*NO* Legend of Zelda 1 & 3 'Book of Mudora' *RESUB*

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14885

# Your ReMixer name: Bastian

# Your real name: Bastian Brennan Baum

# Your email address: BastianBux@yahoo.com

# Your website: myspace.com/bastian

# Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile: [?]

Thanks to all the detailed feed back from Liontamer, Palpable, and Vig . . . I've completely re-recorded much of my "Book of Mudora" arragment based on Koji Kondo's title music to the original Legend of Zelda and his Princess Zelda theme from A Link to the Past. I've rerecorded all 120 vocals (or thereabout) and the piano part (with a brighter piano) and reworked the strings. The song is also considerably shorter, as I felt the verses were twice as long as need be.

Thanks,

Bastian

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So I'm gonna crib my vote from last time with some revisions.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda.zip - Track 1 ("Title")

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=loz3 - "Princess Zelda's Rescue" (loz3-22.spc)

The piano opening it up sounded a little better than last time. The voices still occupied the same frequency range as the low strings, so there was a muddiness pervading the whole piece. I'd love to hear someone else's take on how to better separate/balance this, though this was an improvement from last time. The harmony going on at 1:02 & 1:50 still seemed to end up as a wrong/flat note in terms of following the source melody. The piano was more audible here than last time, but the sample itself sounded too thin and fake. The bowed strings were a little bit better-sounding, but not by much. I'd appreciate a second opinion there, but right now the lack of realism in the sound/tone tends to stick out.

The 2:02-2:35 break with "Princess Zelda's Rescue" worked a bit better than last time. It helped that you trimmed the song down a bit.

Quoting myself from last time with an updated timestamp:

Went back into the same old stuff from 2:35-3:23. I'm not saying you need to copy Enya's structure entirely, but if you're inspired by that song, take note that it's got a lot more effective dynamics than this. Despite your efforts, this arrangement was basically stuck in one gear most of the time and felt repetitive and overlong. Your dropoff wasn't that pronounced because you didn't build to it, and the final section wasn't significantly more intense than the first section, feeling more like a retread than a dramatic finish.

Do what you can to make the Zelda melody less repetitive/droning the whole time.

I don't mean to seemingly lazily crib my vote from last time. I don't wanna imply that there's no effort or improvement, because there clearly is.

The vox could still use a bit better separation. But more importantly that that, the arrangement still feels dynamically flat, one-dimensional and repetitive, aside from the dropoff. Sorry, man, it just ends up feeling like three very similar iterations of the same idea with a small break in between.

NO (resubmit)

It's certainly an amazing effort recording all those vocals, but I think from a balance standpoint you're still out of whack. The low piano and strings are crowding that low end stuff, and the vocals end up flooding the whole soundscape. I feel like I'm standing in the middle of the choir rather than the choir standing in front of me; in other words the balance and panning feels off. Things get a little harmonically wonky around 1:52. I think the strings+piano in unison (which isn't all that effective anyway) is clashing with the vocals around there.

Despite the scope, this really lacks a big epic sound. It sounds too much like it's its in a small room, rather than something expansive and sweeping.

I haven't heard the original Enya piece, but I think that despite your attempts to emulate it, you should allow yourself to move beyond that template and really develop this piece a little more in terms of the arrangement.

NO

EDIT: EXTRA ADVICE

|11:10| »» [ DarkeSword] sounds like it's being sung in a small studio

|11:10| »» [ DarkeSword] doesn't have the Big-Sound he seems to be going for

|11:11| »» [CHz] Wow, yeah, balance is right terrible.

|11:15| »» [Liontamer] I feel bad for him

|11:15| »» [Liontamer] I know he tried hard

|11:16| »» [CHz] The concept is fine, but the execution just falls way flat.

|11:16| »» [Liontamer] Shariq, are there any other specific recommendations you could make as to how to rebalance it?

|11:18| »» [Liontamer] don't mean to put the burden on you to explain, but I certainly couldn't give any follow-up advice like that

|11:21| »» [ DarkeSword] I think part of it's gonna come out of part-writing for the non-vocal stuff; everything he's got in terms of strings and piano is in the same/a close register as the vocals

|11:21| »» [ DarkeSword] Pulling that stuff an octave or two might help in that respect

|11:21| »» [Liontamer] you mind throwing that in your vote?

|11:21| »» [Liontamer] I hug u

|11:21| »» [ DarkeSword] Otherwise it's could be just an issue of not abusing panning too much on the vocal parts; keep them centered more, use a different kind of reverb

|11:21| »» [ DarkeSword] Yea

|11:21| »» [ DarkeSword] no prob

The piano and strings are a bit stiff. Not terrible, but could be better. The vocals coming in at 0:26 have two main problems. First, the balance is pretty bad. Everything blends into each other, and not just the voices: the strings and lower piano notes as well are just lost in a muddle. Some of that is in the EQ, and some is in the part writing.

Second, once they come in, the vocals are pretty much already as strong as they'll get. The sense of contrast in this is minimal, and it doesn't feel like it's really gone anywhere by the end, even though it's clearly meant to. Really, the only change in the intensity is in the strings and piano, which as I mentioned gets lost and so the whole thing feels flat.

Dynamic contrast and better part separation and ranges would do this wonders. Also, try not bringing in all the voices all at once, because that doesn't really leave you with a whole lot of places to go with a piece like this. Instead, I'd suggest starting with one or some in one range and then bring in more for development to help the piece actually build.

NO (resubmit)