ReMix:Chrono Cross "People Seized with Trance" 3:43

By ambient

Arranging the music of one song...

"Prisoners of Fate"

Primary Game: Chrono Cross (Square , 1999, PS1), music by Yasunori Mitsuda

Posted 2006-10-29, evaluated by the judges panel


If you're looking to be seized by trance, or at least to mingle with others who have themselves been, you've come to the right place. Alex Gventsadze, whose last name officially bears a remarkable similarity to those celebrity name scrambles you see while waiting for the movie to start, sends in a veritable seizure of a Chrono Cross ReMix, throwing the masses into kinetic fits of frothy - but enjoyable - energy. ambient writes:

"What's up guys and a lady! Finally, decided to submit my new Chrono Cross remix. This remix took me an unprecedented amount of time - I actually started working on it about the same time when I started working on Chronodyne Marine. The mix has undergone numerous revisions and the only thing remaining from the very first version is the main arp (which took me hours upon hours to write, and months to find the right synths for). When I first started working on it, I didn't know much about how to put trance together, but gradually I was inspired and learned from blind's and siamey's work. So, everything from beats to textures to arps took alot of time and thought.

While I was working on it, MaZe got interested in the source tune, and actually made and submitted his trance take on the theme. Why People Seized with Life? Well, I remember Miguel kicking my ass in the game, and the music was quite fitting. Anyways, I hope you guys like this trance remix. I know trance remixes usually fight an uphill battle, but I think my rearrangement factor is strong, which is usually the main downfall of trance submissions."

Indeed, the ReMixer has taken G.I. Joe's wisdom to heart: knowing *is* half the battle. In this case, knowing that vanilla trance sometimes needs some extra pep to get past repetition issues that can give the judges gastrointestinal displeasures aplenty. Contrary to minority belief, we're not trance-haters, we're just arrangement-lovers, and the two aren't mutually inclusive as this and other trance mixes have proven. Andy acted as Tom Hagen to Alex's Don Corleone and provided some advice at multiple points during the mix's gestation. And what Boss Tanaka thinks is:

"I've probably heard about 50 revisions of this at various points and given ambient various different pieces of advice on it, some of which he took and some of which he didn't (at least, not verbatim). The reason I say this is because I *had* a lot of complaints and things I thought needed to be touched up, but I went through so many with him that we basically covered all the bases. I think this is a strong rearrangement with good production and creative sound design. Everything comes together well. As TO said, this IS what a trance mix should sound like. It's not like bLiNd, it's not like Siamey, it's not like sgx... it's a unique style that works."

There ya have it. I'd say perhaps it's a bit poppier; bits reminded me of Erasure at times. At any rate, it's good, fun stuff that comes on strong and goes down easy. Like your mom. Or not. I just had to throw that in there. Forget this happened. Whatever feedback zircon provided seems to have had a positive effect, as the production's solid and things develop in that fractal, multi-pronged, arpeggiated way that makes a good trance song so catchy. ambient proves seizures can be good things, though mixing them with trance in real life is probably a recipe for hospitalization, given the likely context.

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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Im_Just_Shawn
on 2010-01-19 10:47:49

old and funky

Still a nice twist to what you normally hear outta CC and CT remixes :P

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Bahamut
on 2010-01-07 15:57:19

This is a pretty daring take IMO since the original source is so emotive due to the strings, and that element is lost with this interpretation.

I feel like some of the production could use some improvement here, as the sound doesn't really come across to me as full - having more going on at once would do this wonders I think in terms of overall feel. The base arrangement is solid though, and provides a good foundation for the song.

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Lucentas
on 2009-10-01 16:05:36

I would never really label myself a trance fan, but this one's just got too much spunk for me to leave it alone. Great job.

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AmazinJason
on 2008-12-16 15:00:48

Can't say this song brings back happy memories, I remember you're forced to kill your father's best friend while this song is playing.

This mix is decent, Trance is only entertaining on ex, or when I'm really drowsy.

The melody of this mix is a little hard to identify, I'm guilty of opening up the original to see how they matched, actually upon second listening the theme of the song is well mixed into a trance-like tune.

Overall, pretty cool mix. It didn't zone me out like most trance music, but it was a sweet song choice.

