*NO* Pokemon Diamond Version "Ocean-gazing with You"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

 

Artist Name: Seriance

Hello there, hope you enjoy my submission. It's my first finished project in a while, so be nice lmao

As far as references go, there's an adaptation of a theme song from the Pokemon anime around the 2:40 mark. You'll recognise it when you hear it:)

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Games & Sources

Music: "Lake"

Composer: Go Ichinose

Game: Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl

Edited 9 hours ago by Rexy

[prophetik music ⚖️]

opens with some stacked chords in the strings, and some piano outlining the opening main lick in the original. the strings are very dynamic, which is a cool effect, but both it and the piano don't have any room tone on them which makes it hard to place them aurally. additionally, the piano's playing isn't particularly idiomatic given the dancey tone and complete lack of velocitization on the individual notes. in short, every note shouldn't sound exactly the same volume - there should be some variation as you go up and down those riffs.

beat comes in at 0:30, along with more sustains in the strings. again, nothing really has reverb, and the additional layered melodic material that comes in at 0:48 is too quiet relative to everything else (ducking your sustained strings below that melodic material would help a lot. the kit is playing catchy stuff, but admittedly i found the clicky, psy-like kick and spit snare to not be fitting the keys and strings quite as well as i'd hoped. this is a dynamic section though with a lot of movement, and i think that sounds pretty cool.

there's a surprisingly long silence transition (this is probably 2x too long, but it's a really cool idea), and we're into the 3-3-2 section of the original. this is less mixed-meter-feeling than the original, and imo feels more settled than the original as well. i like what the piano's doing in here - it just doesn't sound real, unfortunately.

there's a recap of the A section that starts around 1:31 and again layers in the lead part, but we then get a synth lead around the two minute mark that's a nice freshening of the atmosphere a bit - i'd love to hear other instruments doing stuff in here too, so it's not such a static texture. there's another recap of the A material with some interesting panning concepts for a bit, and track maneuvers towards the ending fairly quickly after that. there's not much of an ending - i think a hard stop ending like you do could work, but you'd need to mute the synth lead's delay so that it doesn't keep going after the last chord.

the overall lack of reverb is an issue here - the soundscape sounds hyper-artificial because of that - and the velocitization on the keys is an issue especially near the end with the very fast runs you've got there. i also wasn't a huge fan of what felt like copy/paste for the A material each time it came around - some more variance there would have been great. your rhythm-heavy approach would have worked great for adding some altered chords in there, in my opinion. lastly, i didn't care for the kick and snare tones - the other instruments were more traditional (even the synth lead is a simple one), and the tone of those instruments i'd relate more to psytrance or something that's less dynamic than this in soundscape.

i love the concept though! there's some really fun stuff going on here. if you get us a version with a more realistic piano performance, some shaping of the sound stage via reverb, and more cohesive instrumentation, this'd be an easy pass.

 

 

NO

[XPRTNovice ⚖️]

Hey, some really good stuff in here! The whole overall mood maintains the playfulness of the original with some fun interpretative elements all sprinkled throughout. 

Your mixing overall is on point. I think things are blended well, with some notable exceptions. The piano sits back too far in the mix once the rest of the instruments come in, and it's essentially the lead instrument. 

Yes, that silence is probably too long at 1:05, but that's easy to trim. I do like the effect you created there. 

I have to agree with proph that the whole piece could use a touch of room tone in order to get things to blend together, but I don't think it needs to be very much (and probably be restricted to the snare/cymb, piano, and strings) , and I am actually going to disagree on the non-human performance element of the piano. In this case - especially when you have the really fast solo going on at 2:20 - I kind of LIKE the mechanical, unrealistic performance in this context. To be clear I DO AGREE that the piece feels mechanical - I just think that in this context, it's actually kind of charming? Could some velocity adjustments work? Totally. Can it work without it? I think so, yes. 

The violin background is clashing for a brief moment at 2:23 - check that note because it rubs the solo the wrong way for just a second. 

The ending falls of a cliff. We need something else there, whether it's a climax out, or some sort of throwback to the beginning, but the piece just dies.  After all the good work you did up to that point, I think the ending deserves a bit more attention. Overall, I think this piece is really, really close. 

 

NO (please resubmit)

[Rexy ⚖️]

This arrangement is cute and charming.  It starts with a subtraction on the A section, only focusing on the piano and occasionally some strings - then at 0:33 the drums and bass join, and the strings become more lively.  From there, the structure is A into a variation on A and then B, and the second set at 1:31 also differs.  The A section allowed the whole band to play the source straight, the variation added a square synth and some double-time chord use,  then the B section went into four-on-the-floor drums, fast-moving piano climbs, and the eventual writer-stated anime cameo that I can not pinpoint.  And then it ends with adapting the A section into a sudden minor key finish, with hardly any fanfare.

As things stand, you've understood how to interpret the source to make it feel like yourself, and yet it still echoes a lot of the original's bounce and playfulness, which is a good thing.  Looking at the prior critique of the "silence" at 1:05, I see that you're trying to go for a fun reverse effect, though it sounded like it didn't start properly until the end of that measure and sharply rose for the end of the following one.  Try experimenting with an earlier start for the reverse fade to fill in more audio space.  It's not essential, but it's nice to have as a change, so go with what you feel sounds right.

As for the production side, the soundscape is drier than Lake Valor during the Team Galactic takeover.  Combined with the choice of more techno-sounding percussion and mechanical piano writing, the overall presentation of the track feels cheap and inorganic.  I'm in favor of experimenting with different types of reverb to shape up the stage, particularly on anything that isn't a kick drum or bass, and looking into the velocity shaping on the keys to give them a more convincing performance.  The nature of the source and the overall adaptation mean I don't have problems with the strict timings of your notation.  But any other type of humanization, whether changing velocities, note lengths, or anything else, can go a long way.

This track is one of those that I'd like to see resubmitted with more focus on humanization and some reverb sound shaping.  I see potential here, and if this does become a debut posted work with revision, that would be a great first impression.  Keep at it.

NO (resubmit)