Bloody Tears Arrangement

[Tensei]

Well, I don't expect anyone to remember me, so I won't annoy people with stories about my past remixing experiences. Fact is, I've finally gotten the urge to do some remixing again, and I've decided to remix one of the most cliched source themes, Castlevania's Bloody Tears.

http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Arrangement

Stylistically, I don't stray too far from the original arrangement, but I've fiddled around with the arrangement and instrumentation enough to give it a 'darker' feeling ( if that's even possible for this song) with added string and piano arpeggio's, you know, the usual stuff, and in the future obviously a kickin rad guitar solo, obviously played live.

I won't run it through Reason until I've completely finished it, since sequencing usually takes me way longer than it should, and is pretty annoying to do (to me at least).

Tell me what you think, and where I should take this little piece next.

It's good to be back.

[avaris]

Hey dude welcome back. For some reason my comp is blocking your putfile link. The other putfile links are working fine for me though.

[Tensei]

http://midishrine.com/midi/14850.mid

There we go, this host should work for anyone, also, it is about 20 measures longer than the last one

[avaris]

Haha this is sweet so far. Two of the transitions kinda jumped out at me:

:49 could've used a big crash

1:19 felt like too long of break. Maybe have the previus section crescendo up alil more

You are gonna put guitar on this aren't you? It'd be friggin sweet.

Can't wait to hear where you take this.

[Tensei]

http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Arrangement-WIP

or

http://midishrine.com/midi/14869.mid

(putfile retains the quality of the original midi)

pretty much done, maybe need to change up some of the drum and bass fills in the latter parts to prevent repetitiveness, but all in all, I think the arrangement is almost done. Now for the hard part, the production

[Tensei]

Edit: *Insert Emo Rant*

http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Arrangement-MP3

While I've managed to SORT of balance the bass and the bass-drums (both are audible, and at the same time too!), the bass-drum has a more low-end thud, as opposed to the characteristic thumpy attack I'd prefer, and the bass, even though the font used is a picked bass, doesn't have enough high-end to make the pick attack audible, and while I've tried to EQ both, it didn't really work ( Did I mention I suck at production?).

Edit: *Insert more Emo Ranting*

Anyway, enough with the ranting, tell me how I can improve this mofo (mostly in terms of production, I'm pretty darn proud of the arrangement actually).

[The Green Tentacle]

great source material for a goth-metal song, yes?

I look forward to hearing your musicianship overtop of that file once all of your production is completed.

[Karth]

From a drummming standpoint, I say you're golden. The arrangement is where the problem is. And when I say "the arrangment", I really mean the volume of everything except the drums. It's nigh imperceptible. The bassline needs WAY more power (so does the kick drum, although I understand that these things are difficult since I've struggled with them myself), and every melodic or harmonic things needs double volume if not more. What I COULD hear, I enjoyed. If I could hear all of it, I'd enjoy it a lot more.

[Tensei]

http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Fake-Guitar

UPDATE!

I've made a quick attempt to synthesize some guitars, but I didn't really take the time to EQ them properly, so at times the soundscape becomes really chaotic, it was pretty much just to show how all instruments would sound together. In the end, it's going to be me playing. Actually, I might post what I have now without the guitars, since they're pretty much only muddying things up.

Edit: http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-No-Fake-Guitar

There we go!

Changes since last update:

- a LOT of attention went to the drums, especially their humanization: randomized velocities, multiple drum samples for 1 part to simulate different parts of the drum getting hit (for example; I've used 4 different snare samples: 1 for each stick, a rimshot, and a light tap for ghost notes)

- A huge part of the time I've spent on this mix went into EQing, EQing and EQing. Though it might not be very audible because of the lame guitars, I've made sure both kicks and the bass are clearly audible, as well as rolling off a lot of unused frequencies in the melodic instruments, and cutting off every annoying little ringing frequency.

Things still left to do:

- Still more than half of the mix hasn't been 'humanized', so that's one of the main 'to do's'

- Yes, recording the guitar parts, finding a suitable Amp setting, EQing the whole thingamajig, that's going to take a long time..

Anyway: Feeeeeeeeeeeedback me, Seymour!

By the way:

Toms aren't supposed to be hard-panned all the way from the left to right, right? Just asking, because to me it sounds kinda iffy in the faster fills.

[Tensei]

HOLY SH*T ANOTHER UPDATE?!?!

http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-REAL-GUITAR

Not quite, so hold your horses. I've done a real quick recording for test purposes, and it has come out quite acceptable (at least to my ears), so I'm posting it for yet some more feedback.

It's just a small portion of the melodic part, and apart from the horrible overbending that starts at 0:48, I'm pretty content with the result..sooooooo, some feedback would be nice, guys

[TonyHex]

That's just awesome. I can't really offer ant critique, but it sounds great so far.

[Tensei]

Wow this topic is still alive? I had already made a new one, with quite a few updates since the last one here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10176

[Tensei]

I've done some hard work here since the last time I posted this, I've got about 4 minutes done, but I only put up this one minute since that's as far as I've recorded the guitars. In total there's been about two months work put into this remix, and I'm definitely planning to make it something epic. Feedback is welcome!

[avaris]

Wow Tensei the instruments are way better now! Nice guitar work. The mastering still feels off. The guitars are a lil loud. I am listening on crap headphones at work but I can't really hear any bass.

How much are you using Reason on this? I'll help you out any way I can on the mastering for this because your arrangement is way to good for this song not to kick complete ass.

