*NO* Tales of Phantasia "Indignation"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: Pipko Fanfare

This was my attempt to turn "Castle of the Dhaos" into the high intensity progressive metal track it always felt to me like it wanted to be, despite the trumpets and accordion in the original.

Alternate title: "Dastle of the Dhaos" because if just changing the first letter is enough for Dhaos (and Eragon, etc) then it's good enough for me!

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Games & Sources

"Castle of the Dhaos" by Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, from "Tales of Phantasia" (SNES)

Edited Tuesday at 03:41 AM by jnWake

[prophetik music ⚖️]

big drums and guitars right off the bat. this is pretty much a cover for the first minute or so, with most of the representation sounding similar to the original but with new instrumentation. the second half doesn't quite go in the same order, but much of the sections are repeated in various order, and then it's done pretty quickly.

what's here is fun! but it doesn't appear to have enough arrangement to qualify as not being a cover, especially given the original's already kind of proggy. i'd need to hear more adaptation - realistically, much more, given how in-depth the genre usually goes - before i'd consider this. as a note, i can't hear much bass guitar in this master either.

 

 

NO

[Chimpazilla ⚖️]

This is indeed a straight cover, for the most part.  The instrument/genre adaptation does count, but musically it is a cover, which can be fine as long as there are personalized sections added in, like an original breakdown and/or another big section with more variation on the writing or pace or something.  While not required, some kind of longer and more purposeful intro and outro would also help this arrangement shine.

As proph said, what's here is fun!  It's short though, arguably 2 minutes is not enough time to get the ideas across in a prog-rock piece.  

On the production side of things, the drums could come up a bit in the mix, the snare and all the hats are very tame and weak with minimal highs, kick could punch through a bit better.  I think things are balanced fairly well other than that, although at times the lead guitar comes in too loud, such as at 1:18 and again at 1:46.  I also agree with proph that I'd like to hear a bit more bass in the mix.

NO

[jnWake ⚖️]

Random comment, I played on a cover of this same theme just a couple months ago: https://unknownpseudoartist.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-phantasia-a-metal-tribute-to-tales-of-phantasia.

Anyway, this begins with a drum fill and then straight up double kick metal, nice! First part plays pretty much exactly like the source, until 0:17. From what I can you're using Shreddage for guitars here, it's always hard to do convincing fake guitars... I think you do a great job with them but I feel they sound too clean. One thing I've noticed on my attempts at making decent fake guitars is that real ones are always not that clean, there's more noise/reverb than what Shreddage produces. Second riff is also almost identical to the source, but the drum beat is different. Third riff (0:25) is also quite straight from the source until 0:45, there's some notes on the sampled lead that sound a bit odd (0:29, 0:32, 0:34). I do appreciate that you tried to make the best out of the's sample articulations though. For the final riff there's some small differences in timing, but it's still fairly conservative. From 1:01 onwards we don't follow the source on the same order anymore, there's a couple repetitions of riff 1, then a weird take of riff 2, then a repeat of riff 1, then a solo over riff 3 with some quotes of the first main melody. Around 1:45 riff 4 returns and for the ending we have a repeat of riff 1 with some variations over the main melody.

Arrangement will be the sticking point here, as noted by the above judges. The first half is pretty much a straight cover from the source and, while the second has some variations, it still has fairly straight takes on most riffs... Besides from how conservative the arrangement is, it also lacks any sort of direction to me. Second half feels like random quotes of the previous riffs but it's not really leading anywhere.

On production this is good enough to me. I have some nitpicks about the sampled guitars, they're honestly rarely as good as the real deal but they're fairly well programmed here. Drums I think could be punchier, both the kick and snare are a bit tame, they need more grit and snap so that the track's punchier. Bass is also fairly quiet except for riff 4, I'd like more of it on the mix. As chimp noted, the drums' hats are all very quiet, those really need a boost.

Overall, this is a fun tune but it definitely needs more arrangement to get posted. Production is good enough IMO but there's still some adjustments that could make it even better!

NO

Edited Tuesday at 03:38 AM by jnWake