Final Fantasy VII - J-NVA CR-DMX LM-78 AKAI ('Jenova' remix)

[Friend Tim]

"J-NVA CR-DMX LM-78 AKAI"

Re-arrangement:

FIRST draft: http://soundcloud.com/timotayo/j-nva-cr-dmx-lm-78-akai

Revision: http://soundcloud.com/timotayo/j-nva-cr-dmx-lm-78-akai-second

Source:

EDIT (03-15-2011): new version posted! Changes detailed in later post...

I decided with this one to go in an entirely different direction: 80s synth-pop and Euro-Disco, complete with analog pads and old drum machine sounds.

I made a conscious effort to make it sound like Gino Soccio, New Order, and Giorgio Moroder but still unique, with sparkly keyboards going up and down, vocoded voices and speech synthesis.

That being said, the source is used very liberally, allowing room for the rest of the piece which is a straight-up pop-electro-disco track.

Contemplating submitting this...

[Gario]

It's a very sweet track, no doubt (although it doesn't ever seem to know what it wants to do - I assume the frantic genre swapping is on purpose?). Like you said, though, it's incredibly liberal with the source tune. I'm suspecting it's too liberal for OCR's front page, in fact.

If you want to submit this, here are a few suggestions.

Make the melodies much more prominent. It's there, from time to time, but for the most part you focus on the arpeggios. The arpeggios alone don't pin it to Jenova, since many songs have those arpeggios. There's a lot of empty space where reinterpretations of the main melodies could be playing over the textures, so there's still room to get that theme prominent in your track.

tbh, there just doesn't seem to be enough bass in the track, overall. The mids and highs are clean and awesome, but the bass range is lacking, especially for a dance-style track. It doesn't need to be hardcore bass or anything, but it does need to be able to hold the track up at least a little.

Love the Philip Glass vocal choir, chiptune-ish synths, 80's drums and overall feel of the track, though. I'd like to see this pass, so try to get some more Jenova into the track and a bit more power in the bass.

[Spakku]

Gar covered most everything, there's just one other issue.

The voice saying "bend over". I get that it's probably supposed to sound like "Jenova" but, well, it doesn't until the very last one with no musical accompaniment.

All in all, it's the cheeriest rape song I ever did hear.

[Friend Tim]

Best. Crit. EVER.

Seriously, I love you guys.

It might even be more amusing to have the voice actually say "Bend Over", thus sending it head-long into 80s Men Without Hats goofiness. But with rape.

I was listening a little more closely to it and I was contemplating making it even more synth-y and more Kraftwerk-y. "KWERKY" if you will?

[Darangen]

I've had several mixes declined over the years due to being too liberal with the source.

I think the minimum they'll accept is 50% recognizable source usage. So take the length of your track, lets say it's 5 minutes (can't seem to listen to it atm, link is down), you'd need 2:30 of collective recognizable source time.

[Friend Tim]

(Original post edited: has new version)

Did a major overhaul of the piece. Got rid of the arpeggios, stuck to a New Order and Moroder inspired bass-line, stripped down most of the instrumentation, kept it short and sweet.

The familiar melody is transposed (initially) to a major one before going into the standard minor one.

It is a little more kitschy this time (but not parodic, I think...).

[Rockos]

Pretty nice track from the first I heard. Very good. Dunno what to say.