[Tensei]

90% Reason, 10% Izotope Ozone for mastering =P

anyway, I didn't really spend much time on the mastering, I just slapped on the limiter and exciter, so I could quickly have a WIP-ready version. Don't worry, I'll definitely get into the multiband compression for the final mix and make that bass nice and warm. Though I might actually take up your offer to do the mastering, I'm pretty sure you'd do a better job than me.

Oh, and if you liked this 'teaser', you're gonna love what I've cooked up for the rest with all the harpsichord cadenza's, synth solo's and hammond organ blues-flirtages =P

[The Legendary Zoltan]

Alright! A fellow metaller. It seems like all of a sudden there are rock/metal mixes abundant in the works. I've got my Valkyrie Profile death metal song underway too. Check it out man. I do like the sound of your guitars. You sound like a pretty good player. I also think that your inclusion of piano and harpsichords and stuff like that will indeed make this epic.

My only concern: If you're going metal, you gotta throw a piece of nuts guitar work in there somewhere. Whether it be a crazy solo or a complicated alternate picking riff, whatever. Metal needs that. The way it is now, I could play this live at Tokyo Dome tomorrow morning with total confidence. But maybe that's a good thing. Hahaha.

[Tensei]

Synth Solo go!

The bass is now pretty decently audible IMO, and yes, I know I this mix is in fact by far not riff-centric enough to be considered true metal, but that doesn't mean I'm not planning to lay down some decent guitar shredding in the later parts

Also, be gentle about the synth, this is my first attempt ever at subtractive synthesis =3

[The Legendary Zoltan]

The word from someone who doesn't know what makes a good synth is: "This synth sounds freaking cool to me." There are all these production-centered techniques related to electronically generated sounds that I don't really know about. But it sounds neat to me. And even though it's not a guitar, that fact that it's kind of on the shreddy side is a good thing in my opinion.

[SulferChlorate]

Alright, a metal mix of one of my favorite tunes. I gotta say Tensei-San, you're track is pretty awesome, but there's something that's just not 'there' for me. If you do lay down some grand shredding, I think that'll knock it up a couple notches. The guitar's rather good, though it is missing some heaviness that I've come to love about metal music. I think you should put some weight into the guitar, if that makes sense. It's just an opinion, though. All in all, it's good, and I'll be waiting for the end result.

Great job, keep it up. Or, better yet, "Ganbatte, Tensei-san!"

[Tensei]

Alright, a metal mix of one of my favorite tunes. I gotta say Tensei-San, you're track is pretty awesome, but there's something that's just not 'there' for me. If you do lay down some grand shredding, I think that'll knock it up a couple notches. The guitar's rather good, though it is missing some heaviness that I've come to love about metal music. I think you should put some weight into the guitar, if that makes sense. It's just an opinion, though. All in all, it's good, and I'll be waiting for the end result.

Great job, keep it up. Or, better yet, "Ganbatte, Tensei-san!"

Thanks for the compliments, but about the 'heaviness' of the rhythm guitars, I'm afraid I can't do that. You'll notice that most metal songs have 2, maybe 3 guitars, a bass, drums, and that's it. That gives the rhythm guitars a shitload of empty space to be effective in, since they're pretty much the only thing in the whole mid-range frequency area, and generally even the bass is phased out in favor of the rhythm guitars, and this is what makes them sound so heavy.

You'll notice that I have strings and piano and what not, and for them to be audible, as well as the bass, I have to do a lot of careful EQing and balancing the different volume levels so everything is relatively clear. The downside of this is that the tone of the guitars is affected a lot, and they lose a lot of the low-end boom because I want my bass to be heard.

[SulferChlorate]

Aha, that's very true. I've listened to it several times since that post, and I see what you mean. And actually, I just listened to it again, and it sounds a lot heavier for some reason. I think something's up with my audio card, because several songs have been acting up like this.

I like it a lot, man, great job. I think when it's all said and done this'll be one of my favorite SotN remixes. =D

[The Legendary Zoltan]

Dude, I don't think this song was in Symphony of the Night. This is Bloody Tears right?

[Tensei]

I am aware of the existence of four versions (there might be more but those are generally silly dance remixes that don't add much to the original)

- The original from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is what I'm TRYING to use as the only source, but it's really hard to keep from using riffs and chord progressions from the other versions since they're all just so awesome =D

- The Dawn of Sorrow Arrangement, which is pretty much the original with the added musical capabilities of the Nintendo DS, awesome nonetheless.

- The Rock Version, which I BELIEVE to be from SOTN (I've never played it more than an hour, so I haven't heard it there), I think this is the version you're most familiar with.

- The Club Kukeiha Arrangement, which is in one word awesome, with all their guitar shredding and organ solo's. I'm deliberately trying to take another direction so I won't get accused of ripping them off =P

[SulferChlorate]

I do remember it being in SotN, or at least, I think I remember it being in there. If it wasn't in there as a full song, then it must have inspired a different song, because I'm definately remembering something. I'm so biased, though, because SotN was my absolute favorite of the series. Nothing since, in my opinion, compares. But in terms of music, they've all had great tunes. One of these days I would like to do a tribute C.D. That or get together an OCRemix project. I dunno. =/

At any rate, great song choice.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

Ok, I think I've figured it out. The one that Tensei san said he thinks is from Symphony of the Night was, in fact, not from Symphony of the Night but from a CD that was called "Dracula Battle."

I'm pretty sure that Bloody Tears was not in Symphony of the Night because I don't remember it being in that sound test that you could open up at the end of the game. I think the song that SulferChlorate is thinking of is Tragic Prince. Which is ANOTHER bad ass Casltevania guitar song that rocks. I've learned to play it though. It's way easier to play than most of the rock versions of Bloody Tears.