OCR01980 - Kingdom Hearts "Destiny Forgotten"

[Soteriologist]

The song was ruined by the vocals. They were too nasally, restrained and off-key. In order to add some more dynamics to the singing you really need to belt it and not be so timid. Don't tense up and let the sound carefully creep through your mouth and nose. Rather, belt it from your gut and carefully listen to what tensing up different parts of you does to your voice and relax the parts that are having an adverse effect on it. It can be your face, your nasal passage, your mouth, your vocal chords, your chest, or gut. Just pay careful attention, tune into your good singing stance and belt it.

[Tasogare]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with the majority on this one. I love the rare mix that has well done vocals, but this is far from one of them. They're flat, off-key, nasally, shaky, the list goes on. I'm sorry for sounding harsh, but it's true. This is a really, really, really disappointing mix.

[kainjest]

Personally, I rather enjoy the mix as a whole. The vocals, while the majority seem to be taking as reason to dislike the arrangement, I actually rather like. Perhaps it's because I can hear how it will progress in future songs, or perhaps because the tone actually has that feel that she doesn't want the other person to leave, an almost sorrowful and longing feel. It's not a feeling one can get as easily with technology-enhanced vocals. Let them be "flat, off-key, nasally, shaky," because it sounds perfect that way with how it's put together.

As for the instruments, well...I really have nothing to say aside from I like them. I look forward to hearing more from you both in the future.

[jcbq]

The remix is good and personaly i think you sing better in japaniesse but this song is like FF 7 One winged angel its must be reconizable and not to be destroyed

over all it was good

[Darkmila]

I'm sorry but I have to say that...

Personally I find the singer terrible.

Alone as she are frantically trying to sing a high is a qual to the ear. D:

The remix itself sounds great, but the singer ruined everything, especially from the places where she even tried to sing in Japanese ... Ridiculous...

[Jay Cee]

I love the song and seem to have listened to it religiously everyday since I first downloaded it a few weeks ago. I love her voice.

[Sorceror Nobody]

On the plus side, the arrangement is pretty good. I've been waiting for more KH ReMixes, and vocals aside this one doesn't really disappoint. However, while I do see that there is possibly a great deal of potential in diotrans's voice, I have to say that I'd much have preferred for that potential to be realised before this ReMix was made. Much as I genuinely do want to, I find it hard to really listen to this ReMix because of the vocals.

I think that the main thing that was lacking was oomph. I'm no expert, but I reckon that a bit more energy in the performance could go some way to improving on some issues such as the oft-mentioned "nasally and shaky" aspects. Overall, I rate this highly enough that if it were, hypothetically, redone with more energy (and admittedly a slight autotune) I'd be first in line to give it another chance.

P.S. What's with the abrupt end? I don't strictly speaking dislike it, but it seemed rather out of place.

[Cloudberry]

As someone who's had vocal training and is studying Japanese, this song was absolutely painful to listen to. I can't really comment on the instrumental work--it sounds nice, but is unfortunately drowned out by the singing. So let's get to the vocals, since they're so prominent. Hsieh's vowels are very "wide", so the singing's very nasal. When she gets to the higher notes her voice gets quite flaky. She's put much effort into this, which is always a good thing--but sometimes the (nasal) forcefulness of her singing is actually quite abrasive, and clashes with the background, making both hard to listen to. With those two issues combined, I couldn't help but think that Hsieh sounded very much like a child throughout the song.

For all of the work she put into this, it seems none of it went to studying Japanese enunciation. There's many unclean vowels, at times even the consonants aren't pronounced right (it's "zutto" with a Z, not a TS), and the strange emphasis (and lack of) on certain syllables will leave anyone familiar with the language nonplussed. I was, however, pleasantly surprised at how close she was to the R, though it was a little soft in some places. That trill is usually the most difficult thing for native English speakers to to learn.

Hsieh has a lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of potential. But she really needs professional training. And for god's sake, if you're going to sing a song in another language, study the enunciation.

[Mirby]

I enjoy this song a lot. It's a nice listen (there's really not many KH mixes on the site) and I like how she transitions between the English lyrics and the Japanese ones instead of sticking to one language.

[Crulex]

You know, for someone who put herself out there and tried to do a song in both English and Japanese, nicely done. It's not easy to sing and sound incredible at the same time. I actually think that for some reason the Japanese bit sounded better than the English parts. I'll admit that I had a hard time making the lyrics out without straining (and without a lyrics tab on this ReMix) because of the highness of some lines, but you have a wonderful voice and I can't really fault anyone for trying their best here. The instrumentation was great and I enjoyed the acoustic guitar and easy feeling of it all. Again, I liked your voice, but it just went too high or nasally sometimes which made it hard to make things out. Nice work.