OCR01759 - *YES* Donkey Kong Country 'Lost in Jungle'

[Liontamer]

Dear OCRemix team,

Thanks for a great resource. I have recorded two remakes of Nintendo music which I thought you might like.

They do not meet your criteria when it comes to filesizes, pardon me. If you feel I have wasted your time, sorry for that. In case you think of publishing the music, please let me know.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Johan Krafft, Sweden

A song from Donkey Kong country which you should be familiar with. Recorded with Cakewalk Sonar in 2006.

[Palpable]

Though pretty subdued, this arrangement has some unexpected twists to it, and I mean that entirely in the good way. The original is very watery and fluid (well, duh) and this has a more concrete sound. To be honest, it was a little unusual hearing the synth come in after more than a minute of piano, but the song gets fleshed out with a spry beat and bass and it makes sense. I liked the double-speed section, the slight modifications to the original melody and chords throughout, and the new piano figure that drives a good deal of the song. Good adaptation.

Production was on the same level. Good usage of effects and synth tweaking, instruments chug along nicely, and parts are nice and distinct, mostly. The lead competes with the piano a little at 1:47 but that's very minor. Nice work, Johan. I look forward to hearing more stuff from you!

YES

[Vig]

The piano performance is emotive, and the synth leads add to the track immensely. The fakeout instrumentation is really creative. The track definitely moves in directions I did not expect. It remains somewhat subdued, and I'm pimpressed by how well you manage to fit the piano and synths into one cohesive feeling track. Good job. I think the transition back to the piano is a bit jarring, but good job overall.

YES

[Liontamer]

if you know the bitrate is too large, you should have just sent a version at 192kbps or below. We definitely can't post something at 256kbps.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkc - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc)

The note decay at 1:04 exposed the sampled piano way too much. Once the track moved over into the more beats & synths material at 1:59, I felt the arrangement was good, but the textures were pretty thin. Another instrument added into the background could have done a great job adding a bit more depth to the piece.

The monkey SFX from 3:35-3:49 was weird but a good idea for some added flavor. I thought the writing of the original material at 3:49 didn't really mesh well with the rest of the arranged source tune, and also agreed with Vigilante that the segue back into the piano at 4:30 felt jarring. Otherwise, still a solid enough arrangement, even if it could have been bolstered in some other ways.

YES

[zircon]

On the production end, this certainly was on the sparse end rather than "wall of sound" but it worked well enough. An extra pad/arp or two wouldn't have hurt. Nearly all the sound and processing choices were tasteful. The switch to a sort of psytrance style at 3:50 was out of place, though. The kick isn't strong enough to have that four-on-the-floor energy, and the pizzicato synth doesn't fill up much space. I wasn't feeling that at all. In addition, the volume level overall was low. The mix is not even normalized.. at least do that, but I would STRONGLY recommend running this through some compression/maximization. Try George Yohng's W1 Limiter, a free VST plugin, with a threshold set to -3 to -5db. That will help immensely.

Aside from the 3:50 writing, which could have been omitted or reworked to fit better, I liked the arrangement. However there might have been a little too much reliance on that riff that the mix opens up with. While it's a cool phrase, it really is used over and over throughout the mix. Also, the amount of time it takes to get to the beats + slightly more full texture (which was great) is somewhat unbalanced.. a whole 2 minutes of the mix, pretty much.

I really like this concept, but there are just a number of things in general that could be polished and tweaked, and the end result is that it feels a little raw and unfinished. If this does get rejected, please go back to this as per the suggestions of myself and my fellow judges, give it some extra love, and RESUB!

NO

[big giant circles]

Well, while I don't feel like the genre-transfiguration there at the end was even attempting to aspire to a flat out four-on-the-floor beat, I'm definitely siding with Andy in that it was way out of place with the vibe you spent the past 3 1/2 minutes shaping, and a bit on the jarring side. I was hella digging the track up until that point.

