[Liontamer]

title: At First Innocence
remixer: zyko
game: Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2)
released: 1995 by Square
composer: Hiroki Kikuta
system: SNES

remix of the track, Innocent Sea
enjoy.

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http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sd3 - "Innocent Sea" (sd3-1-14.spc)

Opened all weird for the first few seconds, with the woodwinds sounding like random flubs at first. Source came right in at :09 on da geetar with some nice harmonization shortly after. Trippy weed vocals around :47 before some SNES-style melodic instrumentation came in at 1:04. The mix of organic and synthetic elements worked nicely, and the arrangement built off the flexible base of the original very nicely as well. The simplicity of the source allowed weed to go in a lot of directions with this one. The woodwind sounded synthetic, but not bone dry which helped it blend better with the other instrumentation.

The time/tempo change from 3:39-3:46 felt really awkward, but otherwise moved back into another nice iteration of the original closed out with some brief vocals. Good expansion and evolution of the source with the arrangement here. Hard to come to grips with on the first listen due to seeming so unorthodox and meandering, much like ktriton's Wild ARMs 2 mix for example. Yet, much like Kunal's work, this was well made and engaging.

YES

[pixietricks]

Okay, I absolutely love the ideas you have going on here. This mix reminds me a lot of the music from Laputa: Castle in the Sky, or any of the Miyazaki film scores, really. The romantic guitar tremolo layered with slow, ethnic percussion, picking, asian flutes... it's all gorgeous in concept. But I'm afraid to say that your execution isn't living up to the arrangement. Problems:

- The guitars are noticibly out of tune, on both ends of the spectrum. I just can't let that slide.

- Your pan flute part isn't working for me. You start off the mix with a short slide followed by four seconds of silence; whaaaaat? If you're gonna intro it like that, at least have the flute extend into the rest of the music. And in every other instance it returns, it sounds choppy and ineffective. Gotta be smooooooooth!

- The music box part is likewise choppy, and sounds out of tune with the guitars.

- Something really funky going on at the 3:46 transition.

The guitar strumming starting at 3:04 is actually executed well (other than the tuning)- a welcome change. Everything else sounds clumsily performed and mixed with no sensitivity to the overall balance of parts. Pleeeeaaase, don't throw this away! It's just gonna take a lot more effort in recording and mixing to appropriately carry the arrangement, which is superb.

NO

[zircon]

I gotta agree with pixie on this one. I'm REALLY liking the concept/style of the mix, and the arrangement. You keep the sort of sad, empty feel of the original while still giving it your own spin, which is, after all, what this site is all about. I also think the choice of instrumentation suits the style you chose well. That being said, the execution is definitely very weak and brings the whole mix down. As Jill pointed out, the guitar is out of tune. I'm not normally a stickler for this kind of stuff, but it sticks out too much for comfort. The performance itself seems to me to be on point, but you gotta tighten up that tuning. Then, you've got some VERY General MIDI-ish percussion, music box, and pan flute. I've heard your other mixes, I know you have access to better sounds, why not use them? The contrast between the fakey sampled stuff and your high quality guitar playing is very obvious. I also have to agree that the intro (before the guitar comes in) seems to be superfluous.

The pan flute part towards the end is very sloppy, with some flubbed notes and off-rhythms; plus, the pitch bends just sound bad straight up. They're too fast, and the flute itself is very dry, which makes 'em sound even worse. I think the music box and percussive parts could also use additional reverb to make them sound at least a little better, if you don't plan on changing the sample, and I would probably take another look at the timing of the music box at a few points as it sounds off.

If you rerecord the guitar part in tune and redo the MIDI stuff to sound more realistic, I'll have a lot more reason to yes this. So, go for a resub. Until then...

NO

[Vig]

Is this the piece where you sampled your guitar? at least the rhythm guitar sounds like it could be sampled.

I have no problem at all with the samples. I think it's a bit too picky to reject this track due to sample quality. The samples are used well, they sound smooth, not grating. They arent unpleasant in the least; in fact, I enjoyed the pan flute.

The only criticism i agree with is that the tuning of the guitar is irritating at times. It's consistently out of tune, but It's only bothersome from time to time.

Ultimately, the production criticims don't even come close to outweighing the awesome arrangement and atmosphere.

