Docjekyll

What a fun track! You're right--that source definitely wanted to be remixed. Great instruments all around. The drums in particular have a great sound and clarity and keep the whole thing moving. The only thing that really bothered me was the unresolved chord at the end; not sure if you wanted to keep the tension there on purpose or not. The looping doesn't bother me, but if you did want to mix it up a bit I could see a solo (maybe alto sax? clarinet? marimba?) starting around 2:16. In fact, I don't know if the section at 2:24 necessarily needs to be mirrored at 2:53, except that it does serve to release some tension and keep the track very chill. Maybe a drum break around 3:40 and/or some extra fills here and there? Just throwing out ideas here. It's a great arrangement as-is, and if you want to reinterpret the source a bit more I think there are a lot of options for where/how to do that. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for the comments everyone! I appreciate all the tips and I'll be taking them into account in future tracks. I think mixing and dynamics are the two things I most need to work on. I'm especially glad to hear that folks are enjoying the remix! ♥

This is a fun listening experience. I like the different places you took the theme here. It has a definitely sense of motion overall, but the first half does feel much slower and at times that made it hard to follow the ideas there. It is clearly structured like a classical piece with two distinct movements of different styles, but I wonder how it might have changed the experience to take some of the ideas from the first movement and use them to add a slower, quieter reflective section before the big swell at the end. This is an impressive performance! Thank you for sharing

I'm not familiar with the source material, but I would love to hear more! It's less than 2 minutes long so far but there's definitely enough meat to build upon. There is a great swell at 1:12 but one tone jumps way out of the mix at 1:14. This is gonna be awesome when it's complete. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for the feedback! I made some tweaks to levels and patterns in a few places, but it didn't change much. I hear you about the square wave lead at the end, but based on feedback from some other places I think I'm going to keep it for this track. It's definitely a very piercing noise, and I'm going to have to think more about it for the next track I work on. Here is the final remix if you want to listen/download:

Source: This is the track from the final dungeon of Lufia 2 Remix: Docjekyll - Shrine of Twisted Shadows Comments: This is a trance take on one of the most moody tracks from the venerable Lufia 2 OST. I kept it fairly compact for a trance track. The source material is fairly apparent throughout, but here are some details: 0:14 - introduce recognizable pattern from source 0:27 - introduce plucked chord pattern, loosely based on pulsing chords from source; also arpeggio from source running in the background 0:42 - hint at source melody with bell + breathy synth 1:15 - reveal source melody and start buildup to first climax 2:12 - first climax 2:55 - back to introductory pattern, with a few changes to release tension 3:27 - melody again but with a more in-your-face synth lead 3:56 - final buildup 4:03 - climax with gated square synth lead, a bit closer to source than the first time around Feedback Requested: overall impressions and quality - Would you submit this to OCR in this state? structure - I originally was planning on a much longer track (maybe 7-8 minutes?) more like a 90s trance song, with slower buildup and more gradual, subtle layering of instruments. But then I decided for a remix it should probably put the source material on display more quickly, so I threw subtlety out the window and made a much faster buildup and release. What do you think about that choice? instrumentation and mixing - I like using in-your-face synth sounds and booming, resonant bass + kick but I'm always worried that others will find it overly grating. Does this track manage a palatable balance?

Updated remix on SoundCloud, with download option Thanks for the feedback! I finally found some free time to revisit this remix and I made a few improvements: Tempo is slightly relaxed. Drum dynamics have been improved throughout. They're still loud, but not endlessly so. Organ has more character to its sound now. I actually started with a very authentic B3+Leslie plugin but I couldn't get it to fit into the mix how I wanted, so I went with a simpler plugin that I felt gave it a bit of the Leslie charm. I also gave the organ a few more parts in order to give the lead guitar sound a break early on. I added some other minor polish throughout, smoothing over some sounds, correcting a few wrong notes, tweaking automation, etc. What I didn't do was any significant overhauls to the remix structure or instrumentation. For now I think I'm happy with this remix being what it is, and I can aim for more interesting variations across the piece in future remixes. Please let me know what you think! I'm thinking of submitting this remix for judging, so I'm interested to hear any feedback before I do so. Thank you!

Remix on Soundcloud, with download option: (Edit: I updated the version on Soundcloud with some changes so the old link/embed no longer works. Here is a direct link to the version I originally posted in this thread, hosted elsewhere: http://cjdevsite.com/misc/music/Frozen-Moonlight-remix-WIP-4.mp3. Or see my post below for the updated Soundcloud link.) Original track on YouTube: *quick note about the source material: like many PC-98 games, "Valkyrie: The Power Beauties" has NSFW/adult content, so be warned before you go Googling this one on the family computer About this remix I've been wanting to cover/remix this song for a while. I'm a sucker for many PC-98 soundtracks with their octave-jumping FM basslines and their warbling lead synths. This track has all of that, plus plenty of energy. With this remix, I didn't want to significantly change the feel from the original track, but instead expand on it with new variations on the melody and phrasing (and of course moving beyond the capabilities of the YM2608 sound chip). Instrumentation: The overall sound is rock/metal, with drums, bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and 2x keyboard. But I also didn't hold back on some very "synthy" sounds for the keys, as is immediately clear with the arpeggio pattern in the intro. Structure: in the source track, there is a brief intro followed by a repeating loop (first loop at about 1:09) I expanded the intro so that the instruments and overall intensity can build up incrementally at first I stick fairly close to the original, with the lead guitar carrying the melody the second time around, I drop the lead guitar and add a keyboard solo (organ) the third time, I lengthen and shorten a few sections and play around with the melody a bit more About me I'm a long-time lurker on OCRemix, and I've always enjoyed making music as a hobby. Mostly I make little half-completed songs to amuse myself or short compositions for game jams (e.g. https://soundcloud.com/docjekyll/harriets-hasty-harvest-bgm). For this remix, I wanted to post it and see if others think it is ready to submit to OCRemix or not. Any feedback is welcome!

Hey guys. This thread has got a lot of views, but no comments! I'm definitely hoping for some feedback--even if it's something nontechnical like "I liked/hated this part". Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback, k-wix. It's been quite a while but I've learned a lot and made some progress. Here's a more recent WIP link for this song: https://soundcloud.com/docjekyll/notice-me-senpai-wip It's still not done. There are a few sections I want to rework and I need to work on the mix a lot (I'm having a hard time either having the mix be too quiet or too 'muddy' sounding). I could use some feedback from folks on the improvements.

**EDIT 1/18/2015** posted an updated WIP link updated WIP link: https://soundcloud.com/docjekyll/notice-me-senpai-wip old WIP link: http://cjdevsite.com/misc/music/Notice%20Me%20Senpai!.mp3 Source: Sakura's theme from Street Fighter Alpha 2 (on YouTube) About Me: I'll introduce myself since I'm new. I'm Docjekyll (aka Chris Johnson, @jhnsnc). I've been lurking on OC Remix since about 2004, but I just recently decided I would try to post something. Music is just a hobby for me, but one I rather enjoy. I rarely share any of my music with anyone besides my wife and a friend or two. About this remix: I've had this song idea sitting around as a rough sketch on my hard drive for about 9 years. I'm pretty sure that it's not up to the OC Remix quality standards, but I promised myself I would at least get some feedback after turning this old idea into a full song. As someone with relatively demanding musical taste and relatively low skill, I've gotten pretty much incapable of constructive, objective feedback for myself.