Ronyn Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 So I haven't had much time lately to piss let alone work on a remix, but I recently was fortunate enough to meet James Newton Howard and learn how he and John Williams, Hans Zimmer, etc. make their demos (custom stuff I'd kill for man). I couldn't resist trying out some things I learned, so I came back to this old mix. I think it's been rejected two, maybe three times I forget. I'm calling it Evolution just for fun because of all the stupid versions. It's really rough. I need to sync some stuff (badly!), add some missing parts, and maybe trim the verb off those drums. I experimented with a real large spacey verb to catch room reflections, it's a little washy but kinda epic too. Opinions? (I always return the favor) http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=447695 (sorry for the generic hosting, my domain ran out and I didn't feel like renewing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 You are correct sir about cutting down on the verb, it could use throughout the mix, it really takes the attack out of just about everything. I do have to be completely honest that hearing your posted works I have pretty high expectations, and this one seems to suffer from a pretty severe case of medleyitis. The transitions themselves are pretty nice, a your samples are pretty good, though, like you said you need to massage them a bit; they need some velocity adjustments and some humanization. Arrangementwise it seems a little on the conservative side; there are some nice personalizations made with some of the rubato sections, and there were some cool theme and variations on the main theme and such, but it seemed to lose it's momentum each time it shifted thimes. In some cases this can be good, but it seemed to happen to almost every theme. Not an issue if you were the original composer, as it's pretty strong orchestration, but we are talking a ReMix here, so I think the required differentiation is a little bit more difficult to achieve. As far as strengths to the mix, there are plenty, your part-writing is solid and the balance throughout is great. The reference you've made to Williams are very clear and well done, but still with your own spin on it. I think adding some additional counterpoint and perhaps eliminating a few themes in order to concentrate and expand on others is the best way to serve this mix, maybe have the main theme, a tender theme, a scary one, and then your triumphant ending (which i think could be even bigger and more bombastic if you so chose) and develop those a bit more, we'd have a Kid Icarus mix that would go into legend.* Nice work,and fantastic start, but keep polishing! *did you get my greek mythology joke here? lololol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted October 23, 2007 Author Share Posted October 23, 2007 Yeah the original work was 10 minutes on vgmix, and I trimmed down all the original embellishments I wrote just to get it down to size for OCR. I'm not sure I have the original anymore (if anyone does by all means please let me know). I need to simplify my workflow on this in order to make compositional changes; this was an experiment in sampling for me and it got pretty complicated, so it might take some time. I think I'll jump ship on that reverb, there's another one I've had my eye on. This is an oooold mix arranged with cruddy samples in mind (if the repeating trumpet trill patterns weren't a major clue enough , so maybe it is time to rewrite knowing what I can do now. It really was my intention to make a medley, not an overture; why does everyone hate medleys so badly around here? lol (just kidding I've heard a few stinkers around here too). But seriously I was so disappointed when I listened to all the themes that nobody has done much with I wanted to recognize them all, hence the medley concept. Good to know there's promise here though. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sil Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 0:45 Pizzicato strings would work throughout this section, especially in the bass. You already have some sustained basses, but often they can be split so some are keeping rhythm with pizz. 1:48 The panning is a bit extreme here. Really the only panning that is needed is violins on the left, cellos/basses on the right. If you need it for other instruments, try to do it as subtly as possible. 3:25 I think it'd be awesome here if either the flutes or trumpets were doubled with xylophone to add an extra percussive/rhythmic element. 5:05 Like before, I think pizz would work here, maybe even some glockenspiel. Not that it doesn't already sound great, but it'd help the bassoon/clarinet not sound so exposed. As for the melody thing OA is talking about, all I can suggest is to find the right doublings with your samples to bring it out. The legato violins just aren't working on their own because their attack is too soft. Double them with anything you can find, even if it has to be some string ensemble 1 patch with the velocity turned down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avaris Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 Hey nice to see you back around here again JG! IMO most of what needs to be improved has already been said. The track overall is a lil too soft and distant. Some strings/choir in the background to fill everything out would help tremendously. Everyhting is panned nice but it sounds like a small band trying to play something epic. In the end you always come through with some awesome emotive songs so I know this def gonna improve. So far the best part of this mix that stood out for me is the part writing. Lots of different elements feeding off eachother. IMO that's something that is always extremely hard to accomplish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 Updated. Just sampling improvements this time. I invested in cubase and I'm glad I did. Now I can run all my favorite VSTi's and midi plugins in one program; I used to hate cubase but the new version is niiiice. Anyway, the balance is much better this time around and the reverb far less drastic. There's still a few kinks to work out but I thought I'd see what you guys really think now that you can hear all the parts. I dunno if I'll really worry about recomposing this, sure it could use it but I'm not sure I have the time and this mix is old as it is, it's probably been over-recomposed to be honest, and likely its weakness. Frankly, I'll consider "passable" a success. I'd love to move on to other new stuff. I really stand behind this mix as a medley, and not an overture like everyone wishes it was. I'm not going to change it just because some douchebag around here invented the word 'medleyitis' (not directed at you OA , someone else) and finds good medleys indistinguishable from bad ones. Might reconsider though if people really just hate this arrangement. Opinions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inv1ctus Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 pfft i thought it was fucking fantastic. lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dafydd Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 The reverb is very excessive, the trumpets don't sound realistic at all, and the strings, among other instruments, are too slow on the attack, especially when playing the melody. Other than that, beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted November 24, 2007 Author Share Posted November 24, 2007 Updated and submitted. I really wish I had more time for this but I really don't, here goes nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted November 30, 2007 Author Share Posted November 30, 2007 Well I feel like an idiot. I submitted quickly knowing how busy I'd get in the next few weeks thinking it would be months before this even showed on the review list. Man has OCR become efficient recently. Within days this mix was rejected. The comments seemed a little harsh to me at first, but I put the mix up on studio monitors (which I know I should have done before I submitted, I just always ended up working on this at night and live in an apartment, and I thought I'd do it that weekend and tweak before anyone noticed, big mistake), and holy cow is there a ton of low frequency mush coming through that my headphones filtered out. I'm going to get a better reverb plugin here soon, and I should have some free time around christmas, so I think I will tweak this and resubmit, cuz man am I embarassed. My apologies to any ears I've offended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted November 30, 2007 Share Posted November 30, 2007 While you are working on it, please add a bit more to the transitions, I think they need a little bit stronger partwriting to tie the sections together. Good luck on your resub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Legendary Zoltan Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 MY man! James George! Back from the dead! I missed you. I'm listening to this for the second time and all I feel is useless. Not the song, but me. I just don't even hear the low end mush that you mentioned. Anyway, if you ask me the transitions are ok. The changes are noticable, but coming from the ears of a person who doesn't know the themes being used, it all sounds like it's a single song and not a medley to me. If you think of the more abrupt changes as another "movement" then it seems like regular old orchestra work. So yeah, I don't think the transitions are bad. Although, I think the horns around 3:30 sound kinda funny. and the horns that come in around 1:47 and 6:00 seem to come in too strongly. The ones at 6:00 kinda sound like the attack part of the audio file got cut off and the sound is being played from the middle. Does that make sense. But hey, these are both tiny things that possibly only I agree with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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