spoiler The Magic Inside | 8-Bit Cover | Famitracker

[Rikifive 23,486]

  NOTICE  This thread contains spoilers from season 5. 

 

Hello everybody! 

 

I had making an 8-bit cover of "The Magic Inside" from S5E24: "The Mane Attraction" planned for a long time and finally I've decided to put my hoof on that.  

 

I'm really proud of it as initially I thought it will be a disaster, but thankfully it turned out to be not that bad.   Yeah, I totally believe in myself.  

 

 

I hope it's likeable!  

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Edited April 30, 2017 by Rikifive
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[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

Ok. 

 

It's a good listen. However, I'd sub that pulse wave for a squarewave around the chorus and lower it an octave down. It just sounds weird that high up. As a matter of fact, lower the whole melody down an octave. It'll make it sound more natural. Also, those slides, especially the ones around "Let the magic of my heart stay tru-ue-whoa..." needed to sound more natural. Because they were so quick, they sounded rather awkward. Change your percussion beat around the piece sometimes and add some fills to vary it up. On longer notes, I see you put vibrato on them, which gave them that singer-like vibe. 

 

All in all, it's a decent cover, but it could still use some work in melodic placement, melodic expression, wave choice and percussion. I'm always here if you need me to discuss what I said in this critique. 

[Rikifive 23,486]

Okaaay,

 

 

 

I'd sub that pulse wave for a squarewave around the chorus

 

I'm not sure what you mean.

 

 

 

lower it an octave down. It just sounds weird that high up. As a matter of fact, lower the whole melody down an octave. It'll make it sound more natural.

Out of curiosity I tried lowering an octave down here and there and I honestly have disagree with this. The notes lost their character and energy, not mentioning, that they were getting too low at some points. Also, lowering an octave made the vocals (main pulse channel) less hearable in background of another low-octave notes (Third Pulse Channel). It even created a disaster when the notes stacked. There are low-octave sounds in background, so I can't really go low with the melody itself.

Of course, with some work and changing things in the whole song, that would be doable, though still, I definitely prefer the octave I've used.

 

At first I tried to make it as accurate as possible, but non-8bit =/= 8bit, thus not everything can be accurately ported/recreated. Also keep in mind limited amount of sounds, so you don't really want to hear how notes are stacking... That being said, I've 'remixed' few things to make them sound (hopefully) acceptable, starting by adjusting octaves, because setting the ones from original resulted in a mess.

 

Besides, that octave sounds totally okay for me. I made it high on purpose. It may not be 100% accurate to the original song, but remember, that 8-bit has its own rules. Also, to make it more natural, I'd have to remove the whole Noise channel and most of the Triangle, because there was no beat, nor percussion in the original. Instead of that I'd have to add another pulse channel to focus on piano etc., which would make it sound empty and most likely horrible, due to being composed almost only from pulse channels.

 

With less instruments and effects it could work, but personally I still prefer that higher octave. It's more of a 'style of the 8-bit sound', rather than 'not accurate octave', though I get what you mean.

 

By the way I found a cover, that used even higher octaves (6-7), so I guess there has to be something behind that. 

 

 

 

Also, those slides, especially the ones around "Let the magic of my heart stay tru-ue-whoa..." needed to sound more natural. Because they were so quick, they sounded rather awkward.

 

Now this is what I could agree with. It indeed doesn't sound perfectly, but don't you worry - I was trying many things when working on it. Making it slower made it sound even worse, because it sounded like it was going off, so I left it that way. Perhaps with some reorganizing things and effects, it could work, but I don't see a bigger issue with that.

 

 

 

Change your percussion beat around the piece sometimes and add some fills to vary it up.

 

The percussion changes with each part of the song ~ isn't it varied enough? I think it's still more complex than in many tracks heard in games on NES. 

Though I get what you mean ~ adding few extra effects wouldn't hurt, but I think it's enough.

 

 

 

On longer notes, I see you put vibrato on them, which gave them that singer-like vibe. 

 

To be honest I really like the vibrato effect when it comes to longer notes. Lack of vibrato can sometimes lead to bad sound, but it depends on how the song is built.

