Liontamer Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Hey guys, time for another new remix from me! Hope you dig this one, it's a trance remix of FF6's The Prelude, which I've titled "Purity". I don't have anywhere to host it right now so I attached it to this email. If you're familiar with some of my older work, you'll know I've remixed this song before in a collab with auvixa, but a lot of time has passed since then and my skills have come a long way, so I wanted to do this song again and give it the treatment it deserves. I wanted to make something energetic and euphoric with the source material, like what you would hear in a good melodic trance set, and I think I suceeded. Anyways, enjoy! -abg / Shawn Overn --------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "The Prelude" (ff6-316.spc) I'm cool with the arrangement. Could have weaved in some original melodic writing or more interpretive melodic interpretation to make things more interesting, but I liked what was there regardless. The mixing was pretty rough though. Obviously, it's possible to go for a more compressed and dense sound, but things were too indistinct, IMO. Stuff like the stuttering rhythms first used at :28, and the "Prelude" countermelody firs used at :58 felt too swallowed up in the overall soundscape. The "Prelude" melody showed up at 1:38. Adding the strings on top at 2:07 added to the muddiness. Pretty much goes on like this, with the less dense sections sounding a bit better, but the thickest textures sounding muddy. I've got no problem with a "wall of sound" style approach, but the individual elements need to have their own space better carved out. When the textures come together so indistinctly, it undermines the strength of the arrangement. I can roll with a conditional YES, but it definitely goes to NO if the soundscape remains as is. The sounds bleed together just a bit too much for me to roll with it. I think this could be meaningfully improved without making the soundscape too clean and undermining the effect Shawn was going for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 The arrangement was above the bar, I'm happy to see someone pull off trance without making it horribly repetitive. It IS still repetitive but not enough to make it a real issue. You brought in some interesting instruments too, the guitar-type thing playing the prelude melody works very well. Some nice harmonization with the strings too. Still, it's not much added or evolved from the original track. As for the mixing, I somewhat agree with Larry. The different sounds are fighting over the same mid-frequencies and that does muddy up the soundscape quite a bit. Just a little bit of careful equalizing could probably separate the different instruments more. Now you've just panned them which is a good start but when this isn't playing on headphones it will still sound really muddy. You should also take it easy with the pad (1:38-2:35), it's very loud and occupies a fairly large chunk of the soundscape. In general, try cutting away unwanted frequencies in most 'large' sounds. I did think the arrangement and choice of instrument showed some skill. I do however think the arrangement wasn't really enough to excuse the production since it lacked some melodic creativity. I'm going with YES(conditional on separation) but in the event that the project file is lostor the artist is otherwise unable to meet the conditions, I feel I can ride with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 Nice mix. I think the first 1:30 is a little repetitive, but from the beautiful breakdown on, it really gets going. Quite conservative, but it shows more effort than your average trance arrangement, with some nice detail work all over. Good instrument choices, bringing in some cool traditional instruments later. I can only echo what my fellow judges have said: too muddy as it is. When it gets loud, the instruments become very indistinct, as your compressor tries to handle it all. The result is a somewhat hazy sound on the verge of clipping. You're gonna have to EQ some of the sounds down in the muddy areas, possibly cut back reverb too. The pads are a good place to start, because I think they take up a lot of space. Sure, I'll call this conditional YES because the tweaking might not take too long, but like Larry said, I think it has to be done before this passes. YES (conditional on separation) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 Boom tiss prelude? Why not. Hrm, I felt like this took a little long getting to the source. It was over a minute before the actual meat 'n' taters of the source appeared. Once it got there though, I thought the use was great. Very well adapted with style-appropriate additions. The middle break down for the introduction was very much welcome as the rest of the mix is wall of sound as noted. This would fit well with one of GT's dance public addresses. I'm with larry on production. While there is a lot of power in the drums, there is a lot of mud in everything else. I would suggest toning down of the compression/maximization a little. It's noticeably louder then some pendulum I compared it to, which really is unnecessary and is contributing to the mud. Other then that try and cut some lower-mid frequencies out of instruments that don't need it, as they conflict. The arrangement is repetitive, which is fine, but when the production is a little headache-inducing, it kills the tracks listenability. Its not far off by any means, 15 minutes of tweaking master effects could fix this up no problem. YES Conditional: Less mud and maybe a little quieter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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