prophetik music ⚖️ Posted April 2 Posted April 2 original decision Arrangement: Mel Decision Bass: darmock Guitars: Siolfor the Jackal All percussion: DeLuxDolemite This arrangement was created for Dwelling of Duels' Party month in September 2024, and got 9th place out of 24 tracks. This was my first month participating in DoD. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to arrange—some of my first choices didn't fit all the criteria—and fell back on the first Mario Party on N64, since I'd recently played that with a friend. Yoshi's Tropical Island is a jam, and got me inspired to dive in the prompt. While it's a fairly conservative arrangement, I've taken a more laid-back approach to the piece's beach vibes. This is the kind of party where you sit back and relax with a piña colada in hand or bust out the grill. Collaboration, not competition, you know? I've subbed the steel drums for guitars performed by Siolfor the Jackal, added some additional movement to the bass, performed by darmock, and added a bunch of additional percussion including a full drum kit part, all of which was performed by DeLuxDolemite. DeLuxDolemite also improvised a conga solo for the piece. In place of some of the default percussion from the song, I subbed in some samples from Mario Paint and Yoshi's Story. With the guitars, bass, and percussion, I did more processing of live instruments for this track than I have on any previous track and learned a lot about mixing everything. The drum kit was especially a learning experience; instead of working on one or two midi tracks, I have audio tracks for each section of the kit. This piece also inspired me to go out and buy some additional percussion instruments so I can play some myself in future arrangements. In fact, I've already recorded some for the next DoD prompt. :) I focused on redoing the mix from scratch for the resub, paying close attention to how the rhythm guitar and drums to address judge feedback. I also added a few spots with steel drums to reinforce the marimba per @pixelseph’s suggestion. Games & Sources "Yoshi's Tropical Island" from Mario Party 1, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted April 2 Author Posted April 2 my original vote had issues around the need for volumization, some drum EQ work, repetition, and some sections that were lacking in energy. opening still feels light on the bass and kick, and the snare is a touch loud even when everything's playing, but it's not as bad as it was in the last mix. the vibe is still really fun. i think the guitar part at 1:25 is new, right? that's nice to have something else happening there. there's some sfx in the recap at 1:49 too which is fun. i'm noticing the instances where the drum parts are not quite in line more this time around. 2:35's still kind of static with the marimba octaves - i wish we could get something simple alongside that to make it less static. overall, i think my main mix complaints from last time - the very loud rhythm guitar and the weird-feeling drums - are a lot better than last time around. i think the levels throughout are much more balanced, and i think there's some added content that wasn't there before. i don't think this is perfect, but it's much improved overall, and i think this is probably good enough to get it over the line. if it isn't, i'd focus more on helping the overall feel of the track not to feel like there's too much repetition, and getting more dynamics overall in the work. YES
Emunator ⚖️ Posted April 2 Posted April 2 I vaguely recall hearing the first version from Dwelling of Duels but didn't listen with the most critical of ears. I'm approaching this resubmitted version with fresh ears. I love anything from the original Mario Party soundtrack, and you captured and enhanced the vibe really well! The mix definitely feels rough around the edges in its current form, which I think stems from multiple different issues. From the jump, the balance between percussion feels off, and this feeling persists through the rest of the song. The hi-hats, and later the shakers, along with the hand percussion (bongos? congas?) feel substantially louder in the mix than everything else, and they don't feel like they exist in a shared space with the kit drums. I can appreciate that this may be a stylistic decision to an extent when considering things like reverb levels and tone, but the volume balance feels off at a base level and that feels distracting. The percussion and performance, however, is great - I don't think there's any problems here that can't be fixed with some re-balancing. This is harder to articulate without seeing the project file, but I feel like the kick and bass are crunching a little too hard together. This might be a combination of overcompression or sub-optimal attack settings on the compressors, too much saturation on the kick/bass, or timing issues where the kick and bass are too synced up on the transients and are causing spikes when both play at the same time. As a nitpick, 1:58 feels like we get a brief moment where the kick and bass stumble and have a sloppy rhythm, but it bounces back quickly. I love the guitar tone and performance here, it adds a ton of life and movement to the piece that I think is essential to keeping a song at this tempo from feeling plodding. The marimba also contributes to this positively when it appears, with the lone exception of 2:35, which just doesn't work well as such an exposed lead instrument from a writing level. Unfortunately, the electric piano in the intro and later at 1:53 is underwhelming - it feels notably programmed and stiff compared to the other instruments around it and is also extremely quiet in the mix. This unfortunately does not start the track with a positive impression and feels like a weak link overall. I'm not totally sold on the execution here, though the concept is surely one that is well-suited for OCR. If this doesn't pass in its current form, I'm 100% certain you can get it there - at the very least, tightening up the balance on the percussive elements and cleaning up the e. piano would be enough to push this over the bar for me, but I think there's other things you can do to bring out even more of the potential here. NO (resubmit)
Liontamer ⚖️ Posted April 3 Posted April 3 I never heard the first version, so I'm coming in clean. Dunno what it was previously lacking, but it's cohesive enough to me right now. At :13, the supporting guitar feels so quiet relative to the lead and drums, and the bassline's not cutting through as well as it should. That said, the overall presentation's cool for sure and I'm digging the arrangement. Didn't need the SFX at 1:24, but it's something there to add lil' herbs and spices, so I'll live. From 1:25-1:49, the drums feel like a plodding drag on this and the mallet perc's so quiet that it's effectively not contributing much, really from 1:37-1:49. Anyway, it's a brief thing and not enough to pull this below the line. To me, this is getting more right than wrong, and it's really just some mixing issues that are undermining this to some extent. Is it anything making me say hold this back though? Naw. The mixing could stand to be tweaked so that the guitars don't sound so distant, and the drums should have been more interesting in places (2:38-3:01 was another plodding area as well, both the drums and also the mallet timing), but the overall instrumentation, energy, and performances are excellent. :-) If this somehow doesn't make it as is, it's still got a spot here waiting for it, so stay in a positive mindset. Nice job, folks! YES
Hemophiliac ⚖️ Posted April 5 Posted April 5 (edited) I was the lone yes on the first submission and this version is better still. There were two issues I called out on the first one, being the loud and forward guitar and the kick not coming through very well. To me the guitar was addressed and improved, but the kick still could come out in the mix more. The kick does feel better than the first version, but there is still some more space for it. The arrangement is still great and fun filled with the same BBQ beach vibes. Still a YES Edited April 5 by Hemophiliac
pixelseph ⚖️ Posted April 7 Posted April 7 Happy to see this one come back around! On the previous vote, I wanted to hear the rhythm guitars' forwardness get reined back and hear the drumkit EQ tweaked to get more kick attack and more snare body. There wasn't any doubt about arrangement cleverness or source usage there or here. :-) I can hear substantially more kick in this mix, and more snare body - it sounds like layering a kick and snare to shore up what wasn't caught by the live mics. There's less overtone ring from the original snare, but I'm glad to hear it still. Part of a good beach vibe is that ring on the rimshot and it's there where it counts! I can hear some sidechaining applied to the bass guitar so that the kick comes across more in the space as well - subtle but effective! The lead guitar is more present in the mix now with the rhythm guitars pared back to the edges, which I'm in alignment with Liontamer that they could stand to come back another dB or so. This is a minor nitpick rather than a must-have - Siolfor's leads shine more now! Happy to sign off on this one now. It's not perfect, but it's comfortably above the bar now with the changes. Pardon me, I need to find an empty green shell and a lime... YES
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