OCR01318 - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening 'Symphonic Ballade'

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[LethalPtarmigan]

Woot! First review!

I've been a huge fan of both the source material in general and this remix of Blad's for quite some time, and I'm finally glad to see it get its due on OCR! Congrats Blad!

[jordex]

Wow, Blad's got these songs coming in on an assembly line and nice to see he's been working with well-known GrayLightning on this one, also nice to see its from Link's Awakening

Now, this song's very quiet and beautiful. It's soothing to the ear something I'ld listen too on those days where I just want to get away

Excellent song, Bladiator and GrayLightning!

[HyperZell]

Unbelievable. Arguably (certainly in my opinion) the best song to come out of Link's Awakening, Ballad Of The Windfish has been given the royal treatment with this mix. Definitely a wonderful accomplishment, the effort and feeling really shows in the song - can't wait to hear more from the artists.

[analoq]

glad to see/hear the quasi-collab worked out, guys.
cheers.

[SirRus]

This is delicious! Wonderfully crafted, I can feel Karl's emotion and Gray's expertise melded to make this excellent final product. Great job both of you!

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

Hmmm,

Sorry guys this one just doesn't quite resonate well with me. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge of the source tune, maybe it's the soundfonts, maybe it's the way that the progression went... it just didn't quite hit home for me.

Blad I've heard better out of you and I only expect better to come.

That said, this is truely a beautiful piece outside of my preferences. There are some beautiful moments namely the rise & decline around the 3 minute mark, and there wasn't a note that felt specifically out of place or low quality. It's a well done piece, and worth the effort put into it. Any fan of the game will love this I'm sure. But from what I know you two to be capable of, it doesn't sound like it took you guys that long really.

7/10

[Fieari]

It may not resonate with LAOS, but it certainly resonates with me.

Not having read djpretz's write up before listening to it, I had no expectations at all, esspecially after not really enjoying the previous mix released (death metal isn't my thing). And so right from the get go I was startled, shocked by the sound quality and I liked what I heard. My expectations were low, but those expectations were exceeded above and beyond what I've been listening a lot to recently.

This is great piano playing. The beginning has a faint "lounge" feel to it more than an orchestral feel, what with the bass (or cello?) backdrop. It doesn't last long though... when more instruments come in, well, I wouldn't call it ORCHESTRAL but it certainly is pretty. Just what I'm looking for in a good mix.

The instrumentation really rings in my ears. If I listen carefully, yes, I can tell that these are soundfonts and not live instruments (well, the piano sounds darn convincing, but the rest is slightly recognizable as being generated and not played) but there's no real need to go in that much depth of detail listening to this, I think. I can sit back and ENJOY. And enjoy I am doing!

This is a FINE rendition. Everything just FITS together so well! I'm definitely glad that the collaberation was done, because I'd hate to have to listen to this with a fantastic piano and lackluster backup. Very good stuff. The call and responce sections worked well for me. The entire thing is VERY well emoted. I'm having difficulty picking out any specific section to talk about, because it's all so good.

Well done. I enjoyed this VERY much, and I look forewards to hearing more out of you.

[Sinewav]

Only on OCR can you have a pure screaming death metal piece followed by a beautiful piano-driven orchestral piece. That's what I love about this site. This is likely to be one of my new favorites. 9.7/10ish.

[Txai]

glad to see/hear the quasi-collab worked out, guys.
cheers.

This guy is always funny.

--------------------------

In my opinion, it´s so good. A bit ackward maybe. Huh...in the truth, my ears disagree about the quality of this mix. I don´t like this work for some reason.

Bladiator and GrayLightning are good mixers. But I really don´t understand what happened with this stuff. It´s not good for me. I really don´t enjoyed it. Sorry.

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

Only on OCR can you have a pure screaming death metal piece followed by a beautiful piano-driven orchestral piece.

Agreed... even if you don't like 90% of the stuff on OCR you have to hand it to the community for being diverse; it's a site for music lovers all around.

