*NO* Final Fantasy 7, 8 & 9 'Chase Into the Space' *RESUB*

[DragonAvenger]

Original Decision

RESUB : Chase Into The Space

Remixer name : Bluelighter, Ilp0

Real Name : Guillaume SAUMANDE, Ilari NIEMINEN

Mail: guillaume.saumande@wanadoo.fr, isniemin@cs.helsinki.fi

ID forum: 30998, 9466

Game & Songs: ff8 (Movin’), ff7 (World Crisis), ff9 (Battle Theme #2)

Composer: Nobuo UEMATSU

Link:

- Movin'

- World Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3MKtNSOLQ - Battle 2

Hi Guys!

Here is the mix from the MOVIN’s theme of ff8: “Chase Into The Space”. I work on this project in collaboration with Ilp0. For this music, I wanted something epic, powerful, and the metal symphonic style was particularly adapted.

For the structure, this mix use the three parts of MOVIN’s theme: intro (with the famous arpeggios!), melodic lines ‘A’ and ‘B’. After an introduction and a presentation of the theme, I’ve added for the melody ‘A’ some variations (between 2’00 and 3’30): sad melody, metal part ultra speed (with a repetition of arpeggios, and a very small extract of the ff9 battle theme #2 by the bass line (maybe a bit difficult to recognize)), and an interlude very soft. After this, the melody ‘B’ put in place with a rhythm heavy; and ultra speed at the end. The last part makes a link between this melody and the final of World crisis from ff7, which well blend in, IMO. The mix finishes in culmination, with the last accords of the World Crisis, accompanied by a nice guitar impro.

Ilp0 recorded for me all the guitar parts. He played also some nice improvisations which give more depth to this mix. Notably at between 2’00 and 3’00, or in the last part, he added a lot of emotion and power on this music.

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Response to the critics of my first posting, I’ve corrected drum and other points like choirs, emphasizing of solo guitar, and globally a better balance between orchestra and metal parts.

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I hope you’ll enjoy!!

G Saumande

[OceansAndrew]

The snare is still sounding a little dull on the high end, but it is a lot punchier overall. I think the disconnect I am hearing is that the drum sound is fine overall for the rolls and such, but with the mad double bass and such, i'd expect it to cut a lot more.

Regardless, besides the snare, everything sounded excellent, and had a really nice late 0's, early 80's vibe, mixed with more modern writing styles.

It's still not as amazing as it could be, but it definitely sounds good, and the very strong arrangement carries it over the bar, I feel.

Yes

[DragonAvenger]

I'm torn on this one, because I definitely think it's improved, but I feel like the balance isn't there yet. I'm hearing a lot of the drums, and to be honest, not a lot of the main melodies that are being overpowered for a lot of the track. I think this still needs a look-over to find bring out those lead instruments more. 1:20 is a good example of this; when I sit back and listen, the biggest thing I'm hearing is the drums, and the melody isn't coming to mind first.

I think I'm hearing some clipping at the end as well, if someone could confirm that would be great.

I hope you get this one fixed up and send it in, the arrangement is really great.

NO (please resubmit!)

[halc]

the drums feel muffled in tone, the snare needs some more bite in the highs, but overall they are definitely sitting too forward in the arrangement. I thought the rhythm guitars were overpowered by the orchestral stuff, which was a little muddy and over-reverbed. nothing was ever really front and center, melodically, besides the lead guitar which actually seemed mixed pretty dry in comparison to everything else.

this is close, and the arrangement is solid, but I think it needs some more work balancing-wise; push the drums back a touch, tone down some of the reverb and try to cut some more frequencies from your instruments to make more room for them to breathe, because when there's so much going on in the mix, stuff tends to wash together.

NO(resub)

[The Orichalcon]

This is a NO from me, before I go into why. I straight away hear things that really need fixing up.

Firstly, I'm really familiar with "Movin'" as it was one of my favourite FF8 tracks. The first minute and a bit is pretty much a hit for hit cover of Movin', with a few additions, and some different drums. Things start shaking up with parts of Battle and World Crisis coming in later. But I'm very uncomfortable with passing this when it covers Movin' so closely for the first third of the mix. I'll defer to other judges on whether or not that's a big enough issue to reject it on alone. The last two thirds is rewritten well enough that I'm happy to look past it.

The biggest concern is the production though. The drums are straight-out-the-packet dry. It's not a pleasant sound, especially when I can hear that they've been written so well. They hit you hard straight away at the beginning of the song, coming out as way too loud, way too dry and a bit too muffled.

You're using a drumkit, so you need to make it sound like a drumkit, rather than a bunch of samples. EQ, light distributed room reverb on separate samples and maybe a limiter will fix this up easily. Then retweak the instruments around it to make sure they're all still sounding good. That's all I want to hear to pass this. Whether or not other judges are unhappy with the use of Movin' is up to them.

[Palpable]

Yeah TO really hit on the problem with the drums. Very dry, it doesn't sounded like they were treated at all. The leads weren't out in the forefront where they should have been, and elements like the rhythm guitars are really tucked away. Though the arrangement has a lot of positives, the balance is still not right. Maybe do some comparisons with some symphonic metal tunes to get a sense of what should be where. Hate to be blunt, but it needs more work still.

NO (resubmit)