*NO* Radical Dreamers 'Loneliness'

[Liontamer]

remix name: OA

name: Andrew Luers

game: Radical Dreamers

Original song: Strange Presentiment

http://ocremix.dreamhosters.com/songs/original/Radical%20Dreamers.rsn

Remix Name: Loneliness

In the event this gets accepted, this is a project track.

This was somewhat difficult to remix since the source was only 31 seconds or so, but I think I did a decent job; here's a breakdown, since it is quite a bit longer than the original:

0:01 - 0:34 main theme of the original played by guitar; I modified the chord progression slightly to make it more interesting than the root in the bass note.

0:35 - 1:07 chord progression and synths inspired by the strings in the original.

1:08 - 1:39 added a verse melody of sorts to make it feel like more of a song rather than bg music.

1:40 - 2:12 return of the main theme as a foundation with a piano melody and sax counterpoint.

2:13 - 2:44 new section focusing on the slide at the end of the original piece. There are several slurs in both the melody line and the bass for this section.

2:45 - 3:16 piano playing the main theme of the original, with string hits based on the repeating vox synth used in the original near the halfway point.

3:17 - 3:50 original bridge section building up to the solo section; added to build a bit of tension.

3:51 - 4:22 the original didn't have a climax at all, so this is a solo section used to transition to the final choruses.

4:23 - 5:32 double chorus (main theme in guitar of course) with additional string and percussion counterpoint added the second time around.

Peace out homies, see you at MAGfest.

-Andrew

[DarkeSword]

Not feeling the production on this. Stuff sounds overcompressed, particularly the piano and percussion. I'm not really hot on your sound choices either; that synth is way too buzzy and strong on the high frequencies. Your strings/pads also get way too loud at points. They're not doing much man, don't let them dominate the field of sound. 3:55 just sound messy.

As for the arrangement, I really appreciate the source breakdown, but ultimately I feel like that the end product is dominated by original material. True, there's not much to the source, but a lot of the piece is based on your altered chord progression, and less on the source tune itself. Perhaps other Js will disagree with me on this one, but I just feel like its too liberal.

NO

[Liontamer]

Man, there is NOTHING to this source; a 4 second plucked string loop and some bowed string support. Dunno how you're gonna stretch this out for 5+ minutes. I wish you the best of luck.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=rd - "Strange Presentiment" (rd-04.spc)

Opening seemed pretty solid in terms of using the source. The distorted flourish from :34-:35 bodes nothing but bad things. :'-( The synth lead at :34 is just grating and sounds like it's got too much treble; that effect on it from :48-:50 sounds like noise you'd blast to make enemy troops surrender. Gotta swap it out for something else. zircon mentioned has mentioned headroom a few times in recent votes; when the soundscape was too compressed, very evident from 1:39-2:11, you were left with a lack of it.

2:13 - 2:44 new section focusing on the slide at the end of the original piece. There are several slurs in both the melody line and the bass for this section.

Dunno about this. I feel like a slide is a concept. Just because you slurred some notes in a similar manner to the original doesn't necessarily make it a viable enough usage of the source material proper.

Back to the bread and butter from 2:43-3:15. Ooh, the string sound at 2:51 didn't sound natural. The main piano sounded OK, but the second, backing one supplying chords sounded a lot thinner and unrealistic.

Original section at 3:15 was OK in concept, weak in execution. The pianos lagged a bit with the timing, and I thought the tone of the beatwork was all wrong. 3:54-4:12's section was definitely pretty messy.

Yeah, I was talking with DS in #j a couple of days ago and agreed all the way on the production criticisms. It's gonna hurt to read this, but this is just really sloppy. I wish I could say I know what's it's like to tweak a song until you're tired of it, but the short of it is that you really need to either up the quality of the equipment you use to listen to your material and/or gain a more discerning ear.

Can't help but agree with DarkeSword on the nature of the arrangement. Besides the obvious source usage from the core melody, I wasn't overtly picking up anything else you mentioned. Even in light of the breakdown, the overall arrangement approach did feel too liberal and too focused on the added original material due to the limitations of the source.

But I come at it in a different way. Stuff like the final 4:19-5:23 section was OK to me in principle (since you used the source tune in the background). But from a standards perspective, it would have been better had the arranged source verse been varied more, even though it was essentially just a backing pattern. As is, the pattern was basically used the same way every time, so while the arrangement as a whole evolved and developed, the primary method of source usage did not.

Hard to say where to begin in terms of this, Andy, but work on refocusing the arrangement if you were interested. Practically speaking though, since the arrangement wouldn't pass as is, you may get more growth as an artist working on the production, the track being for Thieves of Fate and all. For this case, I'd choose to work on that aspect more and see how you can improve what's in place.

NO

[Palpable]

Larry and Shariq have covered a lot of what I have to say about the arrangement. It's too liberal. The source barely has anything to it besides that melody, and in the sections of this song that don't use it, it's almost impossible to discern that it's an arrangement of Strange Presentiment. I do like the direction and movement of the song quite a bit, and I think the original writing is good, but that's just what it is: original writing. Admittedly, I think it would be tough to rewrite this one enough so that it's acceptable on the interpretation level. Most of what kept your song interesting was the changes in chord progression and melody.

There's a lot of room for improvement in the production. I think this is better served as bullets, because it's all over the map:

• Right from the start, the guitar has got a little too much reverb on it and it eats up a lot of the space in the song. It sounds like it might need to be recorded better (if it was recorded), or at least, EQ'd more.
  
• The keyboard in the intro sounds off rhythmically.
  
• The lead starting at 0:35 has too piercing a tone for it to be used so prominently.
  
• The instruments coming in at 1:06 eat up a lot of space. I think in general, this song very much needs more EQ and separation of parts. One trick I like to use is comparing two instruments at a time. If you solo any two instrument channels and you can't hear one of them well, something on the other should probably be cut. I think that might help you here.
  
• The drums and piano are a little too compressed and reverbed and consequently have an unnatural sound to them. Might be a problem with the samples lacking high-end too. They sound very distant.
  
• Watch for the timing of those strings around 3:04. It sounds late, because of the slow attack.
  
• There was a very small section from 3:47 to 3:55 that I think was balanced, reverbed and EQ'd well. I thought I might point this out so you would know when it's sounding right.
  

I hope I haven't totally scared you off of this song, because I think it has a lot going for it. I really like your writing and arrangement, even if it's too liberal for OCR. I think this would be a great song to go back and rework, so that your producing matches the level of your writing.

NO