ReMix: Final Fantasy VI 'The Hot Pink of Blues'
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- Game: Final Fantasy VI (Square, 1994, SNES)
- ReMixer(s): Prince of Darkness, Shnabubula
- Composer(s): Nobuo Uematsu
- Song(s): 'Cayenne'
- Posted: 2009-06-30, evaluated by the judges
Let's keep right on truckin' - postin' pace has been pickin' up and judgin' should be gettin' in gear, too. It's so exciting I'm droppin' my G's left 'n right. On the topic of progress & excitement, I'm pleased and honored to announce the addition of OA as our latest judge. I'm sure listeners and artists alike will show him the same adulation, respect, and deference the rest of the panel has enjoyed for so long, or at least not kick/punch him repeatedly in the head. Mr. Luers is of course the director of the upcoming FF4 album project as well as a talented ReMixer. Beyond that, he's also been providing artists with a ton of great feedback on our ReMix Comments/Reviews forum. Oh yeah, he did the website for Summoning of Spirits, too. And the artwork/website for Thieves of Fate. He's also a dad, a great musician, and an all-around premuim person. He also invented the hovercraft and was the first man to scale K2 in under 45 minutes. He grows his own bacon. For all we know. It's possible. But even if he didn't, he still gets two thumbs up in our book, and should be an awesome addition to the panel, so give a warm welcome.
Right, then - ahead on our way! 9 out of 10 doctors will tell you that kids love the rich, creamy taste of Final Fantasy 6, but 'Cayenne' (aka 'Cyan') hasn't gotten as much love as 'Relm,' 'Kefka,' or of course 'Terra'. As a side note, we saw the full opera from FF6 performed at Distant Worlds on Saturday, and it rocked. Profusely - mad props to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a very polished performance, and MAN are the acoustics in the Meyerhoff hall perfect. While we're on the subject of kickass, back to the mix: Prince of Darkness, aka Tony Dickinson, is here to give this theme some love, blues/rock style. His initial cut was a bad enough dude to win the June '08 DoD, but when he subbed it to us we did notice some snap, crackle, and pop issues of the non-cereal variety with the production. If we had to post it that way, we still might have, but fortunately PoD not only cleaned all that up, he summoned a 5th level Shnabubula to add some extra flavor. Larry sums these changes up:
"We later on sent Tony a copy of the judgments so he could read the production crits brought up and make some tweaks, which he addressed nicely. He also recruited Shnabubula to add some cool original comping wankery on top of some of the mellower sections. Tony mentioned that Sam cooked up his stuff in a matter of hours after offering to do it, so definitely props to Sam for some nice additions that further fleshed out the arrangement."
It's a great mix, and the production tweaks and extra bubula only made it greater. Here's the original submission email Mr. Dickinson sent in:
"This is only my second major video game remix released. I've always been the lurking type, developing my arranging skills deep in the shadows, and only doing something when I felt I was finally ready. This song was my second entry into the Dwelling of Duels competition (and second victory), and I had an overwhelming response. I've always loved really emotional-sounding tunes, despite me being mostly a mechanical, precise, heavy metal robot. With this song, I brought in all of the jazz and fusion influences I could muster and pretty much slapped it together as I went through it. Normally, I would do almost all of the arranging in a notation program, but this time I used more instinct in a more real-time setting.
I love this type of genre, because it also helped me express my bass skills more, considering bass is really my primary instrument; whereas, 99% of the time the guitar would be in the spotlight. It's not entirely out of the spotlight in this, of course, as it offers some of the most emotion in the solos."
So, I actually arranged this theme myself way back in 2002 for the KFSS Squaredance album. True story. This is... well, quite a bit better; I did a funky electronica thing that, while I still enjoy listening to it, hasn't aged all that well. I'm glad that, in addition to 'Cyanide,' we've now got a badass blues rock arrangement of this theme. Now, if you bother to read the judges decision, you'll notice there was quite a bit of disagreement over whether this arrangement is too liberal. The dreaded 50% rule was invoked and rebuffed, feelings were hurt, lives were lost, nations crumbled, and I even had to step in and say a few words. Because this mix does SOUND great, some of you may simply scratch your heads and dismiss judge concerns as hogwash and/or poppycock. We won't lose any sleep if you do, but we won't change our minds either - that arrangement is important, that a spectrum of interpretation exists that ranges from liberal to conservative, and that certain mixes will often test the extremes of either end of that spectrum. I'm absolutely convinced artists in this community could make fantastic original tracks, insert four seconds of the Mario theme on the end, and still have the result be something I'd enjoy listening to. Well, fairly convinced, at least. But tracks like that wouldn't be VGM arrangements, and at some point - while necessarily subjective - there does need to be meaning attached to that label.
In this instance, a rough majority (including myself) felt that there was enough Cyan here. It's an off-cyan, probably more of a turquoise in the end, but the hue is recognizable, if you'll pardon my extended metaphor. It also happens to be a fantastic piece of music with great performances, which certainly doesn't hurt, either. Blues & jazz are improvisational and meandering almost by definition, so it's difficult to draw a line in the sand when it comes to "soloing on top of chord progressions," which there is admittedly quite a bit of, here. It's the type of line-in-sand that's bound to move back and forth a bit, too, since each mix that enters its proximity is always going to be unique. Basically, for the judges panel, this mix was a beautiful headache, but for you, it's just beautiful. We welcome OA into our fold of thankless adjudicators - he's got this and worse to look forward to - and of course thank Tony (and Sam) for an awesome, improved debut FF6 mix that's a definite blast.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - GoldenJoe24 on September 24, 2009
Not a bad remix by any stretch of the imagination; simply not my cup of tea.
