Liontamer ⚖️ Posted July 9 Posted July 9 Original Decision Artist Name: Lucas Guimaraes ft. TSori & TheManPF RESUB AW YEAH. Here's a link to the original thread. Please include my OG writeup if this is posted. I can pick out parts if needed. ANYWAYS, story time! I don't have much to talk about here. I finished this track back in 2023 during moving, went back, revisited it, made it sound better than the original PM submission. Got the feedback from the rejection, took a good chunk of time away from it, redid my entire production process to have it make sense (I wish this was a joke), and now I'm... here. I love talking shop on this stuff but feel like if I start writing, I'll end up with like nineteen paragraphs. So, for any fellow creators reading this, here are some neat takeaways: The first to my process is focusing more on the most important things, so you can 'half-ass' other background/etc elements. I had the epiphany where I was like "if I get my leads/bass/drums sounding good, that's 80% of the production process right there." It was also a part of simplifying feedback. The feedback I got on the original submission was pretty much in agreement: "This sounds great! Except the bass and drums need work" so instead of trying to chase down the original project files, I just worked with some of the old stems, rebuilt some new stuff with MIDI data, and here we are. The second is now I do tracking/producing and mixing separately and this has been a life saver. My process is literally now just Arranging -> Tracking/Produce -> Mix -> Master. By the time I get to Mastering, it's basically a five minute job. which I know professional mastering engineers cringe at the self-mastering bit but HEY. I'm making VIDEO GAME REMIXES here. Gotta save where I can. Finally, and I can not sing their praises enough: TSori and TheManPF rock. I look forward to working with them again. They really gave this track so much extra juice that really elevated it to the next level. Hope you all enjoy! And as usual, I love putting energy into revamping and addressing as many corrections as possible. It's funny cause, I used to get more bothered by rejections, but now I'm like "Cool, I love the process so much so this is just a bonus." Games & Sources In the Refugee Camp - Xenoblade Chronicles
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted July 17 Posted July 17 i was up and down on the first version of this one for a while. i didn't like the solo but liked the concept, and wound up actually changing my vote from YES to NO at one point as other folks weighed in. opens with some light synth rolls - nothing startling here. band comes in at 0:26. percs and bass sound a lot better than it did before iirc. melody here is a little square - no timing personalization, just everything on the downbeats. tsori comes in at 0:51 and i really think he could be both louder and have more verb on his instrument. it's lower in the range for this part mostly, and it doesn't speak as well as it could. there's also a touch too much formant on his tone so it's a little sharp compared to the rest of the very lush backing elements. i like the doubling at 1:17 though with the guitar - that's a neat sound. tsori shows off a bit of range at 1:36 which is nice. the descending chromatic line in the background is right in the same range though and that conflicts and sounds confusing. there's a bit of a lick from the trumpet and then it moves to a new lead at 1:42. i wouldn't have minded a cymbal crash or sfx on that transition. this felt like more of the same by this point as we hadn't really had a significant background change in 90s. the lead's so chill that dropping the percs or switching it up there would have been a nice change. coming out of the solo section at 2:19, we get a big change in the backing elements which is nice. there's some light airy pads with the trumpet on top, and from there go to a back-and-forth section between the guitar and trumpet which is really nice. guitar in particular is great. 3:14 is a drop and we get some chorale-ish chords to play us out, and we're done. there's a lot cleaned up here. there's still some funky notes occasionally, and some of the balance isn't quite there, but what we have is a solid take on a great theme. mix is much cleaner this time around. YES
Emunator ⚖️ Posted July 30 Posted July 30 That snare is loud dude! 😆 I remember this being a "death by a thousand tiny cuts" type of NO vote the last time - it was always a strong arrangement with a great dynamic curve and a spirited performance from TSori, but the programmed elements weren't quite cutting the mustard. I don't remember exactly what the last version sounded like, but literally the only thing that jumps out to me now is the snare - everything else feels like it was ironed out to the point where it's not jumping out to me. On second listen - haha, I felt the exact same thing that Brad noted about 1:42 with the missing transition effect. Good call. I agree that the leads are still lacking the kind of expressiveness I would want to hear - I think studying up on automating expression into your synth leads would do you a lot of good on future tracks, but the sounds are functional and pretty well balanced here so that they don't bring this down too far. The live elements help carry a lot of that weight in this case, but it does naturally draw your attention to the disparity in expressiveness between the different leads. This is definitely above the bar now - not perfect, but that's not what we're looking for regardless! YES
Hemophiliac ⚖️ Posted July 31 Posted July 31 Oh yeah, I remember this one. I think Lucas sent me this one everyday for at least 2 weeks straight to get feedback when he was initially working on it. There was a lot of potential then but still a lot of bugs to work out. I didn't get to vote or hear how the previous submission final was. This actually turned out really nice. It's one of your best produced tracks to date. There's a lot to be proud of here. I personally really like the countermelody synths, the counterpoint on them fits in perfectly all while adding your own personal touches. This really lets the source melody play out so close to the original, but adding your own spin on it. It's frankly one of my favorite things to hear in remixes. Kudos. I also agree with Emunator in that the snare is too loud. And there's a bit of lacking in terms of expression/dynamics, but not so bad that it direly hurt the track. In turn, that does make the track feel kinda cold, and that might not be the expression you wanted to get out of it. Great to see the growth from you Lucas, and the track is quite enjoyable! YES
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