Music Remastered

I have to say that one sounds pretty thin and generic to me. It's more a remix for listening purposes than one appropriate for the game. The game's instrumentation was higher energy and the whole thing was bouncier. That one would probably get smothered under the sound effects, in my estimation.

What needs work in particular? I need as much specific feedback as I can get.

Other links since Indaba is down:

Newgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/259625
Furaffinity: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2579480/
High quality OGG download: http://www.mediafire.com/?gmfymeeyvwm


Does anyone know how to get an avatar up here by the way? Mediafire doesn't let you hotlink to images.

 

The drums are perfect so don't change them.

The main lead needs some better modulation to match the original but the sound is right.

The bass needs to be done better by having more bounce to it.

The reverb needs to be made tighter as it drowns the overall sound.

There are some other bits I would mention but the site is down at the moment so I'll let you know which bits when it's back up.

 

That's quite helpful, thank you!

That's encouraging too because the drums were the last thing I did. I basically taught myself sequencing from scratch with this piece.

Do you have any idea how to make the bass bounce? Everything I tried on it just made it sound weak (it doesn't help that I'm using Slayer for the raw guitar sound and have no idea how to reduce its sustain). What about the main lead's modulation needs to be changed for that matter, just faster/more LFO?

Also I added links to other places it's hosted in my previous post.

 

I've done some of the bass for ya if it helps. I hope it's what ya might have had in mind. Grab it ASAP as it has limited time.

Mystic Cave Bass

We will do one thing at a time to get it the way you want it as doing it all at the same time can make it sound a bit messy.

 

To me that basically sounds like the original instrument at high bit rate with a little LFO on top. The wobbliness is actually pretty distracting, and that has much more reverb than mine.

 

The reverb when the bells and the main lead run together drown the sound. That the bit I'm on about. Between 40sec - 42sec is the most obvious. Your bass sounds like it has about 2 milliseconds or reverb which sounds fine. That download was for more bounce and the flanger was to make it more quirky so it didn't sound to much the same from the original. If you don't like it you don't like it that's cool.

For the bass to bounce you could do with a pluck instrument plugin or FM synth with some filter and resonance on top of it.

The modulation with the lead near the end needs to have smoother movement as the stepping of the note just sound very odd.

 

I've done another edit if you want it.

Mystic Cave Bass V2

 

I'm sorry but for the most part I have no idea what you're talking about. "pluck instrument plugin"? Do you mean I should be using some kind of cutoff filter with the resonance turned way up? I'm rather confused about the lead instrument too. The genesis version indeed slides in "steps" because the pitch bend is low resolution by modern standards. Mine however are spline based and therefore completely smooth, except for the fact that the pitch revolves around a descending/ascending passage each time so that it isn't completely a-melodic (just like it does in the original).

Just to be clear too, I'm not satisfied with applying filters to recordings of the Genesis music as a means of improving it. That's like trying to make textures seem higher resolution by using the smudge tool on them. If you like that then that's great, but I'm trying to make something from scratch that conforms to the guidelines the project lead set.

 

One glaring issue I'm having for your Mystic Cave is that the bass line is coming in far too softly and is being drowned out by the drums. The attack is something you should strive for, but not to the point that the notes are so staccato/tight/thin that they barely sound at all.

Also, your bells have a similar problem to my FL Studio produced bells from my attempt at Hidden Palace -- there's a bit too much in terms of harmonics going on with them, and that combined with the reverb (or it could just be really heavy reverb going on) is blending notes that shouldn't be blending together. I also feel like I might here a 3rd or a 5th in there on some of the bells which doesn't belong on the whole run.

 

Pluck instrument plugins emulate plucking a string. It depends what you have got in your plugin collection to create this effect. That should give the bounce.

Slap bass lesson

Listen to modulation in the example below. There's the original, then yours and then the lead solo. You can clearly hear that the original glides. The stepping motion is what sounds odd.

example

I understand that you don't want to use the Genesis samples but the sample was synthesized as well and wasn't a case of using filters. Listen to the sample below to hear with and without the original.

MCZ bass difference

 

That's what I was doing. My bass is dry FL Slayer run through a custom Voxengo Boogex amp with some other effects.

I see what you mean now, but the original doesn't in fact glide. It has more steps to it and goes through them more quickly, which is obfuscating the note transitions. If you slow down the emulation to 25% you'll be able to hear when it changes tone function at the same points mine does, basically it means that mine just has a lower amplitude, higher resolution LFO.

This was a deliberate decision on my part. It allowed me to vary up the dynamics subtly in the first and second verse, give it a more random sense by making sweeping pitch bends on top of the temporarily increased LFO, and reinforce the fundamental pitches so it didn't become an atonal mess since my instruments fill the stereo "space" much more than the original. This allowed me to make the "lead" instrument quieter without being lost, since I felt that it was never the focus in that section (it's the time for the bass and the bells to shine). If you feel that in particular doesn't work stylistically though, that's helpful to know.

I'm afraid I can't download the other file for some reason. I know that it's easy to replicate the Genesis bass nearly exactly (with some effects on top) since it's just a simple FM synth doing it, but I still think that defeats the point.

Anyway I'll be back when I have Oil Ocean.

 

Peter convinced me to do this.

Mystic Cave Zone

 

I missed this earlier. Thanks for being so specific.

I think I have more to learn about mastering techniques as I have different people telling me completely opposite things about the bass in every group I ask. I was deliberately trying to understate it as I've heard that kind of bass in a lot of jazz music before, it's meant to duck under and come out on top at different times rather than constantly be in your face like on the Genesis. I'm not sure what to think though now I've heard multiple times that it's both over and underpowered.

With the bells, I'm doubling the bottom notes an octave higher but not the thirds. That might be what you're hearing, or the fact that they have a very gentle bit of pitch wobble toward the end of the sustain (which I thought gave them a nice "sassy" quality).

I think people are expecting it to be dynamically exactly like the FM synth version, which I wasn't trying to do :x

 

Here, steveswade gave me the idea of posting it here too so:

Wing Fortress

 

Canned Karma. Please put this in the game. This is an excellent remake. I was never a fan of the 16bit version but this makes me change my mind about this sound track. I feel it is incredibly faithful to the original in what it presents and sounds.

 

That reminds me, I've had this sitting around for a while but been having trouble with some instrument choices that didn't satisfy me.

 

This is very good as well. The reverb to me needs to be toned down a bit.

 

I also did Wing Fortress

 

That Wing Fortress is a good first step, but there's still room for improvement. The brass is too soft for one. Needs much more punch to it, and needs to be brought to the foreground more. I'd play around with a compressor for that one, adjusting the attack should help out quite a bit. The samples used are very nice though, and it indeed is very faithful.

Steveswede, if you're looking for a good example of a WF remaster done so far, check out scubaSteve's take on it. Again, it's not just that it's faithful -- it goes above and beyond that and becomes truly amazing. This game will have an astounding score, I guarantee you that. If that track lacks that 'epic' or jaw-dropping appeal to it, it won't be at the top of my list. We've already seen way too many inspired tracks to settle for anything less.