Okay, I've now listened to this song over 10 times and I've heard a midi of the original, and I've heard the 'dry-er' bladiator original, and I've reached a conclusion about what doesn't sit right with me on this piece. It's the melody in general, it doesn't go where I'd like it too. It's a stupid reason to get caught up on considering how beautifully it's executed, but I have a problem with the orchestration of the original in general. After hearing the original midi I far more easily heard it becoming a dance piece of sorts.

But meh, that's preference.

Let's look at it this way, I've got a great little obscure metaphor to explain my feelings about this track:

Think of it as one of those white dandelions in a field, you know; one of these:

http://www.wanlibk.com/read/images/4-dandelion.jpg

most will look at this and either say: "it's a weed" or: "look it's a beautiful flower". For some reason with this piece, I'm saying: "I wonder where the seeds would've gone if there was more wind." But that's more the fault of the source material than the remix.

Gah, I'll just shut up, I'm sure I'm not helping anyone's self-esteem. It's a great piece, and the 3 minute mark is really touching, but it's not one of my favourites... and maybe that's just because I don't think it holds a candle to any of your other masterpieces.

[GrayLightning]

That's cool, you're entitled to your opinion. Nothing wrong with that. Thanks for the clarification LAOS. :)

Personally I fell in love with how blad originally did this mix, and I wanted to help in some form by helping add in the instrumentation, orchestration and production of the mix.

I really enjoyed working with bladiator on this one quite a bit. Thanks for the comments everyone.

[Shhteve]

Hey Gray! I'm talking to you right now about this mix, you already know how I feel about it. It rocks a hundred times over, and I've been anticipating this track to be mixed for a looong time.

[DragonFlame]

The origional song from the game itself happened to be one of my favorite tunes of all time, not exactly for its quality but just for it itself. This remix really brings it home for me I love a lot of the things that has been done to it, just very nice work. Allthough some parts kinda didn't like but overall though it was pretty good.

Good job.

[Harmony]

The tone of that piano is really wonderful. I'm listening to it now and it's the beautifully soulful heart of amazing orchestral work. Bravo Blad and Gray.

[moIto pene]

This piece, i must say, is really touching to the heart. It's melody is peaceful, yet beatiful. During the first three minutes, it soothed my heart, making me feel peaceful, and when the climax at 3 00 occured, i really felt touched.
Bravo to you two for the mix.
Bravo indeed.

[mattatafish]

this is one of the most, truly, beautiful remixes i've hurd. almost had me in tears at the climax. very well done, bravo indeed.

[Fridge]

I've had the older version for a bit now (guess it was on VGMix?), and actually really enjoyed it... but I couldn't help noting the recessed volume of the whole piece, and of the accompaniment parts especially, as well as a great disparity in quality between the two. The piece was already gorgeous, but I would always have 'sound issues' in the back of my mind while I listened. The better dynamic effects going on between the piano and backdrop (especially in the strings and the, I think, chimes) also helped a LOT to ease some of the boredom and melancholy that seemed to set in around the 2/3 mark of Blad's original. So I'll just say thanks to Bladiator for arranging/executing a beautiful bit of musical candy, and to Gray for polishing it up til it shined bright. Love the work, hope to hear more in the future...

[Riccardo_Margiotta]

Ballade of the Windfish has always been my favourite piece of music from the Zelda series (although admittedly it has a lot of close competition!), and the two of your have created a simply fantastic remix of it here. It sounds superb, thank you for sharing it!

[FinalTrigger85]

Personally I felt the piece was good but I would have preffered it be more of an epic piece rather than a bit of a lethargic piece. This Zelda has always been a personal favorite of mine. Yes I thought it was better than ocarina of time. Everyone needs to get off that games Di-...well you know. But great Job guys. It was still a great stroll through memory lane. It would be cool if you can do a more ubpeat version of it. Give it a shot maybe?

