Final Fantasy 13 - This is Your Home (Quartet Version)

[markhansavon]

This is "This Is Your Home" from Final Fantasy 13 arranged for strings. It's a performance quartet, which means I programmed it so that I just played it right through my keyboard. I used Reason 4 with Miroslav.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6XFbJoKct0

[Chris ~ Amaterasu]

Glad to see someone doing some string quartet stuff.

The writing sounds fairly solid, but it is really hard to pull this off with the synth especially when it gets to the more staccato notes and higher pitched notes.

Maybe one day I can start a ocremix string quartet and play stuff like this that ppl write =)

[docnano]

This is a nice arrangement, with a good variety of rhythmic motifs and moods for such a short piece. OCRemix might want a little more development of the theme if you were to submit this. And Chris is right that it's hard to pull solo strings off with samples (I've tried a lot ; especially the articulation is impossible to reproduce with most sample libraries. It would be best to get a real string quartet together to record this, or take it in a different direction that doesn't try to be so acoustic. I'd love to hear more classically oriented mixes like this, though. Good work, and good luck!

[markhansavon]

Thanks guys.

I have my doubts about the string libraries out there, also, but, I feel for synth it's expressive, and I wouldn't want to change it to have more instruments... I've got a huge soundtrack I've been working on for 5 years and I was thinking of eventually hiring a string quartet to help me record some of the more important themes...

[Kenogu Labz]

Those samples are reaaally stiff. I can hear where the dynamics would be, but it simply doesn't come through with the samples you used. The arrangement itself actually sounds pretty good, especially near the end, but you really need to find different sounds before you can do anything else with it.

[docnano]

It's definitely expressive compared to many synths, and I can tell you put a lot of thought into the dynamics etc. I've heard some mixes posted with surprisingly synthy strings, even in the past few years, but one never knows where to expect leniency from the panel. In any case, it would sound infinitely more amazing with real musicians.

[markhansavon]

I just figured out how to do a sliding portamento in Reason 4. x____x' It took a lot of work, and it's definitely a trick, but I've finally got a good portamento like Kontakt has.

Regardless of what I've said before, with this new discovery, I may just update the song with portamento on the legato parts.

Also, if anyone knows where I can find some unlooped quartet samples, that'd be awesome. x_x The next step will be to make it so that it changes as it holds notes, since it just holds and has this low-quality/short looped vibrato, so the ear just loses interest pretty quickly.

[Kenogu Labz]

It's definitely expressive compared to many synths, and I can tell you put a lot of thought into the dynamics etc. I've heard some mixes posted with surprisingly synthy strings, even in the past few years, but one never knows where to expect leniency from the panel. In any case, it would sound infinitely more amazing with real musicians.

True, but this is a little over the edge. Since the whole piece is composed of solely that set of samples, it really can't stand on its own. Bad strings can work if mixed with other, better samples.

And yes, pretty much everything orchestral sounds better live.

[markhansavon]

Well that's true enough, but it still has to remain just string quartet. Don't count me out just yet, though, I've got some tricks up my sleeve coming up with quartets. x_x

Also, while live usually sounds better, I feel that I can go further and get an expressiveness that can sound interesting to "normal people".