Eino Keskitalo   Members

Yeah, that definitely sometimes happens with these internet project thingies.. kudos for the prompt (and pretty spiffy!) replacement! --Eino

I get that.. on the other hand, while listening the podcast, I strongly felt that this was more of an inside thing, from OCR to OCR, rather than something that advertises OCR to outside. I'm sure it works on both fronts more or less, just that the emphasis seems to be a show for those already in-OCR. I do think playing the songs in full would be more beneficial to actually showcase the awesome to new folks. But primarily, personally I want them so that I can check out the new mixes in a fun way without needing to download them myself (unless I want to keep them of course). That worked really well with the Brushfire-only preview for me! Biweekly sounds good! --Eino

I'm sad to lose Showroom Dummy like that (upcoming ocremixer whose PRC entries I've really enjoyed - hope we'll still be hearing from him a lot!) but I guess that blind guy is ok too. --Eino

I just listened to the 'cast, it was good yeah! I personally didn't register awkwardness, but sure it'll become smoother with time quite naturally, so looking forward to new episodes! I'd actually have liked to hear full-length remixes, but on the other hand it's nice that the podcast is kept short. --Eino

Ooh, that does sound promising. --Eino

I'm playing the game at the moment as well. It's such a guilty pleasure - the voice acting (as opposed to just text) makes me too embarrassed to play it when my significant other is around. Lost in translation.. I kind of want to believe that, yeah. But maybe it's just crap writing. Oh well, I enjoy it anyway (the battle system *is* really nice). I really was turned off by the first hour or so, I think it turned better from there on (though not great, just enjoyable). I did like FFIX quite a bit myself. Haven't played VII yet, and I should really replay VI, as I didn't make it to the end back then. Regarding OST, having really enjoyed ilp0's "Lake in Ontario?", getting to the point where the source track start playing in the game was a really neat moment. --Eino

Voted! Nice to be involved after so much time. --Eino

Cool project concept! YES, that's an excellent track! Also, don't apologize for MQ, MQ rocked my world when I was eleven or so. Youtube linky: Excellent DoD by Brian Davis (thanks Kyle!): http://dod.redheadedblacksheep.net/past/may07/21tie-BrianDavis-FFMQ-Pyramid-ICE-DoD.mp3 --Eino

I enjoyed the first episode and am very much looking forward to the next one. No need to apologize! --Eino

Yeah, happy birthda! Good job on the FF4 album too. --Eino

Just posting to let you know that I think what you're planning to do is awesome, and I hope you have a ton of good time. --Eino

The choice is good to have. --Eino

Nice source! --Eino

Cool. I will! --Eino

Catching up a bit.. really enjoyed the AnSou interview, fun stuff, also really enjoying the exclusive track right now, while downloading the OA/EOBLOR ep. Good work! --Eino

WOW. What a project. I can't buy the CD, but I'll try to spread the word a bit. --Eino

Big giant happy on this circular occassion. --Eino

Congratulations! --Eino

Yeah, that's cool. I don't think I (for my part) misinterpreted what you were saying, your experience of the track was very different from mine, and I was trying to say that, and also describe my experience about it. --Eino

Hey, I've missed this thread until now! Great to see a project getting a good start. Good luck with it, I'll be listening when it comes out. --Eino

*screams for joy* Actually, I've almost finished listening already. I love the game, the music, I was pretty excited about the project and I'm feeling very happy now it's out! Sounding really good too. --Eino

Thanks for the reply, Kyle, and you're welcome. I need to clarify this - not all the bass notes sound out of tune, just some of them, the lowest ones. That's why I think it's a byproduct of the low freqs. --Eino

