Need some advice on my game music (take 2)

Yeah, that's some kind of unusual ask for some help, I guess. Some weeks ago I opened a thread at the Creator's cafe, but I hardly got any response so Basil suggested that I might as well try it here.

I've been working on a Super Mario World-Romhack for about a year now, and it's almost finished, at the moment I'm working on the soundtrack for it, just because I like doing some compositions myself and such. But,... the thing is I'm just not sure if I'm up to it in the first place, and so far everything in the hack worked out really well, so of course I don't want to ruin everything with ear-bleeding music. So I figured I'll ask some people about the music before I release this. And what place would be better for that than this one?

So, yeah... any help, suggestions and comments are appreciated.
At the moment I have only spc's ready, assuming that most of you have a spc-plugin for winamp anyway. If I'm wrong with that please tell me, and I try to convert all the songs as soon as possible.

Here's the download link: http://www.fpi-productions.de/sound/fpi-spc.rar

And here's a preview video on YouTube which also features the castle music.


So, now for some information about the single tracks in the archive:

-Distant Worlds
The music you'll hear at the title screen. Also feautures the Main Theme which will appear here and there in the soundtrack.

-Bowser's Valley
-The Second Reality
-Main Overworld
-Thirdspace
-Donut Volcano
-The Magical Forest
-Another Dimension
These tracks will get used on the world map/submaps.

-The Moving Cave
The Cave Theme. It's somewhat based on SMW's original cave theme.

-Inside Castle Walls
The track you'll hear in the castles. It also features SMW's main theme, but overall it's a bit based on Yoshi's island castle music. This is the track from the YouTube video.

-Meridian Assault
That's the music for the most epic level ever. xD Based on Seiken Densetsu 3's "Sacrifice Part III" for some reason.

-Reznor's Mechanics
This track will appear in a few factory-themed levels.

-Underwater
For... underwater levels.

-Destiny
Will get used in the pre-ultimate level. Supposed to be epic...

-Ancient Ruins
This will appear in some ruins/pyramid-levels. Partially based on SML's Ruins/Pyramid-theme, which also appeared in Brawl by coincidence.

-Iceberg
Supposed to be the music for some Iceberg-levels.

-Silent Inferno
This will get used in some of Bowser's Valley-levels along with some night-themed stuff.

-Hot Eruption
Volcano-level-music

-Boss Battle
...will also get used in some auto-scrolling parts.

-Invasion Fleet
Bowser's Airship Fleet level music.

-Pipeline to Hell
Another track which will appear only near the end of the game

-Bowser's Starship
Final level.

-The Good, The Bad & The Spy
Another "special" level music. Will only appear one time.

-Song of Boo
The Ghost House music.

-Goomba Plateau
Generic grassland type music.

-Mario's Athletics
Generic athletic level music

-The Beginning & The End
will get used in two short cutscenes, first right and the start of the game, and again later in the ending.

-Ending #1
Credits music. Overall a remix of "Distant Worlds", "The Second Reality" & "Another Dimension".


(On a side note, this will not be the complete soundtrack. I also have some ports of classic mario-stuff ready for example, but I don't really need advice on these tracks, since they aren't composed by me... so there isn't much that can go wrong with them...)


Yeah... that's what I have so far. Let me know what you think!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My first impression is that these instrument samples are rather poor, or poorly used. Sounds like really low-budget SNES. Find a way to get better and warmer instruments. I really think that needs to be addressed before I can fairly judge any other aspects of the composition.

P.S. My friends and I were playing Second Reality Project late last year and it had some cool stuff.

Additional Spam:
I just finished listening to the entire soundtrack. Here's a few thoughts on some of the more notable and more nefarious tracks:

Inside Castle Walls
Very good instrument usage and nice melody. It succeeds in being reminiscent of the Yoshi's Island castle music, and the orchestral hits are used in a Mario 64-esqe manner.

Ending Part #1
My favorite part is the instrument that starts off as the melody/harmony in the beginning. I also really like the use of the bongos. The lead instruments tend to warble too much on this track, but otherwise I think it's solid.

Boss Battle
Instruments are generally well used here. Sometimes the melody hits some off-sounding notes. Also it sometimes gets too soft for a Boss track, even if those parts are good.