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WillRock
on 2008-12-12 09:34:27

I like this one, despite not being a big fan of trance.

Your synths were def high quality and there was plenty of variation, and yet, I still got bored, I'm sad to say, because I really respect this as a piece of music and don't think you could have done much to make it better.

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NeoS
on 2008-12-12 09:26:20

I see you've lost your reviews?

Let me fix it a bit.

I remember we started doing the same track to see who would get in with hi remix. You won. :)

Very good interpretation of the theme, awesome breaks, good percussion work, good synthesis. My only quirk with your remix is the ending. But that's just personal taste i guess.

Congrats Alex, on a job well done. Maybe one of my mixes will get through someday.

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Rozovian
on 2008-12-04 23:18:01

This is one of those remixes I found fairly early, and kept. There's always stuff happening, the track is constantly moving forward. Gets a bit repetitive, but that's the genre. Good stuff.

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DragonAvenger
on 2008-08-23 23:54:56

Definately one of my favorite Cross songs (I have a lot of favorites on this soundtrack :P). Nice adaption of the source, it works well in trance. Nice unique style, I enjoyed listening to it.

Short review, I'm tired :/ Mix is good, though!

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BardicKnowledge
on 2007-12-09 19:31:57

First of all, the short review of this is awesome. It's going on my UT99 music list, the highest of honors for techno pieces. :P

In any case, despite DJP's commentary, I feel that it has quite a lot of things going on for a trance mix. I would have liked the end to be a complete amalgation of everything that had come before it (like 303 Infinity's "Trancending Reality") but I guess I can't have everything. Specifically, I like all of the transitions and segways in the top voices.

This mix is new enough to be mostly evaluated by the current panel as well, so I don't have any fun history comments about production etc. to make. From the writeup I can say that this is obviously a successful use of both the WIP forums and the resubmission process though -- two compeltely underused resources IMO.

Good mix -- hopefully we get some more excellent techno in soon.

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about:blank
on 2007-12-04 16:05:20

Wow, I can not believe that this has so few reviews. Prisoners of Fate is definitely one of my top 5 compositions by Yasunori Mitsuda. It's minimalistic, but it carries so much power and emotion. This mix provides us with an excellent interpretation of said source. It completely changes it around without losing the feel of the original, and it's anything but minimalistic. Deciding to do a mix of this song in 4/4 electronic could have gone wrong in so many ways, but thankfully, this one didn't.

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OA
on 2007-07-03 12:02:00

It took me forever to hear the original theme besides the opening part, but the journey to finding it was certainly entertaining. Vanilla trance? This is a trance blizzard with the whole damn dairy queen thrown in. Multiple counterpoint lines, well programmed synths, and though the bass drum and snare stay pretty constant, there are a lot of other percussive elements going on.

Very engaging for trance, but doesn't sacrifice any dancability.

Well played, sir.

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Sole Signal
on 2007-04-09 18:34:31
Now its gonna be a while before someone posts another review...

Just a month. :P

Too bad about losing all those reviews; I'll try to jump start the process here. I've never played the game, and so am completely unfamiliar with the source. I like this though; it's a clean sounding mix overall and an enjoyable listen. Nice work.

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ambient
on 2007-03-03 17:11:06

No problem Larry. For a second I thought my remix was taken off the site there, lol. Now its gonna be a while before someone posts another review...

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Liontamer
on 2007-03-01 22:53:24

I don't even know what happened to the original thread, but I'm just gonna claim responsibility for it accidentally being deleted with my evil mod powers somehow. Might not be my fault, but Alex, PLEASE FORGIVE ME! :sad: :sad: :sad:

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djpretzel
on 2007-03-01 18:48:17

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

Sources Arranged (1 Song)


Primary Game:
Chrono Cross (Square , 1999, PS1)
Music by Yasunori Mitsuda
Songs:
"Prisoners of Fate"

Tags (3)


Genre:
Trance
Mood:
Instrumentation:
Electronic,Synth
Additional:

File Information


Name:
Chrono_Cross_People_Seized_with_Trance_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
4,395,713 bytes
MD5:
3ee748bc975a5828540225c6f8549557
Bitrate:
154Kbps
Duration:
3:43

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