ReMix: Tales of Symphonia 'Altar Perception'
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- Game: Tales of Symphonia (Namco, 2004, GCN)
- ReMixer(s): AeroZ, Monobrow, Protricity, injury
- Composer(s): Daisuke Suzuki, Motoi Sakuraba, Shinji Tamura, Takeshi Arai
- Song(s): 'Search a seal ~Sylvarant~', 'Search a seal ~Tethe Alla~'
- Posted: 2010-01-27, evaluated by the judges
- Album: Featured on Summoning of Spirits: An Arrangement of Music from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia
Katie's OCR debut! And it's OCR01979 - the year I was born, and also a pretty good Smashing Pumpkins song! Ms. Monobrow (who doesn't actually have one, as we verified with 100% certainty at M8) writes:
"This is a song for the Summoning of Spirits album from Tales of Symphonia. I worked on this song because, well, out of the 50+ songs worked on in this project, for some reason, even years and years and years and years and years after the SoS' start, no one else claimed these tracks even though you probably hear them more than any track throughout the game (it's the goddamn dungeon music).
Anyway, this remix is pretty straight forward, although I thought the source material IMO was kind of awkward to work with. But, like the originals, it grew on me, as I hope this song does with whoever listens to it. Oh yeah, and I don't get sole credit, it goes as follows, I think I worked this out...
- Sebastian - was a way cool dude like always, and played live cello for me throughout the song.
- Starla - was a sweetheart and contributed her lovely voice for a choir part I wrote in the middle of the song, because I really really suck at singing, and she sure don't.
- Ari - at the last minute, was full of awesome and reworked over my old drums with his stuff and added some flair to them etc.... At the time I thought I had about two days to finish the song (thanks Kyle ;-o), so thanks to him for whipping up those drums as fast as he did, aside from some technical problems."
Drums in particular are fresh and give Katie's arrangement a distinct production quality, and of course any time you add real cello and real LadyVoice, it's good stuff. I'm gonna be a little lazy here and extensively quote from OA - both because I've got a big HDR blister at the moment AND because I think he summed things up well:
"One of my favorite tracks from the SoS project, i'm happy to see it hit the panel. Drums I thought were great, much more interesting than the somewhat boring snare rolls or super basic beat from the originals; though I wish that early on an element rose up to their intensity. For the first section they seem overly dominant. Once the cello comes in, however, it completely clicks; fantastic performance and recording, and everything supports it. The piano is a bit rigid, but it plays such a small part in the overall scheme of things that I don't see it being an issue.I can hear Starla if I listen really close, but i think she could have been brought up a bit more. At least it's in a breakdown section where she first appears.
Arrangement is a great blend of the 2 sources; it's cool how you've picked the best of each official arrangement and further expanded on it. It has some very nice moments and it's very ear catching. Nice work everyone, a group effort that really is more than the sum of its parts."
The pacing reminds me of the score to Requiem for a Dream, and the way the harpsichord keeps time gives everything a deliberate-but-suspenseful feel. Really interesting blend of elements, and an arrangement that definitely makes the best of them - congrats to Katie & co. for putting together one of many great tracks on SoS!
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - frubam on September 13, 2010
- xamgis on February 11, 2010
- jintoreedwine on February 9, 2010
- Kureejii Lea on February 4, 2010
Also thanks fro the comments guys! I really appreciate the feedback.
I agree the vocals could have been louder, I had turned them up already twice actually in two previous versions... But I didn't have enough time when I thought the song was due to go through it once more and tweak all the automations with volume... And I liked how it sounded subtle anyway. It is a song where I was just... so done with it by that point haha.
Sorry to those that wanted them louder though!
- Monobrow on February 1, 2010
- Villainelle on January 31, 2010
Bahamut;640668 wrote: This is a pretty nice song - too bad it wasn't in the original project.
Not a writeup reader, I take it. :lol:
- Liontamer on January 31, 2010
Bahamut;640668 wrote: This is a pretty nice song - too bad it wasn't in the original project.
Err... [URL="http://tales.ocremix.org/disc4.html#6"]What?[/URL]
- KyleJCrb on January 31, 2010
It has a nice atmosphere to it, and yet keeps things flowing with the drums. I didn't really hear much in the way of vocals, so perhaps that should've been used a bit more, but even with the lack of hearing much in that front, the song develops pretty nicely throughout.
- Bahamut on January 31, 2010
- KyleJCrb on January 30, 2010
For a long time after Summoning of Spirits I was calling this my favorite remix on the site, and I think it's still up there in my top 5. The cello really captivates my attention and is really just plain beautiful. You couldn't have done anything even close to that great with sequenced cello so I'm glad you opted to find a live performer! :-D
Brilliant work from all sides, this is one of those songs I can't get tired of listening to.
- Emunator on January 29, 2010
Wow, this is an excellent debut mix from Monobrow! The live cello part is haunting and beautiful, and everything blends seamlessly. Nice work by all...
- Jillian Aversa on January 28, 2010