Yeah, it's mariovania.. whaaa?! --Eino

Last one! Disc 4, track 10: Apogee For the longest time, the piano intro just didn't agree with me at all. Lately, it mostly clicked for me, I still hear something clashing at 00:14-00:15 - I think this tiny moment in time made the intro not work for me, and I couldn't actually enjoy the track at all. Thankfully I got over that, but it still was my genuine experience of the track for the first few times. But now it sounds really good to me. It's very, very full of ideas, but they do work. Slightly exhausting, but very enjoyable to listen to. There are two especially great moments in the piece, the first being what I'm calling "the bass lift" first at 1:40, the other being the following section first at 1:47-2:16. I like the guitar lead playing in that section, and I love the organ, great sound, compliments the guitar wonderfully in that section. Good variety of instruments in general, well used to hilight the structure and different sections. I think the lead playing in other parts that those moments mentioned could be better. While it's not bad at all, it's a bit stiff, leaden.. it covers the section instead of communicating with it. I'm also thinking that it's ok to use some rests in lead playing too. But not sure if it was necessary for this piece. Other thing, the keyboard string in the intro and outro sounds a bit out of tune. Disc 4, track 11: Dark Corner I like this one very much. As with Antagenesis and This Fate, I get a very story-like feel out of the piece's progression. Also, it's somewhat similar to Battle over the Continent, which is one of my favourite tracks on OCR. Guitar sound processing here is delicious. The jagged rhythms are a treat as well. I like how the drums are de-emphasized, although the toms have ended up sounding powerless pop/splat sounds in some (not all) fills. The lead part starting at 02:23 is really grand, it's been playing in my head every now and then. Disc 4, track 12: Holy Judgement I've had a lot of trouble getting into this track. It's massive, after all. Disc 4 in itself feels quite massive, so I'm usually sort of exhausted by the time I get here. I've since been listening to this track separately, which helps. I still feel to need to tackle this with a bullet point list.. * The intro is wider and louder than the following section, in a way that I find not good for the flow of the piece. Even when all the guitars come in, my impression is that they don't sound as full and loud as the intro did. * The intro itself sounds pretty good. It's atmospheric in a way that I appreciate. * The guitar fill from the first orchestral bit to the guitar bit is really good. * The dialogue snippets work quite well. * There's a lot of different sections and instrumentations. It sounds a bit disparate, the sound changing slightly from section to section, but it holds together. Notably the guitars have a feeling they're not in the same sonic space all the time. Some of this duality works for the track, actually. * My favourite part: 07:35-08:04 - great bass, and the riffs over steady beat. Goosebumps. Sandwhiched between two orchestral/chill bits. Nice. Disc 4, track 13: Summoning of the Spirits Very nice touch starting and ending the album with the same source piece, and so differently. This take is somber and calm. I like the pacing. Great for late night listening. I like how it's long and relatively few instruments are going on at each time. The instruments take turns without competing with each other, if that makes sense. At first I was thinking that the track could have worked without the drums, maybe even better, but now I think I was wrong. The fills for instance are well built and the beat keeps interesting throughout. The use of timpani is great. I also thought using them for only half the track was tasteful, if that makes sense. Drumless COULD work but that would be a different track. The sine bass towards the end sounds slightly out of tune to me. I might be just hearing it like that (on headphones too), since it's so low. (clarified in a further post) "If that makes sense", my new favourite expression. Disc 5, track 1: No Better Time Than Now I really liked Just Go, and this has the same "gliding" feel to it. Delicious. It's a really good song too. The lead vocals have a slight feel of hesitance to them, at times, during verses. The very first two lines gave me the first impression that the singing wasn't going to be very good, because of this. When the support vocals kicked in, it clicked into place. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the singing and I'm glad this piece is a song rather than an instrumental, because a song is what it is. My critique is that the impression I get is that the singer isn't 100% comfortable singing, which makes me uncomfortable too. At the same time I like the vulnerable feel. THAT is great. From my own meager experience from singing and recording songs, it's hard and important to get the very beginning of the singing sound right. Often I only warm up after the first few lines and then the opportunity to make a good first impression is gone already. I try to sort of imagine that the vocal part starts before the singing actually starts, that it doesn't begin from a void, so to speak, that I've already began (and warmed up, settled into the music) before I need to sing the first lines. I don't really mean to give advice here, I don't think I'm in any position to do that, I just think this is an interesting subject. Completely different subject is comfortably singing a vulnerable song out for the whole world to listen to. I have no words on that. I like this song. Disc 5, track 2: Standing Up Very cool instrumentation. There's a strange floating feel, as if there was a lack of a tonal anchor, if that makes sense. I have trouble recognizing what direction the piece is going, some of this works for the track, but it doesn't feel fully realized. Disc 5, track 3: Go the Distance Hard panning, gurrgg. Causes nausea. The intro riff is very powerful, lots of fun. I like the alternation between violin, synth and guitar leads, it gives a lot of variation to the track. The violin sounds quite gorgeous at times. Some of the violin riffing is off rhythmically: 01:02-01:13 and the same part later on. Fun, powerful track, one of my Sixto favourites easily. --- Aand that's it! I want to thank all the remixers on the album, it's been fun listening to it and I like some of the tracks very much. I've also enjoyed writing these comments (even if it all took a while), and I'm grateful to all of you who have let me known you've read and even enjoyed them, and the discussions we've had here. Biggest thanks to Kyle and Aleah for overseeing this huge effort (once again, great album art!). Kyle, a question; there were tracks selected to be posted on the OCR front page with the release. I see you submitted more - did you choose these for a "single release" according to the reception they got after the release? --Eino

Thanks for the reply! I notice that I shouldn't have said it was judged quickly. Some of the stuff lately seem to have been judged the same day they hit the panel, which is cool. --Eino