Liontamer Posted February 16, 2007 Share Posted February 16, 2007 Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2987 1st RESUB Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4332 ReMixer Info ReMixer name: CHIPP Damage Real name: Jahan Zoltan Honma Email address: chaahan@hotmail.com Website: http://chipp_damage.sitesled.com/ (This is not the link to the remix) User ID: 16036 ReMix Info Game remixed: Guilty Gear Song remixed: Writhe in Pain Information about game: The genre is 2D Fighting. It was developed by Arc System Works and released by Sammy in Japan and America in 1998. The composer, character design, and system were all created by Daisuke Ishiwatari. Comments: This is my second resubmission of the my remix of the song Writhe in Pain from Guilty Gear. It's a collaboration this time. Arrangement by me, CHIPP Damage and production by George James. Despite Liontamer's encouraging words about me having what it takes to get this mix on the site, I totally didn't know what else I could do to make the sound quality any better than it was. In fact, I must have a messed up ear for this kind of thing because I was thinking that those were the coolest sounding horns ever. But then ALL of the judges said, "The horns have got to go." Hahaha. Anyway, this is my last hope. After getting help from George James, who has a remix or two on the site, if it still doesn't make it, then I may have to accept the fact that I wasn't cut out for remixing. We'll see what happens. Sorry that I don't have the source material for you and please forgive any Sv3...Whatever-they-were-called ID mislabels. I cannot understand those things. Hahaha. If this DOES make it in, then I hope I can become a more active member in the OC community. I'll be watchin'. Sincerely, Jahan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 This is again an improvement over the previous version. The samples overall sound a lot better. However, there are some issues: * Everything is really quiet. Really, really quiet. * The brass is highly "blatty" and fake-sounding. * The overall sample quality, while better, lacks aggressiveness in many cases. * The entire section from 1:25 to 3:02 lacks energy. It is too sparse and minimal. Maybe it's the volume. * Some parts are still too exposed, making them sound overly fake. * I think your drum sequencing in the last version was better. Please don't be discouraged. Don't think you're "not cut out for remixing". I did at least 10 arrangements that totally sucked before I could even approach a passable OCR, and this was years ago when it was easier to get on the site. Your problem is primarily production. That can be improved. Spend lots of time on the ReMixing forum and talk to as many orchestral mixers as possible. COLLAB if you can, with everyone you can that does this kind of stuff. Maybe just try a new mix for now and come back to this later. Either way, don't give up! Keep at it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 25, 2007 Author Share Posted February 25, 2007 Guilty Gear XX Original Soundtrack - 106 "Writhe in Pain ~Millia's Theme~" This is again an improvement over the previous version. The samples overall sound a lot better. However, there are some issues:* Everything is really quiet. Really, really quiet. * The brass is highly "blatty" and fake-sounding. * The overall sample quality, while better, lacks aggressiveness in many cases. * The entire section from 1:25 to 3:02 lacks energy. It is too sparse and minimal. Maybe it's the volume. * Some parts are still too exposed, making them sound overly fake. * I think your drum sequencing in the last version was better. Please don't be discouraged. Don't think you're "not cut out for remixing". I did at least 10 arrangements that totally sucked before I could even approach a passable OCR, and this was years ago when it was easier to get on the site. Your problem is primarily production. That can be improved. Spend lots of time on the ReMixing forum and talk to as many orchestral mixers as possible. COLLAB if you can, with everyone you can that does this kind of stuff. Maybe just try a new mix for now and come back to this later. Either way, don't give up! Keep at it. When I first listened to this, I was thinking "Man, this is close, but my gut says NO", having yet to articulate a vote. Everything zirc said, I agreed with. Someone of your writing talent definitely should continue trying to improve. Listen to what zirc's sayin'. With the mix here, the samples do sound stronger, but the whole thing was needlessly quiet, the brass attacks sounded blatty (a more minor issue), and the instruments needed more energy and beef behind the performance. I'd go conditional YES, but it would take a bit more than some quick tweaks to get things over the bar. Perhaps you and James could reassess the production and push out a final revision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 I didnt listen to either of the previous submissions so hooray for fresh ears. The track is mixed way too quiet. there's a ton of headroom. The arrangement is pretty cool the whole way through. The samples are rough, but I'd say the problem is not the samples but how they are used. For instance, at 3:15 or so, the string/harpsichord line sounds awfully mechanical. I dont think the strings have a sharp enough attack. The arrangement again, is very good. I'm going to give this a YES conditional on compressing/maximizing the whole track so there is less headroom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I agree that this is too quiet, and needs the volume levels to be tweaked. It is dynamic, but the quieter sections are too quiet. This needs just a little more tweaking, you definitely have what it takes! NO (Please resub) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 i have also never heard the prior submissions, so i'm hearing this with fresh ears. That being said, I've never played nor heard the GGXX OST, so I had to aquaint myself with the source. You definitely get props for the interpretive direction you took your mix. There's a lot of great part-writing in the piece for the most part. The "Bwat"ish brass at the beginning was a little bit of a setback to the overall quality of the piece - the samples aren't great, but they're not terrible either. They probably could have just been tweaked and used a little better so as to not come across as so fakey and GM-ish. Heh, from 3:06 to 3:16 reminds me of a darker version of the music to Bookworm. Ahem. Back on track. This is definitely teetering on the bar, or at least somewhere close. I went ahead and normalized the track so I could have a better listen, and I think the song inherently picks up *more* energy with louder mastering, so the lack of energy wasn't really an issue for me. Some great ideas were displayed in this track, and despite some moments where weak sample usage brought down the quality slightly, but I think the orchestrations here were fairly solid otherwise. Obviously, this is ridiculously ridiculously quite, so that needs to be fixed without question. It makes it hard to pick up on the energy of the piece, and it's going to blow someones speakers (or eardrums) when they have to crank up the volume to hear this, and then after it's done, it goes to the next track which has normal volume levels. On the condition the levels are first fixed, this is about as borderline as my calls can get. