Liontamer Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Name of Remixer: Tweek Real Name: Brian Arnold Email: brian@tweexmusic.com Website: www.tweexmusic.com User ID: 6829 Artist ID: 4730 Game: Final Fantasy 4 Song Remixed: Fight 1 Having listened to/watched the Metallica S&M concert, I endeavored to recreate a mix based on that sound: rock fused with orchestral elements. It's not an unexplored area of music but it is one that I have been enamored with since I first saw it used in a film ( ) years ago. I wasn't keen on the feel of the original so I set out to change the mood of this one by taking it in more of a grandiose direction by pulling ideas from both the Metallica S&M album and from the Dark Knight. Having never played FF4, my hope is that the original hasn't been entirely butchered by this mix!http://www.tweexmusic.com/ff4/of_fiend_and_man.mp3 This is a project mix for the FF4 album and is not to be posted until the release of the project. In the event of a NO decision, I request the link to the track be retained in the posting. --------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff4 - Fight 1 (ff4-08.spc) So as far as a breakdown, all I could make out was: :28-:55, 1:03.5-1:38, 2:08-2:19 or about 70.5 seconds of a 216-second long track. As far as I could tell, the source was mainly in the first half, and I'm not making out anything from the source once the Metallica-ish section kicks at 1:46. None of the melodic stuff after that seemed to be from the source. No decision from me for now, I'm gonna need a breakdown from someone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted August 25, 2009 Share Posted August 25, 2009 Yeah, can't say I heard any more source than Larry did, his breakdown seems spot-on. We might want to ask Brian just in case, but I'm leaving my vote as NO right now, as this seems way liberal. Arrangement is awesome though, a perfectly realized take on the orchestra with guitars thing. I'd love to be wrong about the source usage. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 25, 2009 Author Share Posted August 25, 2009 Mailed Brian, so we'll wait to hear back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted August 25, 2009 Share Posted August 25, 2009 I'll wait for Brian's breakdown before I throw a full vote out, but I would like to comment that I don't think it's fair to not count stuff like :55 - 1:03. Those 4 measures are not only filler bars that serve as a reasonable bridge between segments of a track, but I think they're also citing the first 3 seconds of the source. Since there's only 2 notes there, it doesn't leave a lot of room for deviation without one of us screaming about it being too liberal. I suppose the same thing could be said about :14 - :28. So I personally think it's only fair to be a little more generous there. Not counting transitions (like these 2-4 bar gaps) between obvious/more easily indentifiable source is the epitome of using the stop-watch technique. And while timing the source is fine, I think time-stamping segments in such a way should be used on larger portions of the remix. Like, say the section from 1:38 - 2:08. Again, I think this is referencing the first :03 of the source, but it's a bit more liberal, and because of it's length, it's not really a bridge as much as it is it's own unique section, so I can understand not wanting to count that, and though I'm fairly sure what he's referencing, I myself will agree that it's a bit of a stretch. I'm also going to be generous and credit him until 2:23 or so instead of 2:19 because the sustain note fadeout of the melody. I couldn't make out any source after that, though. So here's my slightly more generous breakdown: 0:00 - 0:14 - original - 14 seconds 0:14 - 1:38 - recognizable arrangement - 84 seconds 1:38 - 2:08 - original - 30 seconds 2:08 - 2:23 - recognizable arrangement - 15 seconds 2:23 - 3:37 - original - 74 seconds So that bumps him up to about 98/217, so definitely not quite out of iffy/unlikely terrain. Here's some specific stuff unrelated to time/usage issues. Overall, this is a decent track. It's probably not the best work we'll hear from Brian, but it's certainly not his worst track either. The production is very clean, no gripes whatsoever there. I really enjoyed the feedback during the intro, but the slide at :11 (and 1:01 and 3:26), however had WAY too much reverb on it to fit nice with the rest of the mix, and it was especially obvioius when the extremely dry power chords followed immediately after. It worked on the feedback, I suppose because of the nature of feedback anyway, but it didn't fit the texture of the slide. I'm normally a huge fan of glitching/stuttering/chopping, and while I didn't think it was bad, exactly, I thought it felt a little out of place for this mix. It made the powerchords themselves sound particularly unconvincing/unrealistic, and since this wasn't really an electronic piece at all, that stood out in a slightly negative way. I wouldn't have called that alone a deal-breaker, but it's worth mentioning. The lead itself also bugged me just a little at times. It wasn't terrible by any means, but it sounds like you might have been using a plugin that had been sampled post-processing instead of a dry plugin with some guitar FX on top of that. I could be wrong, of course, but the attack on some of the notes made them sound a bit flimsy. The section at 1:25 onward is a good example of what I'm talking about. This is a pretty tough call. Throwing numbers down (don't think I've done this before) here's what it looks like. Production - 100% pass. (clean mixing, no clipping, no "mud") Execution - 75% pass (guitar is thin/flimsy at times, reverb on the slide, the out-of-place stuttering) Arrangment (by my breakdown) - 45% pass (98/217 seconds - 45.16% source usage. 32.71% by Larry's) So really, I'd say I can see this one going either way by my breakdown, but 33% is pretty low on the "identifiable and dominant" rule thing we have going on here concerning arrangement. I'm pretty adamant about counting :55 - 1:03, but I can understand everything else in Larry's breakdown, and that still only puts the arrangement at 36% So since I've decided to become the "sympathetic" judge lately, I'm inclined to throw this one a VERY borderline YES, but I'm going to hold off officially until we hear from Brian. Regrettably, I have the feeling it's an uphill battle for him, and even filling the sympathetic role, there's no point in voting YES when everyone else feels it's not OCR-enough. Nice track though, either way. Brian has proven to be a pretty diverse musician, and I always enjoy hearing new tracks from him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted August 25, 2009 Share Posted August 25, 2009 0:00 - 0:14 - original - 14 seconds 0:14 - 1:38 - recognizable arrangement - 84 seconds 1:38 - 2:08 - original - 30 seconds 2:08 - 2:23 - recognizable arrangement - 15 seconds 2:23 - 3:37 - original - 74 seconds I see something wrong, do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted August 26, 2009 Author Share Posted August 26, 2009 Sent Brian a copy of the thread from earlier, with just myself and Vinnie. Gonna need more clarification on this one if there's more source usage, because right now I'm not hearing anything, and I never give the benefit of the doubt to anyone. Thanks for any more insight you can give! - Larry Nah mate. You identified everything correctly without leaving anything out. Not liking the original made this mix more liberal than I usually go, but no worries. Between you and me, I half expected a NO on this one for this very reason. Just make sure the link stays in the decision thread as this will be a TERRIFIC example for OCR that says top production quality is NOT the only deciding factor for a submission. Cheers. B Thanks for being a good sport about it, Brian. Basically just confirmed what I heard. My benefit of the doubt basically extended to "I didn't NO it outright." NO You'll also see why I'm not as, IMO, lenient on arrangement as some of y'all. It's means a lot that I can make overt A-to-B connections. No hate, but some of us are now in the habit of giving too much credit to VERY scant chord connections, even sometimes to wholly original writing just because it pieces together seamlessly with the source. It's not inherently difficult to incorporate 50+% VGM source material in there, guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anosou Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Yeah, everything's been said. Thanks for being cool about it Brian! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 no I think that speaks for itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 I see something wrong, do you? I'm not sure what you're getting at here Anyway, yeah, it was a long shot to begin with. I personally don't feel like it's a SOLID NO, more like a aww, shucks NO GG ANYWAY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts