[Liontamer]

Remixer Name: Blue.Nocturne
Real Name: Dennis Kim
Email Address: blue_nctrn@yahoo.com
User Id: 22091

Submission Information:
Remix Title: Sacred Flute
Name of game arranged: Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Name of songs arranged: Flute Boy's Ocarina, Main Theme
Link to Original Songs: If it's not in the SPC archive, http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console.../index-gr.html, name of the midi is "Flute Boy's Ocarina"
Additional Comments: "I was browsing through OCR's LoZ remixes and I noticed there wasn't one for the flute boy's song. I thought it kind of iconic and the precursor to the N64's highly involved ocarina system. This song would play around the ghostly image of this strange child which plays a flute in a meadow. He would be surrounded by animals and as you approach, he disappears and the animals run away. This happened only in the Light World, and as you eventually obtain his flute/ocarina, you were able to use it to summon a bird that flies you around the map. Anyways, I decided to be less orchestral in this song, but I ended up being as orchestral as my last remix. I used full Garritan Personal Orchestra for the orchestral elements, FPC for drums, and soundfonts for the guitar work. I also was hit by a major roadblock as I finished the song, FL 8 caused annoying popping noises, but luckily that was solved and I could finally submit this. Anyways I hope you enjoy it, but if not, there's always the next submission."

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

Interesting; wonder why this wasn't in the SPC. Oh well. Checked out a YouTube video and this MIDI is a nice transcription, so let it ride.

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console...da3ocarina.mid - Flute Boy's Ocarina
http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=loz3 - "Overworld" (loz3-04.spc)

The only thing not working, IMO, was the drums up to :44; they ended up sounding too hollow and soft. Afterward, though many of the samples lacked some depth and realism, the textures were clicking a lot more effectively.

Overall, this was some fairly beautiful, flowing writing. The bowed strings sounded a little too thin, and were exposed a few times, but overall the mixing was fairly good. Flourishes like 1:11-1:14 reminded me of Joshua Morse's style of writing.

I felt like the transition to the major key rendition of "Overworld" at 2:22 wasn't smooth at all and took me out of enjoying the mix for a moment, but it resolved somewhat at 2:29. Fairly minor criticism, as the last minute was strong.

Awesome variations of the arranged source tune, excellent instrumental variations, I was feeling this. Even though the samples could have been used a bit more effectively/realistically, what was here was still cohesively put together and pleasing to listen to.

Nice work, Dennis! Keep it up, bro! Your arrangements are pretty strong, and you have the potential to get a lot of pieces posted. Hope we get a resub of your Super Mario Galaxy piece.

YES

[Another Soundscape]

Cool, someone other than me remembers flute boy!

Pretty cool arrangement right of the bat. The bass suffered from poor sound quality when being exposed so much in the left ear at 0:19, I would've prefered a centered bass since it attracts less attention and makes the sound seem more focused. And yes, the drums up until 0:44 is a bit too soft.

Even though most of the instruments (especially the guitar and some of the strings) lack realism, the arrangement is tops. This piece could still use some more mixing though. When overworld enters at 2:22 the string lead is incredibly loud compared to the rest of the piece. Fix this! Some other minor production issues is that it's sometimes very muddy, try adding a TINY bit of high EQ on the master channel to make it brighter. 1:52 also has a fairly loud lead compared to the drums, a little bit of careful balancing of instrument would help. If you avoid panning the bass and maybe pan some other instruments while you're at it I'd be eternally grateful, but it's minor.

While the arrangement is strong, I feel these issues are small but important enough to make this vote conditional. Great piece though, if you work a bit more on your production you will have tons of remixes here in no time :)

YES(conditional on production touch-ups)

[Palpable]

Yeah I really like the arrangement too. You have a great flair for part-writing, Dennis, and this song has a lot of variation and expansion for what is a pretty simple source. Very colorful and picturesque in the use of instruments and chords. I liked the incorporation of the Overworld theme for some contrast.

Production niggles at me a little. There's a part here and there that I think sounds off - the drums sound a little too soft (though the cymbals afterward sound fine), the acoustic guitar at 1:21 is choppy and exposed, the string lead starting at 2:07 is thin and has an unrealistic tone, and at 2:22 the song gets too loud. A bunch of small issues that do add up. Ultimately, I think I'm still calling this a borderline YES. The parts really come together, and the majority of the time the issues are masked. If the arrangement wasn't so strong, I'd probably call this a NO.

YES (borderline)

[Fishy]

This arrangement is really quite nice everything fits together smoothly. Lots of different elements around, I don't think I heard a single instrument group not represented in some way. The introduction in particular worked really well.

Production is obviously where the issues are. Some of the sounds were drastically worse then others in terms of quality. The flutes obviously being great, stuff like the bass was almost MIDI quality. As Vinnie noted, I know a lot of the samples aren't great, but that feels masked somehow, which confuses me. Everything feels dry, so nothing should be hiding it, it just gives the impression that it works together.

Most of the production issues are small but permeate the whole mix, however they didn't make the mix less enjoyable to listen to particularly. I guess the only major issue I had was the very loud strings AnSo mentioned which hes already gone conditional on. I'm going to go boredline YES, and then fixing that for AnSo would seal the deal. I can't wait to hear more from you once your production is spotless.

YES

[zyko]

yeah this is pretty freakin awesome.

right about flute boy... very much the precursor for much of what zelda would do musically for the upcoming games. kudos for tackling this.

the arrangement is somethin else. i think that is what is most impressive here... what is obvious here is that you have a very firm sense of what the basis of the theme's music is as you took a very simple source and expanded it based on a standard zelda chord structure... you even quoted the overworld themes and, i could swear, a couple other ones in there as well.

instrumentally, the decision to go with this orchestration is good. how they're mixed, not so much. the bass should be centered... it's much easier to listen to that way... especially since, as anso pointed out, it sounds exposed in one channel. secondly, the strings and guitar REALLY lack realism... this track is so amazing otherwise, you don't want something like that disengaging your listener. it gets a little stuffy around the middle of your EQ so brightening it up a bit can help ya

this is very close. the arrangement right now is carrying this track because the instruments themselves are not.

YEScond.