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Mario Kart Tour - Merry Merry Mountain by Epic_stuff

File Name: Mario Kart Tour - Merry Merry Mountain
Submitted: by Epic_stuff
Authors: Epic_stuff
Insert Size: 0x05F8 bytes
Type: Song
Sample Usage: Many
Source: Port
Duration: 1:01
Featured: No
Description: Merry... New Year? It's still wintertime, right? Regardless, here's my next Mario Kart Tour port, Merry Merry Mountain! I had hoped to get this out by Christmas, but procrastination got the better of me.
SPC file

This is pretty close, but there are lots of things I'd like to address here.

First, you should not let the jingle bells be cut off by rests like g12 r24, there's no way they'd suddenly get cut off, they should have some release time. Use g8 instead of g12 r24. Though if you're doing this because you want them to cut off, I think a better solution might be shortening its ADSR release time just by one or two bits... or adding short release time with remote code setting 3, which activates upon the note's release (but when doing that there also needs to be $f4$09 remote code with setting -1, which activates upon initial attack).

Second, this does sound empty without the chordal instruments. It might be hard to fit multiple guitar notes since there are instances where other instruments momentarily take over vacant channels, but there is at least room for one channel of a single guitar chord strum sample, you could use Plok's guitar chord sample for example. You might be running out of sample space, so you could omit one or two of the sound effect/global song samples (usually @7 or Thunder) inside the text file itself. Though, not just adding guitars - there's one more trumpet harmony layer missing in the brassy beginning section as well. Upon reading the text, you're not using the eighth channel at all, you should use that channel to fill some empty parts as well.

Third, #4's accordion is slightly desyncing starting around 0:44, it is playing slightly later than the beat. It must be caused by the triplet beats, and upon calculation of the beats (calculating it by tick conversion to make the process easier), the solution is to change one of the ^24s to ^48, or change both ^24s to ^48^96s. The desync sustains all the way to the end.

Also, the volume mixing is should be slightly more balanced - for example, the string instrument melody line is quite loud compared to the accordions and the bass (and the bass is slightly on the quiet side). When the @0 flutes are playing, you may want to turn down the volume of the accordion as well.

This isn't really a rejection reason, but the trumpet sample does sound a little bit on the harsh side. It might be better to mellow it a tiny bit with some downsampling.

Lastly, I think this could benefit adding echo to a lot of other channels as well as heightening the echo volumes a bit more.
File Name: Mario Kart Tour - Merry Merry Mountain
Submitted: by Epic_stuff
Authors: Epic_stuff
Insert Size: 0x07AE bytes
Type: Song
Sample Usage: Many
Source: Port
Duration: 1:01
Featured: No
Description: Merry... New Year? It's still wintertime, right? Regardless, here's my next Mario Kart Tour port, Merry Merry Mountain! I had hoped to get this out by Christmas, but procrastination got the better of me. I tried sticking with mainly preexisting SNES samples to give it that "old video game" feel. Most samples come from SMM2 and SMAS.
SPC file

This is a lot better than the previous attempt but there still are numerous noticeable things that hinder it from acceptance.

Bass volume is still too quiet (it was up to a point where I couldn't hear it other than the very beginning portion). Guitar channel also could be quieter by a small margin, it's taking up the bass channel quite a lot.

Bells are slightly out of tune. Upon testing it, somewhere around $0b $60 or $0b $70 match a little more. Some places are playing one semitone lower, those including a+4 a+4 a+4 > c4 and [g4 f4 c4]2 g4 e4 f4 r2.. - raise those up by one semitone.

The guitar samples' loop points are noticeably shaky and somewhat clicky, so to circumvent that a bit, using this function from OpenMPT might be necessary, if you haven't done it already.

Not entirely rejection reasons, but I want to point out:

In addition to that, I think the guitar chords' samples could be rerecorded with a little longer sample length to have more room for a slightly longer loop length, that might help make it a little less shaky as well. Though I'm aware that the ARAM space might be a bit too tight for ROM insertion, so you could remove some vanilla samples like @7 or Thunder to leave just a bit more room. I'll let this be optional.

$F4$02 should be added in the beginning to let the notes flow smoothly. Otherwise, the notes sound slightly short and choppy.

SMAS trumpets are a bit too mellow for them to stand out, I think a slightly brighter trumpet sample might be more useful. Its ADSR release value is a bit too steep as well, they should fade a little slower to let them sustain a little longer.

Some other channels could benefit from enabling echo instead of only one, that would help sound a bit fuller.