djpretzel Posted November 7, 2004 Share Posted November 7, 2004 Remixer name: Darangen Real name: Michael Boyd Email: darangen@hotmail.com Remix Info URL: Remixed Game: Chrono Trigger Name of Song: Schala's Theme Comments: Recently I had a very devastating occurance in life. My cat that I had for a good 5-6 years (Roxy) ended up with a tumor that ruptured and cause internal bleeding to the point that she lost 2/3 - 3/4's of her blood. It was an untreatable condition, and I had to put her to sleep. I was quite fond of that cat. So again, as with many of my feelings with life, I sat down and started playing the piano. I came up with the intro and the chorus part (0:00-1:00) minus the zeal part I added in later. I took a break and started playing CT again, and happened to be at Zeal and heard this tune. It hit my emotions and I was inspired to make this arrangement. It's in C Minor, and I don't think Zeal's theme was originally in C Minor, so I just made it fit and transposed it. Yes, it fades out. The reason I faded out was to symbolize the passing of my cat. This is also my first non-guitar arrangement, all done with Midi through my super old Casio CTK-650. Hope you enjoy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted November 7, 2004 Share Posted November 7, 2004 there are some interesting ideas in this mix. i think the piano works well. the intro is good. unfortunately some aspects of the mix are akward. as soon as instruments other than piano come in, it's clear that the piano is too loud. the piano is playing a rhythm line, but it's the most prominent instrument by far. the string thing playing the recognizable schala riff is quite ugly. liberties taken with the riffs and melody work well. the drums are kinda akward, when everything drops out to solo piano again, it seems like an akward thing to do. kills the momentum of the remix. the drums come back in and again sound kind of bare...the strings in the back should be an octave higher, and play more notes. more complex harmonies plz. I think the main problem with this mix is organization. there's no flow, instruments come in and drop out at seemingly random intervals. i think some nice strings could also do a lot in some sections. something to fill up the mid frequencies. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted November 11, 2004 Share Posted November 11, 2004 I like the concept here overall, but I think some of the details could be more finely tuned. The piano/violin don't sound that great, for example, and it's fairly obvious at some points. Also, when the piano plays alone, it's a little *too* minimal, not enough to capture the listener's interest. Try adding more layers: soft pads (strings, choir, synths), or maybe some light ethnic percussion. The idea would be to fill some of the gaps you have. What percussion you do have is a little lackluster; not enough emphasis on the snare and bass, while the hats are too dry and loud. I think layering is the key to solving that, along with judicious use of delay. You might consider changing some of the drum samples also, because at times they have hip-hop style grooves, which really doesn't fit in all that well with the style of the rest of the piece. Finally, some of the instruments, such as the flute and oboe, aren't mixed very well and sound somewhat sharp and biting. Basically, that considered, my vote is NO. I do suggest a resubmit because luckily, the arrangement on the whole is pretty strong. I can sense the feel you were going for easily enough. At this point, start focusing more on your choice of instruments, your layering, and processing, all of which are important when you're trying to make an emotional mix. Sorry about your cat, by the way. We had to put my cat Smudge down earlier this year. Very sad, especially since she was alive longer than me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted November 12, 2004 Share Posted November 12, 2004 That piano is really loud bro. I can see what Vig is saying about the emptiness too; that part where it's just the piano going solo is BERY BERY BORING. Not much besides block chords (fifths?) and the continuo line from the original. Not very creative. Later on down the line, with the oboe, cello, and piano, everything sounds REALLY crowded right there in the mid-range. The piano is really overpowering everything else. This mix has MAJOR balance issues. I'd go back and tweak ALL of the volume levels if I were you. Sorry about your cat. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted November 12, 2004 Share Posted November 12, 2004 http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Sara's (Schala's) Theme" (ct-3-06.spc) Everyone else pretty much nailed it, so I'll be relatively brief. I agreed with the comments on the lack of sound balance at times, along with most of the other issues cited. I liked the principle of the violin & piano being panned to different channels (:32-1:00), but neither had much clarity. Somewhat jarring shot of piano at 1:08 to transition into the more sombre piano solo, but you can get used to it if your volume isn't too high. The piano work throughout 1:08-2:28 is notably flat, so I feel it could have been fuller while remaining somber, but I felt it served its purpose overall. On the other hand, the hip-hop-ish drums were unorthodox and were obviously a purposeful choice, but seemed to take away from the inferred somberness of the track here. Far be it from me to tell you how you think the percussion SHOULD go, but it was a very odd contrast. I wasn't so much opposed to them being there as much as I felt the percussion was very dry and unvaried. Hopefully zircon's suggestions hook you up to go in a bit stronger direction that won't compromise the atmosphere you want. From 3:40-4:27, the drumbeats were a good idea in the back, but pretty flimsy-sounding. At 4:27, the melodic wind instrument you switched to needs a bit more humanization moving from note-to-note. The string instruments could use a bit of that too, IMO, but it's not a big deal. Besides the cymbal activity (obviously), everything seems to sound a lot better to me with a treble boost. Perhaps a light increase on the high-end would sharpen things up. Sorry about your cat, by the way. I wouldn't exactly, you know, make a remix about it, but to each his own. I believe I'm a bit stronger on this than everyone else, Mike, so it won't take much more to get my YES personally, but take the rest of the judgments into a account and tweak some of the foundations in place to get solid YESs from the others. Looking forward to a resub on this one, bro. Definitely run whatever you have by us in #ocremix if you're willing to take a look at it. NO (definitely resubmit, please) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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