MichaelTheCrow Posted December 11, 2007 Share Posted December 11, 2007 I was thinking about remixing this battle theme from Grandia, but before I get anywhere I want to see if I should keep going with this. For those who haven't heard here's the original song: My WIP is here: http://www.box.net/shared/tmraxvg5tk I really enjoy the music from Grandia I & II and I could only find one OCReMix of it, so I thought I'd give it a try myself, don't be afriad let me know what you think . I don't mind criticism, after all it is my first try and I kind of rushed it . I keep getting notifications from Box.net that someone has listened to my original WIP, so I thought I may as well share what I have done...some 4 years later, I started again and submitted it to Dwelling of Duels last October for those interested: http://www.dwellingofduels.net/dodarchive/11-10-Free_Month/10-MichaelTheCrow-Grandia-Onwards-DoD.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Crackin source tune, surprised there aren't more remixes of this, and from Grandia in general. Loved that game. Onto the wip: Rule number one of rock guitar, stereo splitting. Always record your rhythm guitar twice and more or less hard pan each one left and right. Listen to any rock band ever and they will do it. Its easier to hear with headphones on. This means your playing has got to be tight, so do a few takes and see which ones fit together best. You can do the same thing for lead guitars to give them a bit more power, or record the lead again but an octave lower or higher for more power. The actual lead playing itself is generally ok, except for that nasty bend at 0:23. I also notice you haven't got a bass guitar on this yet. Simply put you can't get away with that, you need a bass to get a full sound, and having it there will make your guitars sound better aswell. The drum samples are a bit lacking, what are you using for them? I've got a random feeling these are the reason default rock drums, but they may well be something else. If they are the reason ones, I know for a fact they can sound better then that, especially the snare. You also want to pan your kit a bit wider, put your toms nice and spread out in the field. They can also afford to be a lot louder then they are, experiment with a compressor/limiter to see what you can do there, but don't over do the compression. To sum up, better then my first guitar track was, you just need to learn the rock tricks. Start with guitar layering, look at adding some bass guitar, check out some drums and compression tutorials if you can find them and good luck. Sounds like a promising first wip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Like Fishy said, the source is crackin'. Like Fishy said, you need bass here. Also, there's a lot more you can do in terms of arranging. Drums, for example, while cool and unusual, they could give so much more energy and life to the remix with more fills and more punch. Processing them right of course helps. As it's kind'a short, I'm not gonna comment anything on arranging further, just plan ahead. Trust me, it helps. Think of how you want the song to end, what the climax should be, how to lead up to that... all those things. The more ideas you have, the better. Good luck, and like Fishy said, it sounds like a promising first wip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Like Fishy said, the source is crackin'.Like Fishy said, you need bass here. Also, there's a lot more you can do in terms of arranging. Drums, for example, while cool and unusual, they could give so much more energy and life to the remix with more fills and more punch. Processing them right of course helps. As it's kind'a short, I'm not gonna comment anything on arranging further, just plan ahead. Trust me, it helps. Think of how you want the song to end, what the climax should be, how to lead up to that... all those things. The more ideas you have, the better. Good luck, and like Fishy said, it sounds like a promising first wip. You said like Fishy said 3 times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 You said like Fishy said 3 times. Like Fishy said, I said like Fishy said 3 times. I'm aware of it. And I agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelTheCrow Posted December 12, 2007 Author Share Posted December 12, 2007 Thanks for the comments guys, it's good that I'm getting feedback this early so I know what I'm doing. I only made the first 40 or so seconds so that I can see if I'm on the right track, I think that knowing what to do earlier on will help in the overall process . To be honest to you guys I've never actually recorded rhythm guitar in that method, so that means I record it twice and pan one to the left and the other to the right? I'm not familiar with hard panning, but I'll experiment around with it. As for the drums I'm using a soundfont called FluidR3 GM and I'm using the power kit from it, I'll also have a look drums and compression tutorials . Also this being the first wip I've attempted I'll probably learn a lot from this, thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Yeah, you record two takes of the exact same guitar part, and pan them all the way left and right. Someone people even do 4 takes, but 2 is enough really. Your playing has got to be really tight cause it sounds terrible if they aren't in sync, but when they are, it really adds a lot of power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelTheCrow Posted December 12, 2007 Author Share Posted December 12, 2007 Ah yes I get what you mean, I notice my favourite bands do it all the time. Just a question with the bass, do I need to do the same? I also notice some tracks with bass have distortion while others do not, is there a reason why some are like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 12, 2007 Share Posted December 12, 2007 Thats a matter of taste. Bass distortion is very hard to fake in my experiance, so you might be better off just going for a cleaner bass. Luckily, as long as you have some actual bass frequencies coming from it, basses can be fairly unrealistic and get away with it, although live bass is awesome if you can get it. You don't have to double bass at all, I don't think anyone does that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelTheCrow Posted December 12, 2007 Author Share Posted December 12, 2007 Well that makes things a lot clearer now , well I guess it also makes things easier since I actually have my bass guitar, it's just a matter of how well I can play it. As for compressing I've found a lengthy piece of information on a compressor from Zircon's "Remixing Tips Part 5" I haven't even finished reading it but I finally understand what a compressor really is . I'm guessing I'll need to compress all the tracks in the final product? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
furymaster Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Hmmm. Pretty good what you have so far. I must say that Grandia is by far one of my absolute favorites when it comes to VGMusic. You couldn't have picked many better. I can't wait to see where you eventually get to with this mix. Keep up the progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyril the Wolf Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Being a bass player, I would recommend NOT using distortion on sampled bass. It really makes it sound like a synth and it's all buzzy... ew... Even if you have a amp modeling system its hard to pull off. If you really want to have a slightly overdriven sound you should just get a real bass (yeah, that's easy >_>) but quite frankly, given your current guitar sound you shouldn't need distorted bass, just a nice low-end bass sample should work. Make sure it has some high end though, other wise if you program in little runs, they won't be very audible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelTheCrow Posted March 27, 2012 Author Share Posted March 27, 2012 I've noticed every month or so I get notified people have listened to this old track, I suppose some of you might want to hear a finished product. It's not OCR material but here is a finished version I entered for Dwelling of Duels last October: http://www.dwellingofduels.net/dodarchive/11-10-Free_Month/10-MichaelTheCrow-Grandia-Onwards-DoD.mp3 I don't feel I've done the track justice and if I attempt it later on I'll re-do it from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoboKa Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 you said like fishy said 3 times. seafood soup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 This is the best update ever. This track has been on this site longer than I have... Yeah, it's probably too conservative for OCR, but it's still a pretty good cover. I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.