DragonAvenger Posted November 28, 2010 Share Posted November 28, 2010 Remixer Name: Squint Real Name: Hai Nguyen Email Address: hxnguyen05@gmail.com Game Arranged: Chrono Trigger for SNES Song Arranged: To Far Away Times (or is it Outskirts of Time?) Additional Information: Yasunori Mitsuda, original composer. Hey guys, this is my second submission to the site. I was going to wait until "Gusty Piano in a Garden" went up, (it's currently in the "To Be Posted" section of the Judge's Decision thread), as I wanted to see what kind of critiques you may have had and possibly integrate them into this arrangement. But I couldn't wait, and I figured that this one is different enough that any critiques may not apply anyway. So yeah, the ending theme to Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite pieces of all time (I know, I'm not the first one to type that sentence, and will not likely be the last). And as much as I didn't want to arrange a piece that's been done and done, this one came to my fingers often enough times at the piano that I felt like I should put something down on paper. Hey, at least it's not Terra's theme, right? Anyway, like my last submission, I tried to give this one a bit of a jazzier feel than I've been used to playing pretty much my whole life, so I definitely did some experimenting along the way. I imagine this one being played after closing time - nobody listening but the guy at the piano, playing solely for the sake of his own satisfaction and enjoyment. Often times, I would just sit down with my eyes closed and play whatever came to mind, making a mental note of things that did and did not work (way more of the latter than the former, of course). It's a good bit different from how I worked on Gusty Piano in a Garden, and I think it probably shows. It really is unlike anything I've composed before, so I'm crossing my fingers that it worked out. But enough rambling. Hope you guys enjoy, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think! Hai ---------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 30, 2010 Author Share Posted November 30, 2010 I'm quite glad that you came back with another very personalized mix. I love the jazz treatment for this, you added quite a lot of interpretation to this that really adds a nice flavor to the original. I'm hearing the same issues as with Gusty on this, the dry piano sounds a little strange, but overall it's not enough to put things below the bar for me. The other judges might have more issue with it. I really enjoyed listening to this, YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted November 30, 2010 Share Posted November 30, 2010 I absolutely adore this arrangement, and it's also one of my favorite pieces of all time, so excellent taste, sir. I do think the piano is a little too dry, but not enough for me to NO it, especially since you had the foresight to try to wait on crits for your Gusty Gardens submission. In light of that, I think just adding a touch more room sound would make this good. Yes (Conditional on reverb) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vig Posted December 3, 2010 Share Posted December 3, 2010 10 seconds in I thought to myself "God I hope this isn't a solo piano track." That piano just sounds so dull and lifeless. It sounds honky! Trim between 700Hz-1kHz. definitely bring up the top end, and probably the low end. Add some sort of reverb, probably a more subtle room for this performance. Actually Ideally you would just get a different piano sample, but barring that, try the tips mentioned above. NO (resubmit) - Sound quality issues. That piano sounds way too shitty for a solo piano piece. Solid performance though. See if you can tweak the mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 A cleaner recording/render would be nice. Arrangement is great though, love the jazzier approach. Yes, conditional on reverb/eq fix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Orichalcon Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 Sounds nice and funky to me. I don't have an issue with how it sounds. It reminds me of an old-timey movie style piano. (Not silent-film era, but maybe 70s, given the sound quality back then.) If the other judges have issue with the way it sounds, then by all means, fix it up, but I'm happy for this one to be posted as is. Relaxing tune which will be good at Christmas. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 First of all, this is extremely quiet. Please make sure you normalize your remixes before submitting them. Even normalized, it's still pretty quiet and could use some very light transparent limiting, so regardless I would want to see this happen before it's posted. I agree that the piano tone itself could use some work - it has almost no stereo width at all, and sounds completely dry. I would recommend applying some light stereo reverb and using some kind of stereo enhancer/shaper to give it more width. You should also try to boost the low-end of the piano to give that more power. As it is, it sounds too lo-fi to post. The arrangement and playing however, are quite good, especially as the piece develops. Very good stuff there. I would give this a YES-C but there are too many production things that are not necessarily one-click fixes. I'd like to see a resub. NO, resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 Very nice jazzy arrangement. I agree with the production crits above though, but I disagree with zirc that the fixes aren't quick enough for a YES-c. 1. Some reverb plz, even just something subtle. 2. Normalize the volume. You have oodles of headroom here. Put a limiter on the master bus and push your volume up until the louder sections are putting it to use, not too much. 3. A subtle bass boost wouldn't hurt. That really shouldn't take you more then an hour. EDIT: I'm all good with this now. Much better volume, much less dry. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 We basically got seven people saying the same things. I'll e-mail him. EDIT: I fixed up a new version of this that's normalized and has reverb. Linked in the first post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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