*NO* Final Fantasy 6 'Daylight (Part I)'

[djpretzel]

Contact Info:

Remixer Name: Xerol
Real Name: Xerol Oplan
Email address: xerol@lggaming.com / xerol3@yahoo.com *
Website: http://www.lggaming.com (Main Page) http://www.lggaming.com/user/xerol (Personal folder)
ForumID: 9335

Remix Info:

Name of Game(s): Final Fantasy VI
Name of Individual Song(s): Terra's Theme
Link: **

Special notes:
*First email is work email, second is the one I use for forums. Either one works, I just check the first one more often.
**Our server doesn't allow Parenthesis in filenames.
The filename was supposed to be
...Daylight(Part_1)_... but I couldn't upload it because it didn't allow the parenthesis.


So, this is a remix of Terra's Theme(I can hear the groans already). I decided, however, instead of concentrating on the melody, to develop and bring out the progression and arrangement behind the main melody. The song has 5 sections, each with the main melody repeating, but differing variations on the rest of it throughout, including several mid-stream key-changes(between sections) and a gradual tempo increase throughout the whole piece.
It's Part 1 because it's part of the "soundtrack" to a short FFVI movie project I'm doing on the side(on top of the 45 other projects I'm involved in). Part 2 is Celes' theme, and then after that it develops into a combined arrangement of Terra, Celes, and the Figaro Castle themes in Parts 3, 4, 5, and 6, and finishes up with a Prelude + Figaro thing for Part 7. Parts 2-6 are meant as more of background music, however, and I won't be submitting those even after I finish them, but I might consider Part 7.
The song was arranged in Finale, from there I took it to FL and applied soundfonts and effects, and finalised in Cool Edit.

(Oh, and if any of this seems incoherent, it's because I haven't been to sleep yet.)

[Vig]

hmm...you "focused on the progression" and yet you oversimplified it. the 1 chord comes in too early, the 6 should be added. at any rate, the mp3 is really fucked up and rewinds to the beginning in the middle. anyone else having this problem?

[Digital Coma]

Redownload it. It just repeats a lot.

Delay on piano playing melody gets old. Strings sit in their sonic space like a brick of molasses. Very dry, airy mixing. Some attempts at changing chord progression made, but none are very good. Stock and boring interpretation.

NO

[Malcos]

The instruments here sound very dry, and as a result I don't feel drawn into the mix at all. That violin sample and the way it was used sounds nasty. At 4.17 when the reed instrument suddenly cuts off, that sounded pretty bad, reverb could have softened that.

In addition, the fact that this was encoded at 22khz doesn't help. Overall this is an unremarkable interpretation, and not up to OC standards.

NO

[Israfel]

This is an automatic reject, unfortunately. The encode is of extremely low quality, there's no reason for it to be 22 kHz. Very tinny quality to the sound.

NO

[The wingless]

Too repetative
Wonky sound quality
Delay on the melody (aka the "echo" effect) wears out it's welcome.
It needs something beyond the frail ornaments tacked on to it, be it a fuller sound, more interesting/daring variations, less repetition of the theme. Take your pick.

No

SUCCINCT!

[Liontamer]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc)

There are gamer geeks out there who have said that this theme literally touched their heart. Ugh. I hate Terra's theme. I wish people wouldn't arrange the first part and try out some of the stuff from 1:18-1:50 of the theme in there, but they never do. Not that that section is anything great anyway. The handling of just the Terra melody is too straightforward for my tastes; no one ever takes any genuine risks with it because it's so perfect or whatever. Don't get me wrong, you have cool some delay/echo effects (though it does indeed wear out it's welcome) as well a ton of expansive addtions in instrumentation. Handling this arrangement via the expansion route turned out really well here and, on that level, almost qualifies as something I'd accept as a more straightforward arrangement.

If the production was better (22khz ain't where it should be), the reverb was toned down, and the structure of arrangement had more variation and development, this would have more of a chance. Whatever woodwind sample comes in at 2:00 sounds pretty artificial, so do what you can to address that issue, by the way. The muddiness of the track obscures some of the more delicate sounding elements and messes with the balance of sounds. There was some further building of the theme during the addition iterations at 2:50 & 3:40, but aside from the added instruments there was nothing new in the arrangement. The mix turns out boring about halfway through and unengaging overall as a result. Keep at it, Xerol, and keep improving your game. You're coming along I can hear, but this needs a lot more attention to production as well as crucial work in keeping the arrangement ideas fresh. Just wanted to give some more feedback on the arrangement, so you have a little more to work with.

NO