Liontamer

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2015/07/30/a-musicologist-s-look-at-final-fantasy-vi MP3 -------------- A few months ago, Ryan appeared on Emily Reese's previous radio show, Top Score, to discuss the FF6 soundtrack, in particular the opera scene. I assumed no one's heard of this game, so this is just an FYI.

djp and I have both wanted to have a hub for deeper discussion of VGM for quite a while, so I'm glad Ryan was down with creating this forum. He's the perfect person to lead it. I'll add, in particular I'd love for musiclogists to: share & discuss papers conduct original research; and organize & promote academic events. This is also something for down the line, but if enough folks are down with hosting papers, research or other academic material on OCR, perhaps we could integrate it into our database. Welcome to everyone looking to learn more about video game music!

I liked the mixfloods. I'm biased. There wasn't enough Kirby material in the submission's box to do a 5-mix flood, but at the least, we posted a Kirby arrangement by Jorito shortly after Iwata-san's passing. I generally pick the floods to fit what's already approved and available, but if we had enough in the hopper, I'd enjoy a modern game flood (basically Xbox 360/PS3 and newer). The most important thing is keeping the categories reasonably broad, e.g. high-level genre, obscure games (NOT just from 1 platform), a generation, indie games, a popular company. Keep in mind, a lot of the theme suggestions in the thread are just way too restrictive. We generally do 5-mix groups, though you saw we had a couple of 2-mix pairs also. Always a fun, albeit challenging month.

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

SUPER-thin and rigid opening line to start, which didn't bode well for the rest, even though things filled out better around :14. Synth at :21 was too loud and almost piercing. The melody on bassline at :42 was getting swallowed up and didn't cut through to the foreground. Also hearing those wrong notes and wasn't sure how they got in there. I disagree with Chimpazilla. I don't feel this is a good start yet, because there needs to be more substance and more care put into the production, otherwise, what's in place now really doesn't show strong development potential. Very strange phasing effect at 1:24 due to the sidechaining (the same thing going on with the bassline, BTW) where the lead randomly gets pushed back and pulled forward. No real melodic development to speak of throughout, and the ending at 2:21 is abrupt and flatter than a pancake. Well, I mean, if you don't care to finish this, Micah, why should anyone else care? No hate here, but you've gotta not get sloppy on the smaller details. Keep at it, but use the Workshop forums to get feedback, ask questions, and broaden your knowledge. NO

Yeah, the source is a classic, so it's hard to dislike any rendition of it, but this version has no meat on it to start. There's very quiet countermelodic writing starting at :18, but it's barely audible for the entrie track, so it might as well have not been there. If I wasn't listening on headphones, I'm sure I would have missed it entirely, and that ain't good, especially when the track already feels empty to start. Push all of that up and let it be heard, because the writing there was creative and would have further personalized this arrangement. The machine-gun drumming at :36 sounded ridiculous, like a limited-channel soundchip dropping out an instrument line to accommodate the part; the machine-gun stuff's going on, yet there was no percussion that drove the track forward. Despite the intensity, the soundfield's actually very thin despite all the business going on. This needs something in the background in the beginning, as you only get some padding at 1:03. The dropoff at 1:03 was a welcome dynamic change and showed off some good personalization in adapting the source to new instrumentation. I agree with them that more interpretation techniques would help this in relation to our standards, but that you were going in the right direction as far as how you changed the instrumentation and introduced a decent amount of original part-writing underneath the theme, even though the melodic structure/timing was close to the original song. Return of the machine-gun drums at 1:38 crowded up the supporting writing too much, but at least there was other drum-writing to push the track forward. The ending at 2:05 had a cool glassy fadeout after the last note, but as a resolution this was pretty weak, basically shutting the track off after ending the verse. IMO, there should have been a more substantive ending instead of suddenly stopping at what amounts to a loop point. Good potential here, Rémi. You need to refine your mixing, but your arrangement ideas are well in the right direction. Once you tighten things up, I think you could get something approved. Definitely do not be discouraged and keep working at it. NO

Agreed with DarkeSword that the guitar work is the best part but not much of this is strong. At 1:14, I then understood what the "sonic mush" criticism was about, because the backing instrumentation became very cluttered, with the bass in particular booming too loudly and creating mud. The drum writing was serviceable, but there's an overall flat energy here with the plodding percussion & bell pattern repetition that undermines the wilder energy of the guitar. The string stabs were very rigidly timed as well. The overall timing of the beats felt too tight compared to the guitar stuff, and the combination of instrument doesn't click, IMO. The mixing needed work, but I felt the bland auto-pilot repetition of the source tune ultimately hurt this the most. It's got cool potential, Darrell, but you need to develop and vary the writing under the guitar, not just coast on it. NO

The piece was 3:32-long, so I needed at least 106 seconds of overt source usage for the VGM to be dominant in the arrangement. I didn't suspect anything was close here, but the original writing additions merely sounded Zelda-y and seamlessly combined with the Windmill Hunt/Song of Storms theme, thus I wanted to trust but verify. :29.5-:44, :58-1:10, 1:27.75-1:59.75, 2:12.75-2:37.5, 2:50.5-3:30 = 122.75 seconds or 57.9% Arrangement-wise, I agreed with Chimpa on the personalization being strong enough to outdo any concerns on sameyness with the instrumentation. Nice work per grandpa's usual! YES

For a 4:26-long track, I needed at least 133 seconds of overt source usage for the source material to be dominant in the arrangement. I didn't agree with Markus's timestamps exactly and thought some of the credit to flourishes was too generous (and that some of his timestamping was off), but it wasn't a big deal: :00-:46.75, 1:30.75-2:13.25, 2:14.75-2:28, 2:48.5-2:55, 2:57.75-3:00.25, 3:09.5-3:33.75, 4:12.5-4:15 = 138.5 seconds or 52.06% I counted the bassline from 2:07-2:28, which had already been in play earlier behind the Muda melody and was taken from Muda and adapted for the time signature, but held the same basic rhythm. When I stopwatch, I just need some direct and overt connection to the source tune in play, and the bassline there was a close enough match for me, where I recognized the adaptation of it. Close shave, but count it. Arrangement-wise, I can understand the complaint of the sections not weaving together 100% smoothly, but I didn't have any problem with these transitions. Smooth work overall, and IMO an effective combination of two classic Mario Land themes that comfortably connected with the original writing. YES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The association's in the database but not on the site. Will run it by djp tomorrow.

Got the OK from djp to continue. DarkeSword'll assign some new batches soon.

Who are you referring to? It's not a big deal to mention who it is. It would prompt me to check if there's some other way to contact them and possibly update their information on the site.