*NO* Guilty Gear X2 'Destroy Movements'

Special thanks to Justin Mueller; a total stranger who offered to post my song on his site.

Hi there. Firstly I'm a big fan of djpretzel and his sweet site, OC Remix.

Ok...My remixer name is CHIPP Damage and I have remixed the Guilty Gear X2 song called Writhe in Pain. It's an amazing Classical Metal song. You can listen to Writhe in Pain and my remix of it, Destroy Movements, at the following page:

I hope that you enjoy it. I've composed music and played heavy metal for like 7 years now, but this is the first time to try a remix. It was FREAKIN' HARD! I took me an embarassing amount of time to make this. It was made on Cakewalk with the use of soundfonts. I don't know what other remixers do, (I'm still totally new to this) but I was hoping to find a midi of the song so that I wouldn't have to figure out that harpsichord solo note by note on my guitar. I never found the midi. hahaha! My main concern is that my remix may have strayed too far from the souce material, because I did add a lot of original material. Despite how different it sounds, the part with all the horns at 1:09, however, is directly from the original. It's the guitar part starting at 1:07 of the original song. I hope you like this and I hope we can get to know each other more in the future.

Sincerely,

Jahan - CHIPP Damage

PS: I tried my best to make the 3v2 labels right...my mind is not so technical, so when I read about that on the site, I had no idea what it was. Please forgive any mislabels.

I'm overly familiar with the source material, as GGX has some great music. The GGXX version of "Writhe in Pain" was slightly remixed, but, for all intents and purposes, the same as the GGX version. Thanks for providing a copy of the GGXX source tune.

I definitely heard the source tune used in here, but this was still an awfully liberal mix, with a host of original ideas that had nothing to do with the source, so overall I felt you didn't use the original enough. The opening woodwind opened with a meloody similar to the source, then went into some original material at :13. I heard motifs gleaned/inspired from from the original, but the connection doesn't seem to be overt enough.

I appreciate the attempt to give the instrumentation some natural-sounding performance dynamics, but the samples used here all sounded fairly flat to me. The percussion was incredibly random and stuck out like a sore thumb; didn't mesh well with the piece at all, and the constant drum hits from 2:22-2:50 were tacky and egregious.

The section starting at 3:08 was average; still pretty much the same problems - flat instrumentation, overbearing drumwork, and overly liberal arrangement that I couldn't tie to the original. I'll pass on it.

NO

Here's a Fact: I really enjoy listening to your ReMix.

Here's another Fact: me enjoying it has very little to do with whether or not I can pass it.

Guess what this is? It's a Fact: The arrangement was top top top notch as far as compositional ideas although harmonically speaking you do nothing but hover around Eminor [however so does the original]. Tempo changes throughout and interaction between the parts scored with me bigtime buddy!

Would you like a Fact? Here you go: The machine gun percussion at 2:22 and 3:36 has got to go. You could fix this by having these drums panned extremely in both directions [maybe they change sides every 8 hits] and you could use some velocity arks like say you have 16 of these drums hits, the velocities could go as follows: 100, 88, 74, 62, 50, 38, 26, 10, 14, 38, 50, 62, 74, 88, 100 or instead of arks you could have repeating decrescendos like 100,80,60,40,100,80,60,40..... Along with the velocity and panning you could vary the pitch of your percussion. If your software won't allow for that you could record the drums to audio and add pitchbends there and possibly some slow flange.

You know what I'm in the mood for? A Fact: This ReMix does stray rather far from the original but if that were it's only problem it would still be passable. Because your samples are pretty weak, you need a larger variety of instruments in here. You use every section of the orchestra at some point but there need to be more instances when they're all there together. Your strings seem to be handling the bulk of the material in this song. Tell them to share the stage more often. From start to finish there is ALWAYS a string part present.... and in many sections they are all that is playing. Your only use of woodwinds are the pan flutes [is that what they were? It's hard to tell with these GM style samples] from 0:10 till 0:30.

NO (Resubmit)

Let your strings know that they don't always have to carry everyone else. Get more of the orchestra in on the action from start to finish and fix the machine gun percussion. I'm not going to hold your poor samples against you because I'm assuming they are all you have and they're not so terrible as to warrant unconditional rejection. Now GO! Do as you're told and fix the problems I mentioned so I can YES this already!

Disclaimer: Things judge Shnabubula referred to as facts could arguably be called opinions instead.

Wow, I love the source material. In principle I think that the orchestrated approach could be a wonderful arrangement decision in contrast to the metal guitar driven original. I think that a combination of inexperienced sequencing and simplistic execution of some good ideas sells this mix short though.

The samples themselves sound pretty decent but the mechanical sequencing takes a lot away. This problem pops up in the choppy harpsichord lead starting at 2:08-2:44. The percussion, starting with the weak snare rolls at 1:01 and all the way through the awkward dry kick from 2:14-end, needs a lot of work. As it stands the drums don’t mesh well with the rest of the elements or themselves so start by trying to make the snares, toms, kicks, and cymbals sound more like they are from the same set. Then you might work on the sequencing and FX processing.

There are some solid compositional ideas packed in here. The lead changes often, the mood and tempo shifts are effective and there are attempts at building dynamics by adding and taking away harmonic complexity. Had the actual execution been a little more skillful, this mix has the potential to sound great. Aside from the actual performance, there is the issue of usage of the source. As you mentioned Jahan, you added a lot of original material and here I think it’s overshadowing the source. The source has plenty of solid melodies to run with so you really should have had an easier time incorporating it into this mix.

The poor use of the source and the weak instrumentation did this mix in, but not bad for a remixing newbie. There are plenty of remixers that primarily use soundfonts so you’re not alone. You might try stopping by OCR’s WIP and ReMixing forums to see what else is out there. There are some great musicians hanging around those spots that we can all learn a lot from. Keep working at it.

NO

Samples are weak, IMO; the rock kit doesn't mesh well with the orchestral sounds either. There's nothing that interacts with the rock kit to anchor it into the rest of the mix.

The concept itself is pretty good; the arrangement varies and changes throughout, but it really lacks any kind of emotion or climax. There's tension, but no release. Use the source material in some kind of big, bold melodic statement. This beats around the bush.

NO