself here.

we have to goofy break one more time, one more ascending bit of melody, and it's done in under 2:00.

there's some really fun ideas here! the main concept is the sound test from 0:07 to 0:52 - this is an exciting and energetic take on the original that would be right at home in a racing game. the bass is far too loud and the whole mix is really messy, but the feel is straight out of Ridge Racer or something similar. i think if you use that as the core (fixing the chord issues at 0:44) and expand some more while improving the balance of the instruments, you'd have a really fun remix. i suggest checking out the workshop - either on the forums or on the discord - to get some feedback and refine some more.

 

 

NO

[jnWake ⚖️]

Begins similarly to the source, with a loud electric bass doing the low notes. Right away there's something off in the sound, I'm not sure if the bass sample is slightly out of tune but it's just not fitting correctly with the rest of the instruments. I'm fairly confident it's playing "correct" notes though... except for 0:12 where it plays a very unfitting C. At 0:13 a percussion enters but the bass is so loud that it gets buried quick. I'm still hearing the bass as being off here, but now I'm more confident it's actually playing at least some wrong notes. At 0:25 we move to the next section and my impressions are more or less the same. We change to a new section at 0:39 and now things are definitely not fitting together, the pads, bass and keys seem to be playing different songs entirely (0:44 for example is very dissonant). Fun breakdown at 0:52, would've been a neat way to introduce and keep a guitar for the rest of the arrangement. There's a repeat of the first part and then on the second one there's some sort of piano solo over the backing that I commented not fitting well together. The 0:52 breakdown repeats and then we get a repeat of the main melody over a spicy chord for the end.

On arrangement, this is a fairly conservative take on the original. You got creative with the backing around 1:25 but other than that it seems very similar to the source, on spirit. Like I mentioned above, there's various spots with potentially wrong notes that should get a second look, especially the entire 0:39 section.

On production, this is kinda getting ruined by the bass. It's so loud that it drowns out everything else and makes it hard to judge whether the rest of the mix works or not. From what I can tell, the piano tone seems overly bright but I'd need to recheck the mix on a more balanced version.

Overall, this needs more work to get posted. As prophetik recommended, going to the Discord's workshop to get suggestions would be great. I'd focus on nailing the arrangement first, taking care of potentially wrong notes and finding out how to make the source "yours" by adding more original ideas/variations.

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Edited yesterday at 04:35 AM by jnWake

[pixelseph ⚖️]

Super groovy source, as expected from a Sonic OST!

Not much for me to add that hasn't already been noted by Proph and Wake, unfortunately. As a bassist, I can get behind a bass-guitar-forward mix all day - as long as what the bass is doing is meant to be the focus. As it stands, the bass is in direct competition with both the Omnisphere bells and piano (:00 - :12, :12 - :38). I definitely agree that volume-wise it could be lowered several dB and still have the presence in the mix it deserves without standing on the toes of the melodic phrases.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the bass using passing tones to transition chord roots, though you'll want to be careful that the harmony you're crafting between all the layers (bass, strings, piano, pad, and all the reverb and delay) is copacetic. Wake and Proph noted the dissonance/crunchiness @ :38 - :51 where the delay FX on the piano clash with the piano itself as well as the pad/string layers. You may need to automate or duck the delay during those clashing sections or remove that effect in that section.

:51 - :55 is such a highlight section, and I also would love more of that feel in this piece. :55 - 1:20 would be a cool spot to continue the tonality of that gnarly distortion guitar since you're recapping the A section here. In general, when reintroducing sections from the piece, it's a good idea to vary parts of that section to keep things from feeling stale or redundant.

For me to sign off on this one when it comes back, I'd need to hear:

• the bass guitar reduced in volume to give space to the piano, bells
• the clashing/unwanted dissonant notes fixed @ :38 - :51
• more variety to the sections after :55

There's a lot of opportunity here to make this one feel more like AshleyXR, and you've got a good foundation established here to build on. Feel free to bring it on back to us after spending some more time with it!

NO (resubmit)