FFXI: Fly High, Cornelia

[Yume-Vision]

Finally, a few years from the birth of this project, I gain SOME ground on putting it up on the OCR community. This was due to a 2-year hiatus on being able to do anything about it, and also to not knowing what in the world to do with conversion and not getting the help I needed. This does cause some to give up for a while after getting fed up. Anyway, no one likes a quitter, right? So you should keep smoking!

Anyway, onto the WIP... I submitted this to VGMix a few years ago just before the site went down. Some of you may remember this piece. This is a medley of four elements. It starts off with the Content ID purchase/edit screen music, which I always found so catchy yet relaxing. That's what spurred the whole idea of this. After that I move onto what seems to be the Bastok theme, but it meshes together with the Airship theme. After that rendezvous, I move into a varied rendition of the ever-so-famous-everyone-knows-it Crystal theme. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the tiny little Chocobo ditty at the very end.

I really liked the character Cornelia in this game, so I paid homage to her, obviously. And what with the Airship theme being in there, it gave me good reason to slap on this title. And for those of you who don't know or remember, she's from Bastok. All 5 elements of this piece are what I found to be the most influential pieces of my gaming experience with FFXI.

On a final note, I have no idea what the outcome will be for this post. If you think it needs more elements, more work, or if you'd like to pitch in on this, please say so. Yes, I know it's WAY over the limit to submit, too. I no longer have access to a keyboard to rerecord it any further. Also, I'd prefer help, if possible, with PC editing if needed. I can't say how many times I recorded this to get a decent sound...

Here's the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jjuztym2kug

[Rozovian]

Not worth messing with unless you still have (or can get) a high-quality version (probably wav) of it. If you don't, don't change anything. You'll just screw with the sound quality. Compressing an already compressed file is probably gonna produce some clearly audible artifacts.

If you do have a high-quality v of it, some noise reduction would be nice. There probably isn't much you can do about the clipping (e.g. 2:15), and that's something the Js are gonna have a problem with.

There's some unnecessary repetition in it, and it's long. Smoothly cutting from one iteration to another would fix that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. I dunno how audiophiles would feel about crossfades in the middle of the track, might screw with the pacing of the track too.

Re-encoding this already compressed version (not recommended) or working from a higher quality version of it are the only ways you're gonna get it small enough to get on ocr. It might be a good idea to go on irc and ask a judge what they think you should do (or perhaps ask in the site issues/feedback forum).

Technicalities aside, this is pretty. I especially like how you did the Crystal theme. Not much else I can say about it. Great track.

[ZealPath]

As a fairly hardcore FFXI player, it would be just wrong for me to ignore this one. It's really too bad it's too large for a potential submission because quality wise, this seems about on par with the FF Piano Collections albums.

It is definitely a little long, and combines several memorable themes into one. I have to say, a POL viewer remix? I may be the only other person alive who can appreciate that, and I have to say, it did bring me back to the early days, haven't been to that screen in years after all, but I did remember the tune (yeah, I have mp3s of the pol viewer songs, not gonna lie... lol).

Overall this is just a lovely piece you have here, and if you could devise a way to split it up, or shorten parts of it, I wouldn't be surprised if it could find a home on OCR as only the second FFXI remix to make the cut.

That little choco tune to end it was gold too, I'm not sure if you so much have to "work" on this one so much as you just have to retweak it to meet the requirements of the site.

[XZero]

Beautiful work. Best of luck cutting down the filesize for OCR.

[Yume-Vision]

Wow, I really really appreciate all the support and advice. Sadly, like I said, I can't really do much on my part to change anything. Don't have a keyboard to record it on and it would be grueling to practice it over and over again to get a good recording. I hired someone in the US, before leaving for Japan, to record it for me into CD/MP3/whatever formats. $20-something bucks, really sucked. Anyway, is there a program I could use to maybe do it from scratch digitally? All I know how to do is write music and play piano. :/

I was gonna just resubmit it to VGM and then to RTS, but I figured I'd go to the top dog (in my opinion), OCR, and get some feedback first. High hopes of getting on OCR, by any chance or means.

Edit:

ZealPath, how did you come across the POL music MP3s? I'm interested!

Edit:

Rozovian, what is clipping?

[Rozovian]

There's an annoying noise at 2:15 that I'm hearing. Could jsut be my pwnsome headphones' dislike for some frequencies, but it could be clipping. Clipping is when the input signal (or the combination of signals) is louder than the output signal's range. Sort'a like driving a tall truck through a low tunnel/under a low bridge - you'll scrape the top of the truck. Too loud for the digital file to write properly, so it just puts max value on everything that's max or more. With an audio signal, this means noise. You don't have the smooth tops of the sound wave, the top was scraped. Clipped.

You can do it in Reaper, I suppose, but you'll probably lose a lot of human qualities that make music more enjoyable. I recommend recording it in Reaper or another sequencer/DAW as midi, and processing it there with a good piano soundfont/sampler. That way, you have more control.

[ZealPath]

As I recall I found a bgw to mp3 converter and just converted the install files to mp3. I can probably devise a way to make them available if you want .

[Kaden]

As a fairly hardcore FFXI player, it would be just wrong for me to ignore this one. It's really too bad it's too large for a potential submission because quality wise, this seems about on par with the FF Piano Collections albums.

It is definitely a little long, and combines several memorable themes into one. I have to say, a POL viewer remix? I may be the only other person alive who can appreciate that, and I have to say, it did bring me back to the early days, haven't been to that screen in years after all, but I did remember the tune (yeah, I have mp3s of the pol viewer songs, not gonna lie... lol).

Overall this is just a lovely piece you have here, and if you could devise a way to split it up, or shorten parts of it, I wouldn't be surprised if it could find a home on OCR as only the second FFXI remix to make the cut.

That little choco tune to end it was gold too, I'm not sure if you so much have to "work" on this one so much as you just have to retweak it to meet the requirements of the site.

you aren't the only one. would be nice to see another ffxi remix on the site, and a POL one would be really cool.

[Yume-Vision]

There's an annoying noise at 2:15 that I'm hearing.

OK, I took another listen, more carefully, to that part. Yep, I now notice it too... Had to turn my speakers up a bit loud.

I have to say, a POL viewer remix? I may be the only other person alive who can appreciate that, and I have to say, it did bring me back to the early days, haven't been to that screen in years after all, but I did remember the tune (yeah, I have mp3s of the pol viewer songs, not gonna lie... lol).

If you noticed, I used part of the POL music (my left-hand patterns) throughout the Crystal theme portion. The POL theme was the original inspiration, after all.