The Good, The Bad, & The Spy
The percussion has a good rhythm and it changes up half-way through to stop from getting stale. The harmony from the glockenspiel or whatever it is works well.

Thirdspace
Has some cool instrument usage, but I think the main instrument is out of place. Also, I think you may want to check to ensure everything is in tune.

Mario's Athletics
I like the Mario 3 homage at the beginning. The song is pretty upbeat, but it could go "higher" if you know what I mean. Also, I think the constant percussion is wrong for the song. It needs to mix up more; stop and go, etc.

Bowser's Starship
The intro is all right. Then the lead instrument comes in with a really annoying tone. It's also too giddy sounding for the final stage. That electric guitar sample you're using as the harmony in some places just sounds wrong. Maybe it's just off-tune, but I don't think that instrument works well in this spot at all.

Meridian Assault
If you're going to make a blatant "Meridian Worship" reference, you might as well just include that song in its original form. Meridian Assault is a neutered stump in comparison to Kikuta's gem.

It sounds like you're using Super Mario World's instrument bank, so there may be a limitation preventing you from using new instruments. In that case, you need to be very careful about choosing instruments. You need to make sure the instruments mesh with each other to form a cohesive mood. Make sure your harmonic and percussive instruments play into your lead instrument(s).

A lot of the music in this soundtrack sounds drab, repetitive, and monotone. You need more dynamics in general. More volume changes, more tempo changes, more pitch changes. Also, make sure you're not hitting the wrong notes at the wrong time. I'm not expecting you to be Koji Kondo, but you should look at his music to see what you're doing wrong, and improve upon that.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hmm.. what happened to the response I did? Ok then, I'll try again.

Originally Posted by Kaleb.G

The Good, The Bad, & The Spy
The percussion has a good rhythm and it changes up half-way through to stop from getting stale. The harmony from the glockenspiel or whatever it is works well.

I'm actually very glad to hear that, because that was one of the track I was the least sure about. It seems it worked somehow.

Quote:

Mario's Athletics
I like the Mario 3 homage at the beginning. The song is pretty upbeat, but it could go "higher" if you know what I mean. Also, I think the constant percussion is wrong for the song. It needs to mix up more; stop and go, etc.

Sounds reasonable. I'll go back redo this song according to your suggestions as soon as possible.

Quote:

Bowser's Starship
The intro is all right. Then the lead instrument comes in with a really annoying tone. It's also too giddy sounding for the final stage. That electric guitar sample you're using as the harmony in some places just sounds wrong. Maybe it's just off-tune, but I don't think that instrument works well in this spot at all.

Actually the giddy sound fits very well with the level. About the electric guitar, I'll try to use something different there, but I doubt I find something better here. Usually I'm testing all the tracks with a lot of different samples right from the start and in the end I use the ones I think works best for the partcular spot. But anyway, it doesn't hurt to try again.

Quote:

Meridian Assault
If you're going to make a blatant "Meridian Worship" reference, you might as well just include that song in its original form. Meridian Assault is a neutered stump in comparison to Kikuta's gem.

I won't deny that I can't compare with Kikuta's original track in the slightest but I think I'll stay with this this, mostly because everyone could just use a simple port, even though in this case it wouldn't be that simple, since "Sacrifice Part III" is about 4 minutes long or something. But besides the fact this takes up some space I probably don't have who needs a 4-minute track for a Mario-level?

Quote:

It sounds like you're using Super Mario World's instrument bank, so there may be a limitation preventing you from using new instruments.

Overall, you're right about that. There's already a sample replacer out, which lets you replace SMW's samples and even add new sample banks, but besides the fact you need quite a lot free space in the Rom for that (which I don't have anymore) it's not that easy to use, mostly because the tracks you can't (yet) change in SMW (like POW-/Star-/Level-end-music) sounds "wrong" with most other samples and unfortunately all the sound effects in the game make use of the same samples as well. Mario's Jump for example is made out of the sample for the flute or Yoshi's sound is made out of the Orchestra Hit.

Anyway thanks a lot for your thorough comments, that's really appreciated, and it was basically exactly what I was looking for!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.