OCR01341 - *YES* Secret of Mana 'On the Day the World Changed'

[djpretzel]

Prog rockish, no? Neat.


The song:
(Could it be possible that I know when the song has been downloaded ? I only have 10mb of space and since I use it regularly, this will be taking much space. If not, no problem.)

CPacaud, ktriton, MAG
Christian Pacaud, Kunal Majmudar, Marc-André Gingras
cpacaud@saint-studios.com
http://www.soundclick.com/christianpacaud ; http://www.ktriton.com ; http://www.magproject.com

Secret of Mana
The Boy Aims for Wild Fields, The Holy Intruder, Danger, Steel and Traps, Meridian Dance

(I'm pasting the comments from the VGMix page, I'm lazy:)

CPacaud: After two months of intense work, sweat and tears, we humbly bring you this (freaking long) Secret of Mana medley, symphonic prog-rock style. Limbs were lost, blisters had (on the remaining limbs/fingers), strings broken, minds shattered, what have you...

Anyway, seriously, this mix is comprised of five separate parts, each with their own different ambience, based on different songs / combination of songs from the soundtrack, with quite a lot of original material interspersed throughout the piece. Every instrument has an opportunity to shine through at some point. You get the solos, you get the synths, you get the length, even the name is "prog" ! OMG !!!11!! (The original title for the song was to be Journey Into Gaia's Navel On The Day The World Changed - Part I, but that seemed kinda long.)

ktriton: Christian had posted a very early WIP of this on the OneUp Studios forum almost two months ago. When I heard it, I immediately contacted him with the hope that I could at the very least donate a few ideas to this clever and utterly kick-ass starting point. I wanted to hear a quality progressive rock remix that I could enjoy not only for nostalgia value, but on its own, as a great song. Well, Christian and I plotted and we planned. I donated ideas and Christian humoured me for the first few swaps by implementing them. Soon, however, we realized that we had this great synergy going for us and before we knew it, a seven-minute medley was produced. I really hope you guys all enjoy this (and hopefully you won’t be able to tell which parts are mine and which parts are Christian’s) !


Christian Pacaud : Guitars, Bass, Programming (Drums & Synths)
Kunal Majmudar : Synths

Very special thanks to (we bow to your greatness, seriously !):
Marc-André Gingras : Guitars (solo at 4:34)

[Liontamer]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd2.rsn - "Into the Thick of It" (sd2-06-1.spc) [:00-1:37, then backing chords until 2:11], "The Holy Intruder" (sd2-13.spc) [2:22-3:50], "Danger" (sd2-19.spc) [4:19-4:33],
"Meridian Dance" (sd2-41.spc) [4:33-5:08], "Angel's Fear" (sd2-01.spc) [5:35-7:02]
(Bah, I don't even know how the times really matched up beyond "The Holy Intruder"; arrangement's obviously fine though)

For the bad: Light, crackly audio deformations at 2:05, 2:15-2:50 & 4:32. Probably some other places. Watch out for 'em.

For the good: Not really gonna "waste" too much time on a analysis of the track, because this was awesome shit. My only significant exposure to progressive rock is from Dream Theater thanks to Jared Hudson as well as Mitch Owings, the first tech director at WMRE, but I'm a big fan of their material and this mix really does offer something unique to the community.

Christian's always got some good material on this front, and bringing back Marc-André was definitely a strong move. Collabing with ktriton was a great call. All of the live & synth instrumentation meshed together nicely, and I was really impressed with the entire package. Played the mix on VGF50 (http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.10550) and had been looking forward to it hitting the panel.

This definitely compared favorably to Dream Theater's material on the structure, performance and energy level. The transitions were SO good; definitely genuine to the genre and very stylish. At a hefty 7:17 with never a dull moment, I could loop this for hours at a time.

While this obviously doesn't sound as crisp and clear as a profressionally produced track, I just have to also point out that the production was really strong and showed through very favorably despite such a relatively low bitrate (114kbps VBR). As long as artists can encode their material and keep it under 6MB without sacrificing sound quality, definitely feel free to go for lengthy pieces such as this one.

Kunal & Christian are definitely two reasons why OneUp Studios' recent album, Xenogears Light (http://oneupstudios.com/albums.php?show=6), was a creative success, as they were an integral part of the performance process for most of the CD.

The conception here was lofty, but the execution was up for the challenge. Do your videogame music-hating friends a favor and pimp this their way. Excellent job, Kunal, Christian & Marc-André; keep 'em coming!

YES

[Vig]

The worst thing about this song is the encoding, which absolutely doesnt do the song justice. The song rocks, the performances are terrific, however i do feel that medleyitis afflicts the flow of the song. a bit too much jumping around; i would have liked to hear fewer songs further explored.

however, there's no reason to say NO, so,

er,

YES

[GrayLightning]

I agree with the others, main problem here is lack of exploration as it tends to jump around a lot. However, this isn't really a big issue. In some instances, and indeed this context, I think it works. There's a feeling of constant movement throughout this whole mix.

Arrangement is very good, performances are tite. Production is good, no complaints, except for the encoding.

High quality work and an easy YES.

[DarkeSword]

Will probably have to hit up some other place like the VGMix or something to get a better encode of this song (personally I don't think it's that bad at all), but yeah, this song great. Some really solid performances here; check out 1:38 with the crazy fast syncopation; lesser men would flub that line into a mishmash jumble of something-or-other, but not here; it's an excellently executed rhythmic line that locks together throughout the ensemble. ROCK.

There's a little medleyitis, like Jesse mentioned, but the transitions work well enough.

Nice varying texture thoughout, great production too. The entire ensemble is great.

Can't say nothin but YES (ohno doublenegative?).