Scott Scheule

The Valse de Aeris is typically classical and is my favorite piece from the album.

It's like bizarre took a big bunch of strange and cooked a weird cake. I like it.

Didn't hear your first sub, but I'm enjoying this. Guitar work is nice--strange echo effect, but not unpleasant. Piano entrance is just fine. Percussion is interesting and--no idea what this sound is. Mmm, falling in love with this. This is good. It sounds like minimalism--the good John Adams kind--in that, every new phrase is adding something more. This isn't a complaint of mine, but I can imagine others not liking how it builds the entire time but never seems to crest anywhere. Just more, more, MORE, MORE, MORE!!! and done.

I think it's great. I'm not sure if the problem with the piano is the octave, or something else. When it comes in, it seems too close to the front of the sound, overpowering everything. Later it's obviously been set for hall resonance or some such, which gives the odd impression of the piano being a huge room, but not the strings.

It takes a delicate touch to make so much undignified noise sound good--or, as is the case here--fucking great.

Fucking fantastic. Yes, ambient may be synonymous with boring, but the quality of the sound more than makes up for it here. I suppose I'd be tempted to add more to it--but that may ruin the entire minimalist effect you wanted. So I've no advice. Morton Feldman fan?

There are advantages to having a nice keyboard, apart from any gains to be made in the field of remixing composition.

I don't have any detailed criticism at the moment. But I will say, it's not bad, just a bit plain. Keep trying.

Hope to see you back in ten years.

The beginning was loud enough to make my speakers hiss, but I recognized it. The rest I liked.

So there you go. There are really a wide variety of genres in the remixes offered here--I imagine if it's well-crafted, even if dissonant, it will get in.

I'm afraid I'll have to defer to someone more familiar with remixing on that.

Great! Look, that is finely composed--the synth sucks, yeah, but that's not the important thing. I don't know if the OCR bunch would dig it, but I certainly do. If such ideas aren't accepted here, try one of the other remixing sites.

I really enjoyed them, though I echo the comments about mastering. I haven't listened to the original tracks in a while, so I'm not sure how derivative they are. But keep it up.

Thanks Mage. The beginning is very fine, portentous and yet not inactive. Obvious synthetic nature of the strings just a cost of doing business in the remix community. Scattered percussion sounds very similar to something Alan Hovhaness might write. It proceeds very quietly towards the actual march, but there's no real boredom. The mixer always adds something new as the song goes on, keeping even repetitions of the theme fresh. People could learn. By about the halfway mark, one would guess we're within the Adagio of a symphony, but no, the march is starting up. The brass crescendoes--and some glissandi on some instrument I can't identify--are wonderful. The timbral contrasts--sudden darknesses as winds take over, bright brass--are enjoyable. My compliments to the remixer. My only complaint is the obvious synthetic nature of the brass and strings--but I realize that's not exactly fair, given most of us do not have orchestras at our disposal. Well done.

You know, even before this mix, the Dark World music sounded a lot like Imperial March to me. Maybe a little too similar in fact... Turnabout's fair play. The Imperial March always sounded a little too similar to Holst's Mars.

Also could not get it to play.

If you have the ability to make a thoroughly modernist work of an old video game tune, then I do hope you go for it. But as other commenters have mentioned, one has to keep the balance. You have to be able to recognize the source tune. That might be a bit tricky with atonal music. Though Gershwin manages in his I Got Rhythm Variations. But there's a lot of rich techniques that still involve tonality any way. A Castlevania tune in the style of Stravinsky? Minimalist Final Fantasy? Some Secret of Mana after Bartok's Bulgarian Dances perhaps, 2+2+3 meter no less. And of course Palestrina and Bach have wonderful styles. Do keep me informed on your work in this area.

I'm not sure either. Let's call it an entirely descriptive fact, with no normative content.

Syncopations nearly knocked me out of my chair.

A bit. But by and large, fantastic.

I agree; the timbre's my only complaint. Compositionally, really well done; the counterpoint's refreshing. The continual modification of the theme keeps it fresh (even so, be careful; we all love Kefka's theme, but there are limits, especially when we're hearing only a phrase of it repeated).