Liontamer ⚖️ Posted July 2 Posted July 2 Artist Name: Cyril the Wolf Guitar Solo: Zack Parrish No need for a stop watch that intro ostinato is present through the whole thing: but if you're worried about interp - the "verses" are completely original in terms of melody and many of the musical ideas are re-contextualized to fit in with the rock aesthetic without just being synth rock. Additionally --- I wrote some lyrics and sang' em. I'm back at it again writing way-too-serious lyrics about Mega Man! Dwelling of Duels had a theme month of Nintendo DS/3DS and while there's plenty of games and series that are appropriate I took another listen to Green Grass Gradation and something finally clicked. I actually have been taking vocal lessons over this last year and it change my approach to something like this in a lot of ways. For instance: instead of just keeping it in the original key of the song I explored other options to work around areas of the melodies that didn't work that well with my singing approach. Ultimately the tracking took next to no time because I didn't have to struggle aimlessly trying to find out what would work. The high powered vocal pyrotechnics at about 1:45 are a direct result of something coming out spontaneously and easily. Lyrics are about choosing to the do the right thing in the face of your own past and the history of the world (which is a primary theme of ZX and it's sequel) Thanks to Zack for doing the guitar solo because I am not that confident of a lead guitar player and I knew a solo section on a song of this style would be important to really pull it all together. It gave me more time to focus on ut outs to the feedback from the Dwelling of Duels community - the only change is some effects on the intro to make it fit a little bit better. Here's to returning to confidence - thanks for your time. Lyrics link: Games & Sources Mega Man ZX Green Grass Gradation (Area A)
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted July 16 Posted July 16 opening apes the intro ostinato but doesn't replicate it perfectly. really aggressive band sound right off the bat - guitars sound super huge and beefy. there's a funky note in the vocals in the second verse ("the" in "the right to choose"). we get the chorus at 1:07. the fast riff at the beginning of each line is unintelligible - i can't tell if it's due to timing from the double-tracking of the vocals or if it's just poor enunciation. the tone is fantastic though - this is 1000% the right key for your voice, and the melody line is adapted in a great way to fit what you're best at. the following bridge is a bit of a break, but there's still some flashy vox work here in the descending line. prosody in this section is real goofy in a few places ("beams reflecting" is a big one), and more importantly your pronunciation is really rough - even seeing the words, i had trouble tracking the lyrics onto what i was hearing. 1:43 is going to be divisive - doubling the line two octaves down is certainly a choice, and the significant pitchiness of the second line "test of one's resolve" is really obvious when there's nothing going on underneath it to help ground what's going on. this is something that so few singers could do, so the approach is impressive, and the transition into the following section is great. but i really don't care at all for this section. it's pitchy again after here a bit, like at 2:06 there is straight up a wrong note in the vocal line (sounds like a mistake in melodyne tbh). there's a slick guitar solo after this section and it gets a double-time intensification halfway through. 2:50 the vocals come back in for a recap of the bridge. there's a synth line that's popping out of the texture here sometimes that doesn't quite fit the rock feel. after this is a big drop and build. the vocal line comes out of here into a big final blow with some big harmonies, some big screams, and a big chord to finish it off. there's some huge positives in this. the band sound is big and beefy and great, and the guitar solo elements really are solid and fitting for the arrangement. i think the adaptation is really interesting and much broader than i'd have expected a synth rock to heavier rock transition to be. and ofc cyril's tone is spectacular - just continues to get better as he gets more experienced. on the other hand, the prosody in several sections of this is really messy, and more importantly, i can't understand 3/4 of the words. the section at 1:43 is really something i don't think works at all (but would understand if someone else was totally taken by it, as it's certainly a choice that was committed to). from a hobbyist bar perspective, i definitely think this is over the bar, personal feelings aside. so i'll give this a positive vote, and reach out to cyril to at least fix the wrong note at 2:06. YES
jnWake ⚖️ Posted July 28 Posted July 28 Hell yeah Mega Man ZX! Begins with a slower take on the main motif of the original, the timing at 0:13 is a bit weird, feels like you rushed for the last note. Anyway, at 0:15 we move into a rock version of the same idea. 0:30 we get the first verse, source material is used as backing for your original melodies. Love the singing, the small touches like that slightly rougher tone at 0:40 are awesome. Your tone kinda reminds me of the singer of prog. metal band Andromeda at times. There's a repeat of 0:15 and 0:30. I haven't mentioned production yet but it's mostly because everything sounds great, nice guitar tone and all is appropiately punchy. At 1:07 we get the chorus, with yet another take on source material. The faster runs on the vocals feel a bit forced on the pronunciation but nothing dealbreaker. 1:23 brings some needed variation with a different melody and a calmer vibe without much chugs. Some nice vocal focus at 1:43, it's hard to enunciate properly while singing so high! There's some repeats of earlier material and a killer solo before we return to the 1:23 section at 2:50. Switch-up at 3:13 was lovely, the deeper tone and calm vibe are a welcome change. There's a chorus repeat and then we repeat the section from 0:15, now with moar epic vocal layering. Outro comes a bit later, not much to say there. On arrangement this is great, you took a pretty simple source without that much material and managed to squeeze a lot of variety from it. There's like 3-4 different takes on the same chords and all feel different enough to make this sound exciting for the whole duration. Well done! On production this is also great, everything sounds punchy and clear. Not many notes, only thing I was wondering at times is if maybe doing some small tweaks to the stereo mix (like, cuts on the side EQ of the vocals) would give the guitar a little bit more bite and presence. Overall, I really like this! "Green Grass Gradation" is a Mega Man franchise classic and your take is great. I understand proph's concerns about the prosody/pronunciation but they aren't a big deal to me. I do agree about the note at 2:06, it's worth a check. In any case, this is an easy pass for me! YES
paradiddlesjosh ⚖️ Posted July 31 Posted July 31 At the risk of being too glib, this is an easy lay-up. Fun arrangement, mostly clean production (synth bubble-up at the bridge around 2:50 and the wrong vocal note fix notwithstanding). Zack's guitar solo is tasty and even references the source melody. I'll echo proph's concerns about the rapid-fire lyrics at the start of the chorus lines being nigh unintelligible; still, I imagine singing that melody line from the source in this style with this attitude is going to be tricky no matter what the lyrics are and I certainly couldn't do it better. MMZX fans are gonna eat good when this hits the front page. YES
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