You sir, have become my favorite orchestral artist on Newgrounds with this beautiful rendition of the various themes and songs in Monster Hunter Tri. I've been a fan of the series since it's beginnings and the soundtrack is definitely the one thing that brings the game to life. From the humble opening of the game, to the character selection and the wandering through the village to grabbing a quest notice off the board, even diving into the depths of the ocean to battle the fearsome but elegant Ceadeus... each melody fits perfectly with each encounter.
I'd go into complete detail on each and every section, but the amount of time, effort, and dedication that went into recreating a melody for each part you've covered is amazing. I can easily feel myself at each of these locations. I hope to hear more orchestral renditions from you on this scale, whether being this franchise or a different one.
Hey man, I appreciate the support! This review's awesome.
"You sir, have become my favorite orchestral artist on Newgrounds with this beautiful rendition of the various themes and songs in Monster Hunter Tri."
Clearly you haven't heard BrokenDeck's, Echo's, NickPerrin's, MaestroRage's, Breed's and Tomppaah's orchestral music yet. But thanks :3.
"I've been a fan of the series since it's beginnings and the soundtrack is definitely the one thing that brings the game to life."
I had no idea you played the game man! We should totally go online sometime haha.
"From the humble opening of the game, to the character selection and the wandering through the village to grabbing a quest notice off the board, even diving into the depths of the ocean to battle the fearsome but elegant Ceadeus... each melody fits perfectly with each encounter."
Good to know! I wanted to achieve a majestic but mystical effect with the Ceadeus music. I would've remixed the third part of the battle as well (when he actually starts fighting back) but when I tried to remix it I just couldn't get it to sound right, or transition to it properly for that matter.
"I'd go into complete detail on each and every section, but the amount of time, effort, and dedication that went into recreating a melody for each part you've covered is amazing. I can easily feel myself at each of these locations."
Thanks! I did put a tonne of effort in this so I'm glad it paid off.
"I hope to hear more orchestral renditions from you on this scale, whether being this franchise or a different one."
Don't be surprised if there does end up being one in the (distant) future! Maybe not now though, making a medley like this has drained every slither of musical energy that I had stored up in my body :(.
Thanks a bunch for the great review, I really owe you one!
I started this review when this song has 3 listens, including mine. >.> ...then I had to go on a car ride out to the mountains, where I fortunately had internet to post this. LUCKY ME. :D Anyway, yeah, I listened to this multiple times to get this review done over a long time. One downside was that in the car, the bass frequencies are cut out some from the drone of the car against the road. :< I did my best with that though.
I'd do this as a time-sectioned review, but I see this is intended to be one package, so...
THE GOOD:
-Intro's fine.
-Transition at 1:12 to the next tune (since it's not at 1:07...) works great, fits fine.
-This honestly sounds as if real people are playing it. I like that. :D Kudos for it!
-That transition at 2:51 (not at 2:41...). So. Good. I love it.
-Your sounds, mixing, and overall 'feel' is good as always.
-I actually love the feel at 3:45-4:09 right before the disappointing drop. The little rolls and the tiny arpeggio at 3:51 sounds amazing.
-Like how you brought it straight back to the beginning with the reiteration of the main theme of the game.
THE NOT-AS-GOOD:
-The harmonies at 0:39-0:43 don't quite work as well as they could. They seem slightly off and dissonant in a way that isn't as tasteful as it could.
-The transition at 1:42 isn't all that great, surely there was a better way than simply fading everything out and coming back in.
-What I can only assume is the jaw harp coming in at 3:02 doesn't quite fit. I mean, the 'doingy' sound is cool, but it could have been placed better, I feel. :< Same goes for 4:30.
-The transition at 3:44 (hey, it's the time you said this time xD) is *very slightly* off. I do mean very slight, it's not much.
-The drop at 4:09. Sorry, it just doesn't really work. This also goes for the weird little drops before going into the end of the tune at 4:24-4:30 and 4:44-4:50. While those two are a cool idea, it just doesn't work, and really kills my 'groove' and movement of it.
-There's a note in the tune from 4:51-4:59 which seems off-key, it's at around 4:54. This goes for the second time it comes in as well.
-The drop at 5:16 is SO anti-climactic. D: It again kills the feel I had, similar to the drops at 4:24 and 4:44.
-Transition at 6:38-6:40 has the same problem as 1:42.
-This one's actually not for you but for me. I didn't feel like going through everything and commenting on all the good bits, only the ones that I thought were particularly amazing. Bad Skye. You shouldn't just comment on all the tiny not-as-good things without commenting on the tiny good things. D:
NON-NITPICKY-NOT-AS-GOOD-THINGS: Yeah, I made this its own section because I felt like it, shoosh. >w>
-ONE: Stylistic issue. The whole thing is 'epica', with only relatively tiny breaks to calmer more restful bits. Granted, this makes those little bits so much more precious, but it would have been nice if in, say, the town section, things calmed down a little bit more so people have a chance to take a breath in this 8-minute-long song. This is in contrast to the 'boss' section, which was a lot calmer than the town section, oddly. ...calm being a relative adjective, since it's still 'epica' style.