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jillian Aversa Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 I'm definitely hearing some improvement since your last submission! The arrangement is still fresh as ever; good for you. I agree with all of zircon's critiques, but I feel like you settled into a decent sound by the second half of the mix. The samples are just OK; they lack a certain aggressiveness, as he pointed out. This is very borderline for me, but on the condition that you fix the volume issue, I'll give it a.... YES That being said, I hope that you'll actually WANT to keep working on it before it passes, because you could learn a lot and wow your audience a little more in the process. ^_~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJT Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 fix the mastering and this gets a YES from me. that's some good writing, that even the sample quality can't bring down. As i've said in other writeups, this suffers from "Princess Bride" syndrome (specifically the brass). The harpsichord also gets overly mechanical as Jesse noted. You want it to sound like a human is playing those lines, not a hardware synth hooked up to Finale. Anyways, my arrangebias is pulling me into YES territory, so there you go. YES (assuming you bring the volume up) as you wish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 as an arrangement this is brilliant. it is written fabulously. the execution is an entirely different story as, like vig pointed out, there is too much headroom; i feel as though i'm lost in the middle of the thing like there is little cohesion between the instruments. the thing, therefore, comes across soulless as there is no backbone to this magnificent bag of flesh and blood. the parts that become aggressive are, in contrast, very effective and moving but on their own can easily be found out to be a loud and heavy layer of a lot of fake sounding instruments. the brass is, of course, a bitch to sequence but even by that standard, this is bleh. still, the arrangement is killer. the general structure is intriguing as it seems to follow a coherent path a lot like a story. we've heard hundreds upon hundreds of medleys as they are the scene's favorite mealticket but very few tell stories as much as they link multiple themes. i feel this one sorta accomplishes that so it has that to its credit as well but ultimately, this does not sound right. this is just another scenario where the excellent arrangement is killed by a dead, uninspired execution mostly because of how the instruments sound and the general mastering. i am not one to ask for resubs but this is hard to reject for me. however, i am positive you can give us something that is mastered better than this NO(resub) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Orichalcon Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 Arrangement is top notch, now it needs the emotion to back it up. You need to really show some dynamic contrast so that each section, instrument and single note/hit is efficient. Leave the arrangement as is and just work on the volume. I'm assuming the "cond" in the title means YES as long as that's fixed, so that's what I'll do. YES (with the "cond" thing) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 An updated version is in. Could we have some new comments regarding the volume, especially from the 5 conditional YESs? Still seems rather low to begin with but it may be serviceable. After 3:00, things picked up a lot more though some of the big drums sounded lightly distorted. Not a huge deal, IMO. Hi Mr. Larry. We did what we could to Destroy Movements. James George compressed it some and then moved the whole thing up on the volume scale. I hope it made a big enough difference for you. I asked him about the samples and he said they're top-of-the-line VSTs that don't sound fake to him. So we were both pretty confused about what to do on that issue and thus, I am a little worried that I might get hit with that "All votes are subject to change until the remix in question gets posted" line. Well, let me know the results. Thanks for the judgement. It's always fun reading it. Even when it's a NO. You can get it at the following page. Scroll down to the CHIPP Damage section and you'll see the link for "Destroy Movements."http://chipp_damage.sitesled.com/Music/Music.html If you make me one of those remixer profile pages, please use the following address as my website address. http://chipp_damage.sitesled.com/ Also, I don't remember what name I gave you in my submission email, but I'm married now, so please use the name, Jahan Zoltan Honma. That's my real name now. Thank you, Jahan Zoltan Honma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 (Under 'Chipp Damage' on their site) Well, all it needed was some more volume, and now it's got it. Slight compression 'obviousness'/pumping but it's a YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted July 26, 2007 Author Share Posted July 26, 2007 My bad, I threw up CHIPP's comments and the link to his new version and didn't say anything about whether my vote had changed. I know James wanted to preserve the dynamic contrast of the piece, but I thought things were too quiet in terms of the leads, and that the levels could have been boosted/compressed even more in light of the overall volume. The drums mostly had the power here. Nonetheless, James created a nice intimate soundscape and the volume refinements here definitely carried it over the line now and made the sequencing sound stronger. Nice work, y'all. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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