Hmm. tough call. I'd love to pass this one (conditionally re: normalization) but I really hate what you did there at the end. I mean, not to sound harsh, but it's like you painted a masterpiece, and instead of taking a fine brush and tastefully signing your name/initials in the bottom corner, you took a paint roller and rolled right over the center of the painting.

Ah, crap. I hate that I feel compelled to do this. It's a really awesome song, and I have nothing bad to say up until 3:36.

DAMMIT (NO)

p.s. If in the event this doesn't get passed, resubmit this or I will call my boy AeroZ and tell him to look you up and kick you in the crotch.

[CHz]

Absolutely loving the first three minutes. Good stuffs with the piano and synth working it. Repetition's there but not a big deal. I thought the sound effects were more out of place than the 3:49 synth switch-up, to be honest. Seems a bit out of place initially, but when the other layers come in, it works for me.

Aside from a couple of minor production crits like that piano release at 1:04 and abrupt ending, the main problem I've got is that the levels are pretty low. Doesn't hurt it too much, but it'd be a pretty easy fix to make it louder.

YES conditional on volume

[Malcos]

I must have missed this submission - this has been in the queue for WAY too long. I apologise and hope this gets wrapped up soon.

I am with BGC on this one completely. The piano note gets cut off at 1.04 which is very noticeable, easily fixed though. I must say that after 3.36 for some reason the track seems to just run out of style, the drumbeat and synths just change the feel completely and the mix would have been better shorter and without that section in it.

NO (good candidate for resubmission)

[anosou]

This sounds great. The piano is beautiful, except the 1:04 issue. The percussion entering at 2:00 is both interesting in sound and programming, great groove together with the bass. While this is on the sparse side it certainly has a good flow and it's nothing that keeps the remix from being enjoyable.

The switch at 3:36 to 4-on-the-floor rhythm is actually something I really enjoyed. I do not think the kick is too weak since I don't think you were going for a specific genre (where this MIGHT have mattered) and it sounds very pleasing as is. The original material in this section might not fit incredibly well with the source, but I see taking a step in another direction a good thing. Change is good, especially since you relied heavily on the opening riff from the original and repeating that riff through the whole song would've made the whole thing sound a bit repetitive. The switch back to piano could've been better but it's a minor complaint.

I don't think a track changing style is enough reason reject it and I think it was quite well done in this case. The production is good although the soundscape is on the sparse side. The arrangement is interesting enough. Just fix the volume (and the piano cutoff at 1:04 if you can) and it's good to go.

YES(Conditional on volume/1:04 fix)

[DarkeSword]

Simply excellent. I'm a big fan of how you mixed piano and synth elements here to create a very unique, cohesive texture. The arrangement is very dynamic and progresses quite nicely. I don't have any problems with this piece.

YES

[Liontamer]

I mailed Johan on the production issues here, but it looks like they can't be fixed:

Hi Larry, thanks for getting back to me.

I understand the pointers, but unfortunately this mix was produced on my old PC system and then mixed through my old analog console which I have sold. So I'm afraid I cannot fix or rework anything in this track - and honestly I don't want to, as I feel it is pretty good as it is.

Of course I could master the track by putting a limiter or multipressor on the rawdata, but I have somewhat limited skills and am afraid I would damage the mix rather than enhancing it.

Well, its your call guys. I did this track out of pure love for the original score.

Thanx for taking your time.

/Johan

Aight, guys, what would you like to do?

[Palpable]

I can try to bump up the volume on this later (or we can have zircon or BGC do it better, haha). Does he have the original WAV at least, or is the MP3 all he's got left?

[Liontamer]

I can try to bump up the volume on this later (or we can have zircon or BGC do it better, haha). Does he have the original WAV at least, or is the MP3 all he's got left?

Johan was able to hook it up with a new version that cut down the hiss substantially and even smoothed out that awkward pause, so we're good to go on this one now!