Liontamer Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10520 The Radical Dreamers - Requiem of Broken Futures Contact Information * The Radical Dreamers * Michael Collins * mutronbiphase548@gmail.com Submission Information * Phantasy Star IV/Chrono Cross * Requiem for Lutz/Chronopolis * Izuho Takeuchi/Yasunori Mitsuda * This remix was written for Allie, one of my best friends, an absolutely golden and beautiful girl. -------------------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 302 "Chronopolis" http://project2612.org/download.php?id=51 - "Requiem for Lutz" Opens up pretty lossy-sounding at 112kbps CBR. I'd VBR this, for sure. Piano intro still sounds mechanical. The decay of the piano at :46 didn't sound natural either; sounded more like a fadeout. From :47-1:48, the piano sound was deforming a bit. The quality of the piano sequencing was decent, but the piano went on for such a long time, it exacerbated the lack of fluidity in the sequencing. 1:48 moved over into the rock section. Performance was still awesome, but the production and sound balance was terrible. The lead and harmonization needed to be more upfront and all the parts need to be better separated through EQing. The cymbals, I dunno what happened to them, but they're splashing over the place and obscuring stuff, especially from 2:54-3:11. After 3:11, the production still sounded lossy, and some of the cymbal shots still obscured the track, but the sound balance was a lot better than before. Guitar stuff from 6:07 until the end still sounded whiny and a bit stiffly performed, but I'll live. I love the arrangement, but the sound quality was still weak. Dunno, could even be the same version submitted from last time, despite improving this with Dennis Mott's crits and coming out with a later version that, IIRC, was mixed way better than this. Maybe one of the Js could take a look at the source files and recommend how to clean this up so the sound quality wasn't holding this back. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 i'm all about sounding raw around the edges and wouldn't have normally shot the piano down for sounding so flat on its face (lossy is what the normals will say) but then the piano shouldn't have sounded like it was being played by a robot... you can't pass the sound of the intro for anything other than technical fallout because the playing and performance is too mechanical otherwise. this is very unfortuante because the arrangement idea is fantastic. it is epic, grand... the guitar playing kicks ass, the energy is ferocious. this allie is a lucky girl to have such passionate, asskicking music written for or about her. however, your production is in a world of hurt. your drums sound as flat as paper with sizzling cymbals, the guitars often overpower coming through as a big wall of FZZZZZZZZ... the audience feels detached and you NEVER want that unless that is your ultimate intent and that wouldn't make any sense here. by the way, the lead at 6.10 playing "the theme" is tooooooo abrasive. don't do that honestly, this kicks ass and i love it. but it cannot go on this way. i'm forced to give this a NO with a resub rather than a conditional yes because there is a lot that needs to be done here before it's ready... your consolation is that you can arrange and play like a beast. just polish this up some more, encode it with something other than a meatgrinder and send it back to us. NOresub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I love this arrangement. The clash between the delicate opening and concluding segments and the RAWK middle works quite well. It just feels very epic and the use of the sources was great. The solo guitar section was Chronopolis note-for-note, but in a nearly seven-minute song, 30 seconds of exact source is reasonable. The production... this hurts, dude. Right off the bat, something is off about it. The piano sounds like it might be really overcompressed, and the highs sound like they're missing from the instrument. It's also very mechanical in contrast to the guitars and drums that come in later. Moving along to the guitar section, the overall thing still feels extremely compressed and now cluttered as well. The way the cymbal crashes echo out sounds bizarre. Everything is sitting in the lower ranges and you really need to use EQ to cut some of that mud out, restore some of the high-end to the parts, and then maybe bring the compression back. Should mention that the final minute of this sounds just dandy. Hope you keep working on this, Michael. Arrangement is quite good and I think improving your production will help you a lot in the long run, not just on this song. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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