[djpretzel]

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

[The Xyco]

I'm digging the vocal sample motif here, it conveys that ominous, frightening feeling associated with the original. I'm sure that's where alot of people may be turned on or off with this mix. I feel that, although maybe not the best sounding vocals per se, they add a whole new level of tone to the piece as a whole.

The rhythm is awesome. Very powerful, teetering on the edge of overpowering, but not yet falling off. Very cool.

The end seemed to come kind of abruptly. I was waiting for a second section with the piano, but then it seemed to drift off.

Overall, a great mix. The arrangement is solid and cohesive. If anything I'd say all the power built in the second minute doesn't leave room for a big kicker at or near the end. Nonetheless, this mix is totally rad. Very powerful and dramatic. Glad to see such an impressive mix made from such a repetitve track.

[Rexy]

Ah, more PriZm-y goodness and the site's first Xenosaga mix to boot. :) First of all I want to say congrats for what he has done in getting the mix onto the site - that's showing that with his second submissin he's become a firm establishment right across the community as far as the audience can see.

For full emphasis i'll quote my VGMix review when it comes to sharing my thoughts behind all this :-

Production techniques
PriZm has adapted to a track that has intertwined chilled electronica with some moody rock, which I feel has done well to expressive his emotive side. Panning has been expressed far enough to distinguish the instrumentation as well as applying various pan shifting techniques to add to a deviated feel upon the audience. The instruments chosen are of a very strong quality as a whole most notably with the recorded guitar and the piano, synth pad and string sounds - can't say much about the tones of the other sounds but their general sustain, distortion and delay based manipulations have worked to add to a good amount of feel to them. The mastering has been perfected to an epic quality - nothing much I can fault in that area at all, even on the sides of EQ frequencies for the specific sounds. As a whole I can say I'm impressed with the setting as a whole - very different from what I witnessed with Bowser is Pissed, but still pretty much likeable.

Compositional structure
The track started off with some light ambient noise - sounded more like a human cry from this angle - before emerging into a good amount of reflective synth work. These textures then built themselves into a steady 7/8 march by 0:26, steadily building the textures firmly enough for the next section in line. I found the voice clips at 0:23 to be well established here, although if there's something that could be stated here it'll be towards the general quality of the clips - I ended up detecting a light amount of hiss on them. A good way of wanting to eradicate some of it would include to try and EQ the frequencies out, or maybe to apply a light half-second fade in at the start of the file and a similar length fade out at the end. As a whole, the audience should be in for some great foundations for the intro.

At 0:46 the melody line is shown on a female soprano voice - very reflective choice to be able to add to the more reflective provisions for the target game itself. Its similarities to the original have done well to link the listener strongly with it - one that I felt has managed to grab a hold upon the audience on first glance. I for one am not quite sure about some of the downward pitch bends upon the voice, but that's probably me; I found this to be well accomplished as a whole regardless.

1:57 then brought in a light break in the music, with light cameos for the riff for "Song of Nephelim" making their call and response formations upon the piano and oboe respectively. This in turn managed to lead into a solo portion on the guitar at 2:17 going on top of the piano melody line, and it's here that its Eye-of-the-Tiger-inspired motions have done well to add a more aggressive motion than what has previously been witnessed. In fact, its aggression was shown to be a bit of a jump from what has previously been witnessed in the mix, but outside from that light aspect we are in for some firm provisions as a whole here.

Then came the 3-minute mark, where the aggressive tone was maintained in time for a key change and the melody's re-entrance. Here, the provisions have worked well to portray a more angry side to the source material, which I for one have managed to appreciate strongly here as a whole. I for one saw this as a very worthy climax as a whole - it can be argued that there wasn't much variance from the version of the melody from 0:56, but it is still broad enough to maintain the audience's interest.

Finally it's from 4:02 that the aggressive tone has continued on to the end, but if you listen closely you'd see the guitars fading into the light synth and piano accompaniment for the end. The piano notation has added a good amount of feel at that aspect, and it could have finished with their note at the end there. But it still continued on with a light reference to Song of Nephelim at the end - I feel the intensions there, although I feel it would work a bit better if it was brought in the same key as the rest of the accompaniment. So naturally, I found that part to be out-of-place with the rest of the section, but otherwise this has worked.

As far as i'm concerned I actually digged a lot of the components that came together, and I found it to be one of the cooler mixes that managed to come out of the community on first exposure. I now understand where he's coming from with the ending sequence after he explained it to the judges, although it still feels a bit unsatisfactory in its execution; plus, EQ-ing out some of the hiss on the sound clips could help make them stand out a little bit better for what they were worth.

But those are just two minor grips that I've had with a rather spectacular addition towards the site. Well done PriZm, and best of luck in future works and the judges' coordination on "A Star Freezes Over". ;)

[Azure Prower]

I got nothing intelligent to say, other than this mix kicks ass.

Trust me, I listen to almost all the mixes on this site. I like alot of them, but I only post on the really good ones. Feel proud of yourself PriZm.

[Being]

Prizm really outdoes himself yet again, and the best part is that it's with a game that hadn't been remixed thus far.

[Hawke Edge]

Awesome stuff. Very.. pseudo-mellow while not exactly hardcore to the edge.

But, it brings back memories vaguely of Xenosaga - a gbame that certainly needs more music than a mere battle theme and cinematatic melodies.

In any event, this song - translated as "Another Departure" - will keep you to your seat.. or at least near your radio.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

HAHA! Nice work, PriZm. To be honest, I found the WIP version of this far less impressive than "bowser is pissed," but now that I hear the finished version, this is definitely one of my favorites. Great job!

[myf]

Finally.

[PriZm]

thanks y'all for the reviews.

Just to clear things up a bit, the female vocals were recorded in my basement by a soprano singer called Leonie who happens to be a very good friend of mine (of, if you want, a really good friend of mine who happens to be a soprano singer). They weren't sampled or anything, and all the gear I had was my Shure SM57 and Behringer UB802.

[Rexy]

Well I can say I was fine with the singing, which seemed to blend in well in creating that haunting feel to it; it was just the talky bits in the intro that made me think that they could have been from the game given the rather different encoding quality taken through. O.o

Still appreciating the decisions taken, I assure you. ;)