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OCR00990 - Final Fantasy VI "Rachel's Gift"


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I also enjoyed this one in the WIP forum. I like how the beginning of the song does a great job of setting the mood for the entire song. I'd have to say my favorite part comes around 2:29 when Celes's theme kicks in. I think that is the most beautiful part of the whole song. This is a throughly excellent concoction of musical goodness. Thank you Maestrodeclure for sharing your skills, seriously.

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For what it does in being slow and having mellow sounds, it does its job greatly. In fact, I thought this particular OCRemix sounded a LOT like a FF7 instrumental piece.. And it truly sounds like something that could be in a soundtrack of an actual game!

Besides that though, I think it moves a bit too slowly for my tastes... But if anybody's looking for atmospheric music, it's not so bad. Those wanting fast paced sounds and something risque and innovative could be disappointed, but this remix is not for those tastes.

For what it does, it's a pretty good remix!

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At 1:25ish, there's one instrument in the background that I winced to hear. It's very quiet fortunatly, but it was the only thing in this peice I didn't like.

The intro thrilled me, I'm not sure it could have been done much better than that. The ending was just as good, and transitioned well. I'm not sure what djpretzel's problem with the transitions was... I loved those, personally. This is great work! Around 2:40 when the Aria de Mezzo Carate comes in, that's brilliant stuff... and the arpeggios in the background work so well with everything!

Wonderful stuff. Good work!

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I've always felt a little iffy about this remix...in a few places it's a direct MIDI rip of Huang's arrangement, with some instrument changes (you can tell harps were never meant to go that low). However, the transition to the Aria and the occasional original arranging work is enough to justify this remix's presence on OCR. Congratulations, maestro, on your first OC remix.

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Hm...an orchestral mix on the Racheal Theme from FF3/6. My first thought was SAD. Sad as in its well...*sniff* its pretty sad how I remember the game. Anywhos this song is anything from sad. Its wonderful god man....gotta dl it ASAP or else...um...ur face will go like this! :lol: seriously though...oh well its not one of them remixes like megaman 3 needles or anything that made me fo 8O but I went :( and :) at the same time. Sounds good around 2:30...o_O

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I've always felt a little iffy about this remix...in a few places it's a direct MIDI rip of Huang's arrangement, with some instrument changes (you can tell harps were never meant to go that low). However, the transition to the Aria and the occasional original arranging work is enough to justify this remix's presence on OCR. Congratulations, maestro, on your first OC remix.

Sorry, but the harp *can* go that low. The piano is the only other instrument that has a greater range than the harp, being able to go a minor third lower and an imperfect fifth higher than the harp. The only reason most people don't use those extreme ranges are because of the sustaining power below the bass clef and the harp's highest tone sound too sharp and metallic.

maestro knows my thoughts on this mix from the WIP and they haven't changed. Overall, it's a solid mix, though I'm not too happy with some phrasing choices. Nice one.

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Great job with the remix! This is a splendid arrangement, and I can definitely see the resemblance to Michael's version in the end. From the looks of it, very few of you have even heard Michael Huang's work! His Fantasy Reborn pieces are very well-done in my opinion. I usually notate his sheet music for him from MP3. Just for reference, here is his arrangement of Forever Rachel in Finale 2002 MUS format: http://mhuang.netfirms.com/ff6rachel.html. The web site of his project is http://www.fantasyreborn.com/. I encourage all of you to look through them! Great work, Maestrodeclure, on making a very dandy orchestral medley of this song and Aria di Mezzo Carattere. As Dhsu said, though, this work is only OCR-worthy because of the Aria mixed in there. :)

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Gah! Ix-nay on my real ame-nay! o_o;;

Sorry, but the harp *can* go that low. The piano is the only other instrument that has a greater range than the harp, being able to go a minor third lower and an imperfect fifth higher than the harp. The only reason most people don't use those extreme ranges are because of the sustaining power below the bass clef and the harp's highest tone sound too sharp and metallic.

Hey, I won't argue with you there. ^_^;; However, what I meant was that while those notes may be physically possible to play on a harp, they don't work too well in this context. It just seems unnatural and unnecessary to go that low. I was also using it as evidence to show that part was a MIDI rip...it might've sounded good in Michael's piano arrangement, but it becomes awkward when directly converted to harp.

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Not bad, but not great. Some of the bell runs toward the end seemed... Not out of place, but they sounded forced, like something better could have been put there. The harp was only fair, it needed to be higher. I liked the reverberating bells in the background, the loud ringing (which, the sound was about the right level) gave it more of an orchestrial taste, something that makes it sound like it is straight out of a symphony hall. Overall, it's okay, there's some parts I can't stand.

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I enjoyed this very much and it was like "wow, nice first entry!" *nods head* A slow theatrical ending to what could have been another FF movie. I like how around 2:39 Aria de Mezzo Carate flows in and then exits smoothly back into Rachael's theme. A beautiful moving piece. Nice work!

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Thanks everyone for the comments, very much appreciated. A couple points have been made that I might as well shed some light on, but since I'm too lazy to address them specifically I'll just copy and paste from the WIP thread.

I liked it up until the point you changed it over to Aria de Mezzo...

Dually noted. My friend didn't like it either, but I did it for symbolism. If you know the story, you know that Rachel gives her life for Locke's happiness, thus...her gift was in effect, Celes, hence her theme.

Is that supposed to be a synth in the beginning, or just a rather bad sample of a waterbowl?

Actually it's just the original harp and music box with a heavy wah wah flange and a few other effects on them. Why would I do that? Well the piece is not technically orchestral like that, it's just the style. It's still a remix intrinsically, so I thought a "dreamy" entrance would be appropriate. Quite relevant with the story of rachel.

Unless I'm mistaken, that's a choir in the background, and it seems to come out of nowhere with no intentions and purposes.

(around 1:20)

The choir you hear is actually the original "mezzo de aria" soundfont from the game itself. I thought a little forshadowing sounded good there.

So there's the method to the madness on some of the more questionable parts of this mix. As far as the other stuff goes i.e. the low harp, I totally agree ;). Dhsu pretty much hit the nail on the head considering my personal concerns. But yeah overall it did turn out ok I guess, thanks everyone who helped, and thanks for the welcome. I'm tempted to go back and fix the stuff I agree should be fixed, but at this point I think I'll call it par for the course and move on. Thanks everyone!

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All in all a very good end product. I am still impressed by the way this turned out James, good job. You had never really explained your Celes connection to me, that makes a lot of sense. Anyway, great job.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

You know.. I was thinking. Maybe with the death of Rachel, Celes was the "gift" or so to speak, to Locke. Although it was a very sad event, I suddenly now believe that Rachel, in a sense, lives on in the heart of Celes.. Because she loves Locke, you know?

Just something to think about.. :wink:

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YAY!!!! :D Someone remixed Forever Rachel!!!!! I've been waiting forever for something like this. And I can greatfully say I was not let down! Very very beautiful the whole way through and the harp is great. I hope to hear more remixes from you! This is one of my personal favorites! 8)

I hope many other people remix this song! It is definately worthy to be remixed again!

-The Diabetic Knight

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