YES

[zyko]

i've been out of tune from day one till today. what's suddenly the big deal?

[The Orichalcon]

Haha, mix starts off sounding like the theme from M.A.S.H.

Enjoying the off-tune sound personally. Gives it an old-fashioned sound where one wouldn't expect everything to be pristine-studio production. It rarely gets bad enough to 'cause the mix to sound bad. There are a couple of "cringe" moments, but it quickly recovers to the point where I start to assume it's intentional.

The pan flute that comes in after 3:00 is pretty. This sounds like the theme for a lonely pirate now or something.

The transition at 3:46 was only awkward because of those three music-box notes. If you doused them, it'd be a smooth transition.

No reason to reject this mix. It's a beautiful work of arrangement, and the sound quality isn't anywhere near bad enough to reject.

YES

[big giant circles]

Aight, first of all, I now need a hug. kthx

Now then, First of all, I have to give this a NO, because we already have too many stoopid techno remicksez on da site, and I only likes acoostic trax, aight?

NO































But seriously, though, this is a pretty dang awesome remix. If that's a live guitar, then I'd re-record and pay particular attention to the damn G-string, because it is flat as hell, and it really bothers me. I like the detuning of most other notes, but that G is like when you're playing live, and the one string is so out of tune that it makes the listener cringe through the whole song, whereas they'd otherwise be totally digging it. If it's sampled, then this should be no problem, as you can simple tune it up a couple cents and re-render.

Arrangement, mood, and technique bow tribute to the source to the max, but I just can't appreciate or accept that flat-ass G until it's fixed. See previous vote. Easy YES if that's fixed.

[zyko]

ultimately, this is too far out there to successfully reach many listeners who, undoubtedly, will have trouble getting past the intonation and gutsy lack of uber-elitist musicality.

contrary to common belief, i intend 95% (the other 5% is unaccounted for but has at times been attributed to divine intervention and/or random luck) of what i do and will not refine and resubmit. i think some of you have, again, missed the point but that's alright; it has come to be expected.

you leave me no choice; this simply isn't up to site standards

NO

[Liontamer]

Well, THAT was unexpected.

Look, all I know is that to me this is substantially above bar with the arrangement, and I thought the soundscape was well-done. I'm clearly not a guitarist, but everything sounded fine on that level to me regardless of what was out of tune; sounded more than competantly musical to me.

Like BGC's vote, I'm not against voting NO on a sub when everything's good except one glaringly weak problem; I've certainly done that before and haven't had any qualms after the fact. But I didn't feel that was the case with this particular sub.

Perhaps in my case, it's me simply being more familiar with weed's style and not being put off by an untuned string. And of course while I didn't have any significant issue with the flute, I can understand why it was criticized. In any case, Jon T, who's away for the week, was going to YES this, so I'm calling for this to go for a full vote.

Obviously weed can't vote YES on his own sub; it's not ethical, so we've never allowed a judge to do it. And ultimately a judge can NO their own submission (it has happened it the past). But to me it seems more like weed giving out an emotional reaction to the NO votes, throwing his hands up in the air. On that level, I'm not gonna count his vote.

For weed regarding his frustration here, beyond the 3 NOs all saying the arrangement is solid, there are also 3 unreserved YES votes. Let's all keep that in mind and see what the others have to say.

[zyko]

oh don't get me wrong, larry, it wasn't an emotional thing at all. there really is already an expectation that my personal style is not congruent with the site guidelines that goes back a ways. this is far from the first tack to not meet the guidelines so i am not surprised.

in all honesty, i think my vote definetly should count. you're right, part of the reason the track doesn't bother you as much is because you are familiar with my work. that said, it is what it is.

i say count my vote. it is still a valid vote because it is my opinion (and opinion is valued here, no?).

however, i will comment on this:

Originally Posted by pixietricks

Everything else sounds clumsily performed and mixed with no sensitivity to the overall balance of parts. Pleeeeaaase, don't throw this away! It's just gonna take a lot more effort in recording and mixing to appropriately carry the arrangement, which is superb.

while i am touched by your adjuration to keep it, i want to clarify that i do not write music for the site or any site for that matter. it isn't going anywhere, darling.