*NO* Final Fantasy 1-9 'A Decade of Travels'

[Liontamer]

Way over the size limit, but if you feel like providing feedback that could carry to a future piece, feel free - LT

song title: A Decade of Travels

Remixer Name: GK

Real Name: Gerald Kaye

website: http://tekkaxe.blogspot.com , http://www.youtube.com/tekkaxe

Name of game(s) arranged: Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Name of individual song(s) arranged: "Main Theme"(ff1), "Main Theme"(ff2), "Eternal Wind"(ff3), "Final Fantasy IV Main Theme"(ff4), "Main Theme of Final Fantasy V"(ff5), "Terra"(ff6), "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII"(ff7), "Blue Fields"(ff8), "Over the Hills"(ff9), "Prelude"(ff7)

but i've also attached it in case that link expires before you get a chance to judge it.

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A lot of 'em

Piano doesn't sound bad, but the sequencing doesn't sound realistic. Transition at :46 had 0 flow and the drums first used at :58 sounded out of place, and the arrangement of the lead/melody was repetitive, finally changing around 1:56. The overall textures still weren't clicking. Some different drums breaks added at 2:19. Such an awkward transition at 5:11 to the FF5 Main theme.

Short and sweet, I wasn't feeling the instrumentation choices, and the textures didn't click whatsoever. If more complimentary sounds were used, this could honestly sound worlds better. As is, it was just some syrupy leads, generally over the same flimsy core percussion pattern, incomplete textures, and transitions with no flow. For 12 minutes.

It's not totally awful, and I could see a lot of FF fans feeling it. But that doesn't mean it was a cohesive arrangement or medley, or a well-produced piece. Can't run with it here.

NO

[DragonAvenger]

I liked your idea of having a sort of travel between each of the games and their overworld themes. It's an ambitious project, and to try to add your own flair to each track is another level in this. That being said, I feel like there are some areas where this mix falls short. There were a few times where I felt the background you came up with just wasn't fitting the melody, or vice-versa. Nothing stuck out as particularly wrong, but at the same time I felt like it wasn't locking into place like it should. I'm also fairly underwhelmed by the drums. The loops are pretty generic, and at times are working with the arrangement, and at other times are just on auto-pilot. The transitions were also a bit rough at times. There were some sections that changed pretty suddenly. I think arrangement-wise you need to take a look into each section to make sure all the parts are working together.

A lot of the sequencing is stiff, which is killing the flow of the tracks. Adding some humanization to a lot of this will help things a lot. Best example of this is the FFVII section. The notes are super short and aren't carrying any emotion to them. Similarly, the sound choices weren't really keeping my interest. The lead synth especially needs to be changed around a lot more, and I'm not really feeling the synth that was used at all.

There is a lot of music here, and honestly I'd much rather have you work on really making one of these themes sound good rather than throwing them together. Or, make 9 (or more) pieces and put them together in a compilation. As it stands this isn't working for me.

NO

[DarkeSword]

Let's get the obvious part out of the way first: OCR highly discourages medlies. We're not looking for samplers that touch on a couple of themes without attention paid to development, interpretation, and cohesiveness. Also, we have an 8MB filesize limit on our submissions.

Now, ignoring the fact that this is medley, I'm going to just say that I'm not really feeling anything that's going on in this piece. Sequencing is extremely mechanical across the board; the piano sounds stiff as hell in the beginning. The bass is thin and provides no foundation. The drums sound lo-fi and repetitive. There is no balance between melodic lines, arpeggios, and the droning phased synth that's providing the backing chords. There are practically no transitions between themes; you just iterate through one a couple of times and then move on to the other. FF5's theme sounds particularly bad; there are some odd harmonic choices there.

Pretty much every song has the same interpretation applied to it: droning synth chords, some repetitive beats, arpeggiated synths, and the melody played over it. For such a long track, there's remarkably little development. The entire piece stays flat throughout.

NO