*NO* EarthBound "Trekking Through the Depths of the Cavernous Jungle"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: TheChargingRhino

This was originally composed for Pixel Mixer's PM Rockin' Mother series album. I exclusively used a VST called UVI to make this remix, and I decided to transform it into a sort of "80's remix" with synth basses and drums and various synths. Took a fourty-three second track and turned it into two minutes and thirty-three seconds of "head-bobbing funkiness". Threw in some cowbell from 0:58 to 1:54 (with pauses in-between), stacked two synth basses on top of each other (essentially combined a slap and funk bass) plus a few organ synths to change up that organ break in the original. I took liberties with the melodies for this, it sounds like the original, yet it sounds different too. 

Source breakdown: 
Original - intro, section A, organ break, Section A, Section B, Section A (cut in half), Section C/ending loop, repeat

My remix - bass and drum intro; organ break (extended); Section A (greatly extended); Section A repeat with harmonic melody and altered/expanded ending loop chords); (mostly) original section with organ break, altered organ chords, and original melody; Section B (altered); Section C (altered); ending 

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Games & Sources

Game: EarthBound (Nintendo, 1994, SNES)

Track title: Earth's Love Song (The Lost Underworld) 

Composer:  Hirokazu Tanaka, Hiroshi Kanazu, Keiichi Suzuki, Toshiyuki Ueno 

Site listing for this - https://ocremix.org/song/26405/love-song-of-the-earth

Song Link: 

Edited Wednesday at 04:46 AM by jnWake

[prophetik music ⚖️]

opens with some drums and what sounds like a keyboard for the bass. drums don't really have much body. there's an organ blurb, and then the first section of melodic material starts at 0:19. it's heavily modified as noted, and there's some harmony added that doesn't quite fit the chords (mirrored fifths doesn't really work most of the time for harmonies). there's similarly some stuff happening in the organ backing that also doesn't quite fit.

we hit a break at 0:50 and there's some extra percussion added before an organ break and build up. i liked the lead in this section, and would have liked for it to be more forward and have more body to it. 1:52's got some funky notes in there - sounds like some chromatic progression that doesn't quite land. this continues through the next several sets of chords - sounds like not all of the chord changes are vertically lined up as much as they could be. this noodles through the melody some more and then it's done.

this is an interesting concept. most earthbound remixes usually have some level of funkiness to them - undoubtedly brought about by the weirdness of the game - and so a single-synth track is a fun idea. i think however that this needs both more going on  (most of the track is just bass/drums, lead, and a backing element or two at most) and it needs more refinement in what it's doing. there's a lot of what i'd call wrong notes as opposed to quirky progressions in the harmonic accompaniment, and what most of the instruments are saying is bland or looped a lot - like the drum patterns and backing organ. freshening that up alongside a more robust approach to mastering that'll add some body to the individual instruments would help a ton. separately i felt that the arrangement was pretty meandering, and lacked direction in a few spots. being more intentional with your representation of the original would help a lot.

 

 

NO

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Oh wow, all the years I've heard EarthBound's music, I don't think I've ever listened to this one. Didn't recognize it, but it's a nice piece!

This arrangement in an of itself feels like original game music when it comes to the overall sound quality and fidelity, like late-stage SNES soundtrack music from a different palette than EarthBound. By going this route though, lots of humanization, expressiveness, and production options were sacrificed.

SNES vibes aside, the opening sounds still feel super basic and vanilla, but it's potentially all in how you use these sounds, so we'll see how that plays out. The timing of beats feels very locked to grid with a plodding core pattern (:01-:57, 1:38-2:17). The first verse at :17 the leads felt relatively lively despite being programmed in, but the overall sound is very silted, there's not really any getting around that. Organ at 1:06 was very flimsy-sounding, but it's meant to sound more stylized.

I don't know music theory, and my ears aren't primed to pick out wrong notes, but, unlike prophetik, I didn't a single thing that stood out as bad/wrong notes, I just heard supporting writing lacking direction and synergy (e.g. :34-:49, 1:54-2:09). Machine gun drum kicks from 2:24-2:25 that are fleeting but do sound low-quality.

The arrangement does go for a more upbeat feel but when prophetik said "what most of the instruments are saying is bland or looped a lot - like the drum patterns and backing organ", that's correct to me, and I'll go back to the stilted timing and plodding beats. It's cool for a chiptune aesthetic, but it also feels very limited instrumentally.

I've heard fan-made 8- and 16-bit-style chiptunes and MIDIs all sound more fluid and expressive than this, so I'd have to see something like that done here. The goal seems to be to stick to SNES soundtrack-level sophistication, which is fine, it just falls outside of our production standards, IMO. There's good potential in your music-making as long as you keep at it, Rhino.

NO

[jnWake ⚖️]

Begins with a drum loop and a synth bass riff. I can see what you mean by "80s" feel in the description but I'm not sure I'm getting those vibes necessarily, especially as 80s music tends to be big on room and space while this sounds quite dry. At 0:10 an organ plays the organ break from the source and is then followed by a synth string-ish sample playing the A melody. The melody gets harmonized at 0:34 and, as proph pointed out, some of the notes in the harmonized sound a tad off, although if I'm being honest they don't bother me much. There's a percussion break around 0:50 and the extra samples have a ton more reverb, making my earlier point on dryness more evident. At 0:58 a new section begins and eventually the organ melody returns and we have something of an organ solo for a little bit until it's joined my a synth melody. I liked how you had the snare return at 1:35 for a burst energy and a smart transition. Around 1:37 a new bass riff begins, joined once again by the organ melody. There's some notes and variations that sound odd in here, like 1:52 (and its repetitions). B melody plays here on synth and then, over more or less backing, C melody plays on organ until the track ends.

On arrangement, this has some fun ideas, changing the track into something more rhytmically upbeat is cool. That said, there's a fair amount of repetition in percussion/bass writing, with basically 3 riffs (0:00-0:50 is one, 0:58-1:37 is the second and 1:38 'till the end for the last one) for the entire track, each getting repeated a lot (second one at least changes with the chord progression though). Some of the harmonies play notes out of the key and the 3rd riff plays some odd notes here and there, but I'm honestly not as bothered as proph was by this. Generally, I enjoyed the arrangement.

Production is for me the main sticking point as the sounds are for the most part very basic. As an example, the organ has very little modulation, which is a staple of the instrument. Leads are similarly very vanilla with no modulation. Bass sample(s) is also very basic, I love synth basses but there's more you can out of the sound on the production side to make it shine. Drums are also a little basic, the snare sound is a little cheap but I think it's usable if you at least add more 80s appropiate reverb, the kick however is too bright, it needs more oomph on the lower frequencies.

Overall, while this is a fun arrangement it could use extra polish on the production side. I don't think you need to outright replace all your samples, but work on adding more life to the writing through articulations on organs/leads and see how you can make bass/drums shine on production.

NO