Liontamer Posted July 26, 2007 Share Posted July 26, 2007 Nutritious Justin Medford NutritiousMultimedia@gmail.com 16520 Cave Story Final Battle OST: Remix: The inspiration from this mix is from the Last Battle music from Cave Story. I could see lots of potential in the original as soon as I heard it during the fight with Ballos. I've wanted to remix it for quite some time, but I'd always envisioned it with electric guitar playing the lead (which I can't play). Recently, I began working on a music project with a good friend of mine, Lindsey Phillips, who's a professional musician and an excellent guitar player. He offered to record the guitar tracks once I had the song arranged. I arranged the song and guitar tracks and he literally learned the parts and recorded them within about an hour and a half. I spent the next few weeks mixing and mastering the track and getting feedback in WIP. I'd like to thank DrumUltima for all the help with the drums and other parts of the song; he helped a huge amount with feedback and great ideas. EDIT (7/28): Justin sent me a version with some production changes. Link is the same. Here are his notes: I've uploaded a new version of showdown at the same link. Hopefully I've gotten the clutter under control. Here's what I adjusted: Middle section: This area wasn't as bad as the end I don't think, but some of the sounds were getting covered up. -I dropped the backing strings a little -Drums drop in volume just a tad -Dropped guitar volume slightly -Slightly raised stabbing strings, though they're just supposed to sit in the background and give texture to the legato strings until they come out during the transition between the two dueling guitar parts Later section: -Dropped legato strings somewhat, tried to leave them high enough so track didn't sound empty though -Raised up stabbing strings so they're more prominent and moved them so they're now on the melody instead of echoing the melody (since the guitars are no longer on the melody) -Dropped both guitars a little and panned them a bit more to spread out the sounds. -Took out the french horn part here because it's taking too much of the sound stage and its part is mirrored in the legato strings anyway I must've made 4 or 5 different renders trying to get it sounding right, so hopefully it's on target now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cave Story (Game Rip) - 31 "Final Battle" Interesting string intro. It goes on a little long, but don't change it. It was a nice build and kept me wondering what ideas were going to come next. Lindsey's guitar at :41 got grating, plus the panning on it seemed too wide. The timing on the performance was also a little off compared to the drum patterns and needs to be smoothed out. :53-1:16 was pretty cluttered. The drums were no good. Sorry, but the patterns were vanilla and the tone on 'em was weak. They need to drive this one along and fill out the space, and right now that ain't happening. Your drum writing needs to be more interesting and progressive. The string stabs at 2:17 were a bit odd in terms of the notes; could be just me. 2:40-3:04, the sounds mudded together indistinctly. Good ideas here, Justin, and you're further along than a lot of other submitters, but the bolts and screws needs to be tightened. NO (rework/resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted August 18, 2007 Share Posted August 18, 2007 Man I hate Ballos. He is a bastard. And those little angel things piss me off equally. It's late, so I'll be straightforward. The drums and the mixdown are what kill the track. Low string intro dragged out a little too long, IMO. But the drums are pretty dull, and the cymbals get shoved to the back every time they crash. It's basically like a 1-2 kick+snare combo. Spend some more time developing the drums. Try to make them a little more complex, rather than just a beat to go alongside the guitars. And tweak the levels. Sounds like there's overcompression to the max AND clipping. Otherwise, not a bad version of the fight with Mr. Magic-Gone-Wile-Yellow-Face with the creepy ghost puppy. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted September 20, 2007 Share Posted September 20, 2007 I agree with Jimmy that the mixing needs to be tweaked. Bring the levels down considerably and try to re-balance them before bringing them back up to just under 0db, and then applying compression/limiting. The guitar playing could be tighter all around as it is off rhythm in some parts. Overall, the sound is a little on the muddy side. Drums could definitely use a boost in terms of rhythmic interest as Jimmy pointed out. The strings could also be improved. The chord voicings are too low; I would try to re-write them so they're higher, and less repetitive. More pizzicato + marcato rhythms instead of constant straight sustained pads would certainly help. I like the ideas presented in this mix. There's a good level of energy, and the concepts are solid. Tightening the execution would be the key to bringing this up to our standards. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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