- Martin Penwald on July 19, 2009
Hands down. Sadest music in game has become "listinable" that doesn't sound negative but more of a positive point of view making it the best sound track arranged ever for ff6.
Guitar... ALL THE DAMN WAY. Absolutely amazing!
- ChaosPlayer on July 17, 2009
Great work!
- DragonAvenger on July 10, 2009
new version with Shnabubula really gives it a new light! compared to the old one ^^
- Platonist on July 8, 2009
My playlist of awesome songs thanks you!
- jintoreedwine on July 3, 2009
And for those of you looking for more PoD on OCR - he has a great track on the DKC 2 project (based on tough source material too!). If you want more of him in general, check out his YouTube videos or his DoD stuff.
- Bahamut on July 2, 2009
[img]http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/7135/detectivecyan.gif[/img]
Leather cuirass-trenchcoat hybrid + chin that can cut glass = Yes!
EDIT: In regards to the ongoing debate... this actually sounds more like a ReMix of the second half of Cyanide, than of the Cyan theme itself. This probably isn't really the case, but if it [i]were[/i], I figure ReMixes of Remixes would certainly be within OCR's scope. Or do we need to put up an OCRemixRemix site? -_-;
- Nobbynob Littlun on July 1, 2009
Just talkin' bout PoD...
Adding Sam's soloin makes it even more awesome, great work.
- OA on July 1, 2009
Personally I can't say I struggled with finding the source, maybe it's just because I'm a hardcore FF guy who played FF6 over and over back in the day, but this felt like any other mix to me as far as the source mostly being there, and occasionally dropping off for some solo work (which is usually a big part of the fun with these mixes), but still, not getting too lost, imo.
- ZealPath on July 1, 2009
SwordBreaker;562955 wrote: That's your opinion, dude. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
No, not really. :tomatoface: Comparing the two tracks is apples and oranges. There's also no need to shit on a track just because you like another track. That's like the prophet of mephisto needlessly shitting on Armcannon a few days ago just because he loved Powerglove. Don't get into that stuff, it's pointless.
- Liontamer on July 1, 2009
Liontamer;562937 wrote: That's a pretty stupid thing to say. :lol:
That's your opinion, dude. We'll just have to agree to disagree. MOAR Prince of Darkness tracks in OCR, please! I want to start a movement here.
- SwordBreaker on July 1, 2009
Sam Ascher-Weiss;562845 wrote: To clarify, the write-up quotes larry saying "He also recruited Shnabubula to add some cool original comping wankery on top of some of the mellower sections. Tony mentioned that Sam cooked up his stuff in a matter of hours after offering to do it, so definitely props to Sam for some nice additions that further fleshed out the arrangement"
This is either completely inaccurate or just a really odd description of what actually took place. Tony just removed all of the sequenced rhodes parts from his song and replaced them with me playing live. That was the extent of my contribution.
That's all Tony fault; I'll never ask him anything on IRC again! In other words, kik Tony. (i.e. not a big deal, but I recall that's what he said)
SwordBreaker;562858 wrote: No offence or anything, but passing Zelda Heineken over those tracks? That'll be a sad day for me.
That's a pretty stupid thing to say. :lol:
Nictusempra;562926 wrote: It's disappointing to see the judges get so hung up on very technical rules, when in the end, we're all just coming here to listen to good VGM arrangements
Exactly, the listeners generally couldn't care less about the site's guidelines or purpose as long as we posted enjoyable tracks. That underscores why it's good for the panel to scrutinize tracks; the fans generally don't. Some very enjoyable tracks just end up being outside the scope of the site. We almost passed Villainelle's Zelda 64 mix when it actually had barely anything to do with the source tune it was supposed to be arranging, until we took a closer look. A lot of people would have given it the benefit of the doubt.
If we posted Hyadain's [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mwd1d9rdkk"]"The World Warrior"[/URL], we'd have lots of people in favor of that too, and I can't forget about the debate I had about removing Zelda 64 'Ocarina Boogie'. I r badmen's on this stuff. :lol:
If it ends up that mixes are on the borderline like this one in terms of actually using the VGM, even though Joe Blow wouldn't care as long as the production was awesome, those are exactly the situations the Js will be checking out.
- Liontamer on July 1, 2009
It's disappointing to see the judges get so hung up on very technical rules, when in the end, we're all just coming here to listen to good VGM arrangements and this is... well, this is definitely that.
- Nictusempra on July 1, 2009
Anyway, groovy stuff, PoD. Your playing is amazing. An unexpected reinterpretation of Cyan's theme.
I absolutely cannot wait until OCR gets gems such as "Sonic Gargles With Golden Marbles" and "Vestigial Fusion Factory". If those get rejected, then I'll be speechless. No offence or anything, but passing Zelda Heineken over those tracks? That'll be a sad day for me.
Congrats on debuting in OCR, man. Can't wait for more of your tracks.
- SwordBreaker on July 1, 2009
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