*NO* Final Fantasy 4 & 13 'Eclipse'

Avaris

Shaun Wallace

NEW Website: http://sonic-elements.com/

Song:

Title:

Eclipse

(Categorize it under FFIV)

Sources:

FFIV - Cry in Sorrow

FFXIII - Sazh's Theme

Made this track for the Final Fantasy Crystal Clash compo:

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45311

This was an insanely hard song to integrate the two themes. Sazh's theme was converted from 11/8 into 4/4. There are also some complex sections music theory wise. Fro example the legato passages in Sazh's theme. I used the FFIV theme as a basis to integrate Sazh's theme. These integrations and ideas then had to be arranged to fit 16 to 32 bar sections of a dance track.

In the beginning this song was difficult to write, but as it came together I actually really started to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Sazh's theme has such a catchy bass line. Its quirky melodies worked well juxtaposed to the somber melancholic themes of Cry in Sorrow. In the end it was a track I felt was enhanced by the integration of the two themes instead of crippled.

Happy holidays!

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Cry:

Sazh:

That's a thick beat. I remember this track from FFCC, I still like it, dat beat!

There are some areas of the arrangement where the Cry in Sorrow source is pretty ambient, where I feel like the harmonies don't quite work, such as 0:33-0:48. The theme seems to get smeared at this point since not every note is played (as it is being played by a slow-attack pad) and the pad notes conflict with the bass notes occasionally in this section too.

Pretty slick integration of the Sazh bassline starting from 0:48 though, nice. You've added in that bassline in a really nice and subtle way in this track.

From 1:03-2:02 the Cry in Sorrow theme is really liberal and only represented by it's arp pattern, I wish the melody were represented here at least once, that's a long stretch. The Sazh bassline is there, though, well done. At 2:02 when the melody does come back, the harmonies again don't quite work. It's the pad that's the problem I think.

From 2:31-4:00 , again the Cry in Sorrow source is minimized just to the backing source arp. Lots of cool original soloing here along with the arp, and the bassline is harder to follow here... until 2:47, I love how you integrated and interpreted the Sazh bassline here. At 4:00 the harmonies are wonky yet again.

The mixing feels midrange crowded with the pad competing in the range for the leads and the upper end of the bass. The pad is the biggest problem, I recommend notching some frequencies out of the pad to let the lead timbres and bass buzz come through. The drums are really nice (and dat beat!) but that same transition drum pattern appears quite a few times, and that final repetition of this pattern at 4:27 isn't needed at all imo. Wide panned hats could use a touch of reverb.

Source use is plenty, it is surprisingly subtle yet works very well. If the mixing were cleaned up somewhat, making room in the middle for leads/bass crunch, the production would be there for me. This is smartly written and I really like the arrangement and the blending of themes. I hate to do this but I really think one more mixing cleanup would make this so much better. Notch that pad at 2-4KHz (and possibly reduce some higher frequencies too), take a look at some of the bass notes at 0:33-0:48 to make sure they compliment the pad writing, ok?

NO (extremely borderline) (resub quickly please)

I hate to be glib, but I just didn't have any huge problems with this. There were some areas where I was like "those notes got... weird", like the synth leads from 2:31-2:46 & 3:30-3:59, but those sections resolved well enough and weren't dealbreakers. Still, you've gotta try to make that stuff have more direction; that writing doesn't flow well at all.

"Sazh's Theme" was more of a background afterthought, and I didn't think it was particularly well integrated; the usage of it wasn't poor, it just didn't have any synergy with the other source; honestly, on the second listen, I just didn't notice it.

That said, I definitely liked the treatment of "Cry in Sorrow" a lot. The groove was strong, and the production was clean and balanced. On the whole, it gets a lot more right than wrong. I gotta run with it.

YES

There are some REALLY weird things going on harmonically here. I feel like you're not matching the chords up with what's going on in your background arp at certain points, and it sounds off.

Some odd sound design choices too. I mean it's all produced well enough, but the synths and pads you've chosen are so smeary and mushy at times that things sort of meld together. There's also some pretty boring lead writing going on. It feels like the lead is just hitting some notes for the sake of hitting some notes, but I'm not really feeling any kind of melodic expression on the original stuff.

Not really feeling this at all. Not sure what else to say. NO

I'm familiar with Cry in Sorrow, not so much with Sazh's theme... after listening to the latter, I came away with a bit more of an appreciation for your approach here. That's DEFINITELY not an easy source to work with.

I actually really love the deep house groove you have, and how the overall arrangement flows. It ebbs and flows in a very pleasant, club-friendly way. Lots of very cool backing writing and rhythmic synthwork across the board. The mixing issues actually aren't the dealbreaker for me - I think it works for the style you're going for save for a few places. Could it stand to be EQ'd more cleanly? Sure, but that's not what really bothered me about this piece.

Shariq touched on this and I have to reiterate that I really don't think the lead synths work for this track. From the onset, none of the lead patches are very expressive, and some (such as the one that appears at 2:02 and elsewhere throughout the song) are thin and quite frankly, not very interesting. The writing writing itself doesn't always jive with the rest of the arrangement, and feels almost like a placeholder that just hovers over the track doing it's own thing a lot of the time. I would recommend revisiting that part of the track and experimenting with some other lead patches

As I said earlier, for the most part I like your pacing here, but I found 2:32 - 2:46 to be pretty jarring. There isn't enough of a noticeable drop or transition for it to really feel like a breakdown, so it just comes across as an untimely break in the beat at a time when it seemed ready to settle into a groove for a while.

Kristina caught onto the issue with the drumfill and I have to agree that it felt pasted in toward the end. It works, but because of how different it is from the rest of your instruments, it's really noticeable how often it repeats throughout the arrangement.

Really dude, I think this has a lot of potential, but I don't think this has had enough time to incubate and develop... I would love to see you take another pass at this when you don't have the pressure of a competition looming, so you can better assess what's working and what's not here.

Would love to see a resub, but for me, it's a

NO(resubmit!)

Pretty much on track with Kris' vote here. There's definitely some harmonies that need to be worked out, to begin with, and I agree that the mixing feels like it's a bit too mid crowded. On headphones the bass felt like it didn't have a huge presence as well, so trying to beef that up a bit might be good. You definitely had a tough couple themes to work with, and I really like the approach you went for here. I think it still needs a bit more finesse, and Kris, Shariq, and Wes gave some great crits.

Love to hear this again!

NO (resubmit)