Chrono Trigger Theme - Time Fusion

[rsalonen]

Hey all, first post here and decided to post a new song, infact my first remix. I've been doing music before but never remixed any game music like this, and after hearing the incredible work on this site I decided to give it a go aswell.

I started with a relatively easy song to remix, the Chrono Trigger theme (yea I know, it's been done a thousand times).

I made the theme into a sort of Jazz-fusion / Funk song (first time doing anything in this style too, double the challange! )

I'd love to get some critique and opinions on it, what to improve and what works etc.

Thanks!

http://robinsalonen.com/temp/Time%20Fusion.mp3

Update 2 - http://robinsalonen.com/temp/Time%20Fusion_02.mp3

[Rozovian]

Everything sounds really heavy on the lows, you could mix it lighter than this. Aside from most sounds having too much lows, there's a few that sound too loud overall, and some that have some resonances that you might want to cut down to keep them from wrecking your listeners' ears.

Some more changes to the chords would be cool when you hit the 0:58 mark and repeat the melody. It's not like you don't do something there already, but it feels like a repeat. 2:11 sounds like a tv news jingle... which isn't a problem. The problem is that it's unexpected and a bit too loud to transition smoothly. The transition to the last part is a bit sudden too, but not as big of a problem. Ends well.

Less bass and some volume edits and it'll shine. Nice work. I want it (when it's fixed ). When you've gotten it as good as you can get it, sub it to ocr.

[rsalonen]

Thanks for your reply!

You mention something I always had a problem with, transitions, so you're most likely right, I need to work more on the transitions between things, make them clearer and not have them jump out from the dark and scare the listener.

Mixing is something I haven't done much before either, so I'll get to work on those lows and highs and other volume related stuff

I'm not sure what to do when mixing honstely, I mostly just change the EQ abit and put some reverb on stuff that needs it and change the volumes a bit.

Glad you liked it overall though! Not sure if I'll submit this to ocr, doubt it will get up to that standard, but I'll do my best to improve it!

Thanks again!

[Sbeast]

Yeah the mix is lacking some highs. You could keep the smooth "low heavy" sound for the intro, but after that the frequencies need to be more balanced. The instrument choices are great for this style and most of the samples are pretty good. The slap bass riff is cool but it feels too repetitive after a while. There's some nice interpretation with some of the melodies, but the accompaniment could really use some variation. Lastly, the master level could come up dB or 2.

[Monobrow]

What bass sample is that? It reminds me of Transformers, which I love.

[rsalonen]

@sbeast64, thanks for the feedback. Yea the bass riff could probably use some variation the second time its repeating, I'll look into that.

About the frequencies changing mid through the song, I'm not really sure how to do that honestly. When I set the frequencies for one channel I thought I was stuck with those settings, I'll see if I can figure out how to do that in Cubase

@Monobrow, the bass called Modern Funk from Spectrasonics Trilogy

[rsalonen]

Ok, I worked some more on it - http://robinsalonen.com/temp/Time%20Fusion_02.mp3

Some things I have changed:

-Adjusted the volume on parts, hopefully a more neutral volume now

-Fiddled around with the EQ a bit, not so much lows now I think, and an overall clearer sound

-Slightly changed the chord progression when the Sax comes into the picture to make a little more variation

-Added some small changes to the bass-riff on the "repeat" (when the Sax start), Could probably change this more, not sure what to do right now, kinda like the riff as it is, but I don't want to the bore the listener either.

-Few other changes towards the end.

Hopefully it sounds better now, mixing is hard!