*NO* Final Fantasy 10 'Dreams of Death'

Your ReMixer name: Brandon Strader

Your real name: Brandon E. Strader

Your email address: oinkness@gmail.com

Your website: http://brandon.rainwound.com/

Your userid: 3123

Name of game(s) arranged: Final Fantasy X

Name of individual song(s) arranged: Otherworld

Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

Flag: This is a Project Track

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind

it, how it was made, etc:

I was looking for an excuse to make some death metal, so I hopped on

the BadAss Boss themes project and produced Dreams of Death, a heavier

remix of 'Otherworld'. Most people recognize it from the beginning of

the game during the opening blitzball cinematic, but it is also the *spoiler alert*

boss theme for Jecht near the end of the game.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OONqel6f_8M

I can see how you wanted to take this track and make it more extreme. The vocals are a step in this direction, and there is a lot of added percussion (double-bass pedal, anyone?). I have to say though, that this is holding the same problem I had with the NiGHTS track. The source is there, but it's being so obscured by A-some balance issues, B-some added notes to the chords, and C-some extra 'chugging' on each note. I'm not saying that either B or C is necessarily bad, but somehow this combination makes the song not sound very much like the original. If I didn't recognize the lyrics, I would have not made the connection to Otherworld on the first listen. A possible solution is to work into the more obscured version by playing a little closer to the source and adding new elements as you.

The bass needs to be heard a little more clearly overall. The vocals to drums balance is pretty good. Personally I'm not feeling the guitar solos; they feel a little off-kilt to me, but I am not a guitar player, so hopefully one of those judges will ring in with some ways to improve that.

I think this needs some work, especially in balance and clarifying the source a bit.

NO

I think the main issue is the tone of the rhythm guitar and bass are both a little muddy and need some more mid tone to them. Compare your track with the recently posted Sixto track, and you can tell the pitch of everything much easier, regardless of listening setup. The genres are slightly different, but being able to hear pitch is crucial for every genre of music.

Doing a slight EQ cut from your DAW, and then adjusting the tone to have more mid on your amp before recording would really help things out. THe drums are also pretty overpowering to the rest of the mix, but i think having a less scooped sound would naturally balance things out a bit more. The lead guitar tone was decent, if a little low-mid heavy, and the playing was fine. There were a few minor intonation issues early on in the first solo, where it got a little sharp, but nothing to cry about. The shredding got a little sloppy in some parts, but that may have also been because of the low mid overtones. Hard to tell either way.

I do think the death vox were a lot stronger than the ones in the actual source track, so props there. The original vocalist sounded like a poser wimp covered by studio distortion, and you bring some real grit to the main part.

The arrangement was pretty decent, IMO, as I could hear the original, though modified pretty strongly for over half. No issues there for me.

This is close for me, but I do think getting a more balance rhythm tone is important, so I'm gonna ask for you to fix it up. It's almost there though.

No, please resubmit

OA hit it dead-on, the pitches are really hard to make out because of the way this is EQed. For a while, I thought the vocals were the only tie, until I listened closely and noticed you are using sped-up riffs from the original in some places. That tie needs to be stronger so I suggest taking OA's tips for improving this (I don't have much to add as I don't have much experience with that kind of guitar). With a solidified connection, I think this would be postable. Keep on it!

NO (resubmit)