djpretzel Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Finally getting around to submitting this...should have done it a loooong time ago, really, but after the cool reception to my first one I decided it wasn't worthy, which was stupid of me, since this is one of my favorite arrangements out of anything I've done, and "Sweeter Than Honey" was one of my least. SO...this is ReMixer Will Buck, submitting "The Dark Before the Dawn," my orchestral rendition of "At the Bottom of Night" from Chrono Trigger. Enjoy, I hope! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "At the Bottom of Night" (ct-3-03.spc) First off, congratulations to Will for his appearance on OneUp Studios' newest album, Xenogears Light. Yeah, good stuff. I'm a fan of the source theme, as I've said in the past, although I have to say I've personally heard much more engaging interpretations of it. Nonetheless, I liked the arrangement and expansion here. The volume could have been brought up a bit for the quieter sections, but in any case the gradual rise in intensity at 3:30 and the further added volume beyond 4:30 helped provide good contrast before closing things up with the lighter finish. I heard a light audio deformation at 3:33, by the way. Some people won't be fan of the whiny strings on lead, but I enjoyed their tone. Nice basic source coverage & rearrangement for the first few minutes with well-done expansive composition and tons of variation with the instrumentation. djp should have a good time laundry-listing everything employed here. Things were very relaxing for most of the subtler-sounding sections. The brass sample at 4:11-4:23 was one of the only nagging things I'd want touched up. Same goes for the French horn sample from 3:12-3:30, which almost sounds too quiet to be perceived as realistic. This won't be a bombastic remix that instantly commands your attention. Frankly, if this was from a lesser-known game, it wouldn't garner half as much attention. But with something so quiet and subdued such as this, it's all the more reason to listen closely. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 I have to agree with Larry here on the arrangement - EXCELLENT job, though I think it may have been a little too soft generally. The production overall could have been a little better too - encoding higher with VBR, for instance, and judiciously altering levels to make it more audible at points would have helped. But really, nothing was blaringly wrong in that department, and the arrangement MORE than makes up for it. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Yeah buddy. I didn't like the fakey violin in the beginning, but man oh man, the rest of the mix makes up for it. Very dynamic and expressive. Everything locks together quite nicely in this piece. Nice harmonic ideas. Production more than gets the job done. Beautiful. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrayLightning Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Slight problems. Rather weak production, I'm not sure what you use but there's plenty of free soundfonts and the like out there that could spice this up, unless you're using older hardware? Another little gripe, I would have wished more attention payed to the soundstage. There's little to no ambiance or depth placement here. The glockenspiel/chromatic bell is far too upfront and present in my opinion...still minor complaints. I did like the attention paid to the levels for the most part though. Is it me or do some of the progressions sound like those from FF IV? Nice climax near the end. Your arrangement, orchestration is great. Easy YES. Good job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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