-TWO: Panning. Ok, I know you can't do much about this, and I apologize, but what would be REALLY nice is if you had the instruments in their proper places for an orchestra. To fix this even while you have a mono sound (as I assume you have so you can hear everything) is difficult, I know, but here's an idea. Look up where the instruments of the orchestra are in relation to the conductor, and then twiddle the knobs so they'd be "pointing" toward the instruments of the orchestra if the conductor is in the middle of the knob.
Ok, I have only 15 characters remaining, so I'm going to have to say bye now! :D Honestly, this is a REALLY good song, and I can hear how much effort you put into it. Don't let all my poking, prodding, scratching, clawing, and biting get you down - it's far better than 99% of the music I hear on here. Definitely better than mine.
Damn, this review is incredible. I could not have asked for more feedback than you've given me in this review. I regard you as one of the most capable reviewers on Newgrounds and this review just proves it! Thanks so much man!
Again I'll quote bits and pieces of this review because character limit.
"...out to the mountains"
Hope you enjoyed that, haha. I went to mountains while I was staying in Canberra the time before last that I went to Australia. I remember throwing snowballs at my little brother (who was 8 that time) and he'd keep on trying to make a snowball to throw it back to me but his hands were too small so he wasn't able to. Then my mum made him a snowball and he ran towards me excited to take his revenge and while he ran the snowball fell from his hand and dropped uselessly back in the snow!
"Transition at 1:12 to the next tune (since it's not at 1:07...) works great..."
Mhmm those two had similar melodies so I thought it'd be a good idea to add them. Also, we're both wrong, it's at 1:11. *smartass-face*
"That transition at 2:51 (not at 2:41...)"
It's actually 2:41 believe it or not! At 2:36 I started inventing my own melodies and then at 2:41 I added a melodic phrase that's found in "Song of Triumph" not the village theme, so strictly speaking it starts there.
"I actually love the feel at 3:45-4:09..."
Oh, you noticed the arpeggio, sweet! And yeah I couldn't make that part much longer since that's roughly how long it is in the original. You should check out the original songs by the way if you liked my renditions of them in this remix. I can safely say the originals are better than my remixes, haha.
"Like how you brought it straight back to the beginning..."
Mhmm, that was a structural idea I had while at the beginning of the melody. The thing about that main theme is that it has the most epic ending ever and I couldn't just finish the whole medley with another melody. I HAD to finish it with that.
"The harmonies at 0:39-0:43 don't quite work..."
Hm, I'll look into that.
"The transition at 1:42 isn't all that great"
I promise I tried as hard as I could lol. Everything I made for that transition didn't sound good. In any case, I split the song into 'parts' and used that excuse for the bad transitions, since as you probably noticed the transitions within one part are good and the transitions from one part to another are not :P.
"..the jaw harp coming in at 3:02 doesn't quite fit."
Man, I like that jaw harp. You're probably right but jaw harps sound fairly awesome so the most I'm going to do is edit it to make it fit more rather than remove it entirely.
"The drop at 4:09. Sorry, it just doesn't really work."
A lot of people don't like those drops. Others do. I personally like them, but maybe they just take getting used to, I dunno!
"There's a note in the tune from 4:51-4:59 which seems off-key"
Well, whatever it is, I'm fairly sure it's in the original so NOT MY FAULT :3. Although I may have just figured out the melody of the original wrongly, my ears are just as musical as a slice of pizza.
"Stylistic issue."
You're right about that, but I knew that if I made a lot of one part or a whole part soft, then it wouldn't have as much of an effect as the busier ones since I'm crap at making soft music. Although yeah I really need to give soft music a try.
Also, the boss music is relatively calm because the battle is split into three parts. Part 1 is when you enter the area and see a glimpse of his massive body in the water, Part 2 is when you follow it to the area where you battle it (and it's pretty passive and calm here so it doesn't fight much). Part 3 is the actual battle (http://goo.gl/rIv13), and I remixed just Part 1 and 2 since when I tried Part 3 I failed miserably.
"Panning."
I'm probably being lazy here because I know that whatever panning I do won't affect me so I just leave it out :P. I might give that a shot!
Overall, thanks a million for the FANTASTIC review. Sorry for not addressing everything you mentioned but it's surprising how quickly 4,096 characters get depleted!
HEY~! It's Lou Urau. Like I said in the MH forums (Lol)
I'm still throughly impressed and glad on how this turned out through all the hard work put into it.
It's a song that I dare say would have been good for a Tri soundtrack.
5 Stars~! :3
But if you possibly can, try working more on the Finale. I know it's a bit complex but you'll get it for sure.
Hey, it wouldn't have happened without the support of you and the rest of the forum. You should be happy with yourself more so than with this melody, trust me :P.
I did work pretty hard on the very last part of the finale actually. What I didn't work hard on was the transition to it since I knew I wouldn't have been able to think of a way to transition properly. Although if you mean working hard on the whole finale and perhaps adding that Monster Hunter theme, then yeah I could've tried harder. I couldn't get the Monster Hunter theme to sound good no matter what!
Anyway, thanks a lot for reviewing and for all the help you've given me!
very good composition, and sounds great, however i wouldve expected a bit more intermingling and transition between the tracks in order for it to feel like a true medley rather than simply multiple orchestral covers in a sequence. nonetheless, it is well done and worth 5 stars
I know, you're right about those transitions, but I really tried and I couldn't get them to sound good other than sometimes simply stopping one part and fading in the next.