[chibi_d]

Thank you so much for this remix. I remember everytime I'd play through the game I'd stop, put on headphones. and let nothing else come in the way. This song gives me the same feeling.

On a seperate note, just at 1:07 or so, is there a bit of the classic final fantasy world song? I want to make sure that wasn't just me...

[Insane2757]

I am listening to this music right now, and I have to say - this is a very nice, relaxing mix. It combines a very eloquent piano rifts and other instruments to really get you in the mood to lay back and reflect on the day's events in peace.

If you like slow, relaxing pieces, you should give this one a listen!

[bladiator]

On a seperate note, just at 1:07 or so, is there a bit of the classic final fantasy world song? I want to make sure that wasn't just me...

It's not just you. ;) It just seemed to fit back when I wrote it ... almost an homage to another great game soundtrack.

[Teliskopic]

This is beautiful stuff, I love your piano playing and the instruments really support it well. Another song that makes me feel sad... well the game was sad too, so why not? Okay, maybe the word is sentimental. It's dream-like in itself and you could just float...

[hobo]

This game was my first real venture into the world of Nintendo, and remains one of my favorites to this day.
All I can say about this remix is:

Wow.

[SynthesizedStampede]

I've had the WIP version for a long time now, and have downloaded this version, the complete version, in hope of it being as good as the WIP one. This one has surpassed it in so many levels. Although the tune is close to the one I heard before, there are little things added that keeps it feeling "magical". The Ballad of the Wind Fish is my second favorite Zelda song (Tal Tal Heights is the first), and "Symphonic Ballad" does it justice. Beautiful work, 8/10.

[KogeJoe]

This was kind of BLAH...

Not to mention the sudden and only variation in the melody really annoyed the fuck out of me.

If you're going to variate, variate. But please don't fuck up the original melody just cuz you thought "it'd be cute..." Like, it was annoying to hear the melody like it does in the game and then "fwoop!" It's different in this ONE place, the rest is verbatim.

Over all a real boring arrangement.

[bladiator]

This was kind of BLAH...

Not to mention the sudden and only variation in the melody really annoyed the fuck out of me.

If you're going to variate, variate. But please don't fuck up the original melody just cuz you thought "it'd be cute..." Like, it was annoying to hear the melody like it does in the game and then "fwoop!" It's different in this ONE place, the rest is verbatim.

Over all a real boring arrangement.

I was going to say something, but I don't really remember now. You're right. It's pretty boring.

[Trenthian]

shut up blad and contact me, I want you for T-ROOT

[GreyMage]

personally, it was very good and calming overall. i just cannot resist the ballad of the windfish when i get the chance to hear it
how you remixed it was very creative. the windfish theme sounded like how any fan of the song would want to hear it.

the only fault is that, well, it just didn't excalty sound...together. i dont know how i can give you advice to move things around just a little bit, but its possible that you could tweak it and add/subtract to the piece so that it wouldn't just sound like the everyday remix.

it's well done, but i know it has the potential to improve

[Liontamer]

This was kind of BLAH...

Not to mention the sudden and only variation in the melody really annoyed the fuck out of me.

If you're going to variate, variate. But please don't fuck up the original melody just cuz you thought "it'd be cute..." Like, it was annoying to hear the melody like it does in the game and then "fwoop!" It's different in this ONE place, the rest is verbatim.

Over all a real boring arrangement.

Hahaha! Thank God we banned this douche. :lol:

Excellent, relaxing piece. The main woodwind lacks realism, but the rest of the this was put together nicely.

Pretty sweet that we followed up CV2 "Cursed Bloodline" with this. It's a fun contrast. Because, you know, "we're biased against all genres", and all that.

[OA]

wow, epic collab here, very emotive work, and the delicate backing track is a perfect fit with Karl's piano skills. I agree with Larry that the woodwind lead is a little too computerized, but overall, this mix gets top marks for setting a mood and drawing the listener in. A really nice new age sound that is both relaxing and inspiring.