 

---

 

Thank you for this critique and don't get me wrong. Applying these changes would require reworking almost the whole song, so I'll just leave it as it is now. Perhaps I'll be 'remastering' it in distant future, so I'll see what can be done. 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

@@Rikifive,

In that first, what I mean is, instead of running the pulse wave all throughout the piece, change it to a square wave for the chorus parts.  

[Rikifive 23,486]

Oh you meant changing the square duty? Then yes, I was wondering on that one when working on it. I've tried all the possibilities and I liked the 25% the most. The rest sounded not right among the other instruments. Besides, 25% sounds pretty light and energetic at the same time, while 50% would be too light and 12,5% too sharp. I think I've made the right choice, considering the environment of sounds. Don't worry, it wasn't chosen randomly, I've tried different possibilities before choosing it.

Though I get what you mean ~ I know that technique. I'd probably do that if the other sounds were different, especially if there would be less of them.

 

By the way, during the second chorus, that pulse channel is supported by another, quieter one with square duty set to 50% to recreate the voice in the background. It gives it more energy and 'firmness', just like in the original.

Also, I changed the wave to 50% at the end, as she goes slightly lighter and higher at that part.

[Vitaj 45]

Dis music is suuuuuu booootyfuuuul 

[Rikifive 23,486]

YAY! 

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! 

[MC'01 47]

Nice, but (like @C. Thunder Dash said) the melody could be an octave lower.

8/10 in my opinion

[Rikifive 23,486]

Thanks.  
Hmmm... Now when it was mentioned for the second time, I actually gave lowering an octave a legit try and uploaded that, so you can hear how it more or less sounds like.
Basically, I've lowered the octave (by one) in Pulse 1 (main melody ~ vocals) and VRC6-Pulse 2 (sub melody ~ back vocals). Besides lowering the octave, I haven't touched anything else. The result is this:

Google Drive | The Magic Inside 8-bit - Lowered Octave

So, I'm afraid it's not that easy to do.  
It doesn't sound that bad, that's true, but as you may have probably noticed, some work will be required, because at the moment is sounds rather awkward, as some sounds are overlapping. I'd have to reconfigure instruments, as well as probably change notes and functions around (mainly note-slide). I actually spent an hour, changing settings around and though it was getting better and better, it still wasn't perfect.

I know my original approach is a little bit too squeaky, but it's just the style, not really an issue in my opinion. Some 8-bit songs are using low notes, some are even higher than mine (where listening in high volume for a long time can blow minds). If you used to play NES games, then you've probably encountered some. Anyway, the reason I chose higher notes is, that in the original, the voice is also pretty high and gentle. The song generally doesn't have much of low notes, nor energy in it (besides emotions expressed through voice), so I thought it will be a good approach. I've remixed the song a little anyway, by using triangle (bass-thingie) and noise (percussion) channels, because I wanted to add that energy and some low sounds in background. For me, it's not perfect, but is good enough and I like how it turned out, because initially, I really was afraid it will be a complete disaster. I'm kinda new to this, so I'm always unsure of many things.   

Nevertheless, I completely know what you mean and even partially agree. That's why I kinda plan to remix it into an 8-bit battle theme someday, where I'll be definitely using a lower octave and totally different set of sounds. I think I have an idea of how it could sound like, but I'm absolutely not sure how it will turn out.  

 

Either way, thank you very much for your feedback! Don't get me wrong please, I really appreciate your suggestion! 

8/10 is not bad for such a 'noob' as me.  

Thank you very much for visiting!  

[MC'01 47]

1 hour ago, Rikifive said:

I've lowered the octave (by one) in Pulse 1 (main melody ~ vocals) and VRC6-Pulse 2 (sub melody ~ back vocals). Besides lowering the octave, I haven't touched anything else. The result is this:

Google Drive | The Magic Inside 8-bit - Lowered Octave

Now that's much better

[Rikifive 23,486]

5 minutes ago, MC'01 said:

Now that's much better

Well, if you say so.  

[ztrash 62]

I'm always down to listen to some 8-bit covers! good job! 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

On 4/30/2017 at 2:28 PM, Rikifive said:

Well, if you say so.  

I agree as well!

[Rikifive 23,486]

23 hours ago, Zizkil said:

I'm always down to listen to some 8-bit covers! good job! 

I also like these.  
Thank you very much!  

 

7 hours ago, C. Thunder Dash said:

I agree as well!

Heh, in that case I may try to remake the whole song in future.