djpretzel Posted February 19, 2005 Share Posted February 19, 2005 Contact Info Fatty Acid Joseph Liao jliao@mit.edu ReMix Info Final Fantasy Matoya no Fuuketsu A remix of the Matoya's Cave theme from Final Fantasy. I'll admit that Squaresoft themes aren't the most original choices in terms of remixing, but I love the epic style of composition used in the game. And I believe that my approach to remixing the theme will be original enough Hope you enjoy. Let me know if there are any problems that arise; my last submission didn't get through. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 19, 2005 Share Posted February 19, 2005 http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ff1.zip - Track 10 (Matoya's Theme) A little bit too much tinnyness, or whatever you'd call it, going on with the hats. Pretty solid arrangement work to me though, with a fair amount of variation. I remember it from VGF45. Good expansionist ideas to support the melody, and I enjoyed the new rhythms and occasionally off-kilter feel of things here. Things started repeating a bit on the composition side at 2:18, though some small additions were around. By the time you hit 2:44 though, I felt like the arrangement went on cruise control. Luckily at 3:10 you went for a nice string-focused close. If the beats had simply kept going, I would have NOed, but I'm willing to accept this on the borderline. Would have rather heard some more variation/more new ideas in the last minute to really solidify a YES, but otherwise, this was reasonably well-executed. Could envision it snagging some NOs though. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Whoa I love that trippy gating in the beginning. Nice balanced soundscape too. Percussion is so awesome haha. Nice; this has me dancing in my seat at this very moment. Awesome variation. Totally groovy. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Hmm. I like the general idea here - groovy drums, real instruments, and synths with lots of processing tricks to spice things up.. but I don't think it was executed well. I really like the arrangement, on the other hand. I'm not sure about that 'stuttering' effect - it's cool the first few times, but gets a little irritating as it goes on. As for other issues, the lead sound is just WAY too basic and dry.. you've gotta change that. Drums could have more flavor too, though I like their sequencing. Finally, what's up with the ending? It wouldn't have taken much effort to have the mix actually resolve rather than just cut off (basically). Bottom line is that I think this needs more tweaking and polish.. I'd like to see a resubmit though. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrayLightning Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 I love the theme, and I love the arrangement. The stuttering/gating is really done well I think. It adds a cool factor that I haven't heard done without sounding overly cliche. Yeah it's a bit overused, but I still think it's used effectively. I really like the processing overall here. It adds to the quality rather than just sounding gimmicky. Neat synths and other instrumentation too. Percussion as a whole is neat. It's not often you hear a belltree in a mix of this nature. Another thing that bears special mention is the string writing. I think it's quite clever and it just sounds good. Production overall here is quite good too. My main gripe is the lackluster and abrupt ending. Still, very enjoyable. Definite YES from me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digital Coma Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Just checked the original; way more melodically complex than this mix. I agree with zircon that the gating is excessive and becomes annoying. Percussion keeps time and nothing more. This certainly is more of an attempt at rearrangement than Fatty Acid's CT mix (well, that wasn't an attempt at rearrangement at all), but not only is the melody verbatim here, it's dumbed down, and the other elements here don't make up for it (static left-panned chip lead, repeating passages, etc). Once again Fatty Acid creates cool synth timbres, but I need the arrangement and composition to match. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 Percussion keeps time and nothing more. Timekeeping my ass. I'm sorry, but you can't be serious there. The percussion varies and integrates really well throughout this entire piece. Please listen to the mix again. I'll grant that it isn't tricked out like crazy, but the percussion does more than just keep time. Also, how can the melody be verbatim and dumbed down at the same time? If it's verbatim, its ripped, yet you say its dumbed down, which means it's been changed. Why is simplifying a melody to work in the context of the style of the piece written off as dumbing it down? It's called interpretation and adaptation. There is nothing inherently wrong about simplification, especially when a simple, straightforward melody like this is used to contrast the gating accompaniment and comping rhodes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digital Coma Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 I'll clarify: the melody adds nothing to the original theme, and is not constructed with the same complexity. The changes in the transcription of the melody are for the worse. Sure there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with simplication, but there sure is when it's for its own sake and nothing more. As for the percussion, it's extremely subdued, follows along the music, and is occasionally not present. Something more than a simple beat could have really enlivened the song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 I'll clarify: the melody adds nothing to the original theme, and is not constructed with the same complexity. The changes in the transcription of the melody are for the worse. Sure there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with simplication, but there sure is when it's for its own sake and nothing more. Fair enough; however, I maintain that the simplified melody especially works in the context of this piece; specifically, its clear, unembellished progression serves to anchor the listener amid the more complex gating rhythms. I'll agree to disagree. As for the percussion, it's extremely subdued, follows along the music, and is occasionally not present. Something more than a simple beat could have really enlivened the song. The percussion isn't the focus of this song. It is used economically to accentuate and enhance what is already a lively song. One really imporant aspect of writing music is knowing when to use silence and rests; the portions of this mix where percussion is not present work well because there are other things happening, like the rhodes and strings harmonic lines. You said the percussion follows the song; that is a strength. It isn't a separate entity vying for attention, tricked out for its own sake; it's an integral part of the mix which fits neatly into the overall soundscape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny B Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 First off - the stutters need to stop. I'm guilty of overusing stutters sometimes myself, but this is really excessive. Like zirco the clown mentioned, it gets annoying quick. Let's go piece by piece on this one. Percussion - There are a few bright spots here, some nice little funky fills and open hi-hat work. However, the closed hihat sample is very "clicky" and annoying. It sticks WAY out of the mix and is actually a bit piercing. This sounds like a default Reason drumkit as well. Around 1:38 the only word I can use to describe the drums is "Annoying". Hard to explain why, must be the rat-a-tat style. There's no real rhythmic variation, just emphasis on the beat with 16th-note fillers. With such a funky package all around, this really sticks out. Instrumentation - I've already mentioned my dissatisfaction with the stuttering, and now that i've heard it looped several times, it's getting VERY grating. It's actually upsetting me a little. I have a tough time imagining how this is enjoyable. The organ intro seems to have no relationship with the rest of the song. It's a heavily quantized and artificial thing, and really sets a GM MIDI tone for the rest of it. Which reminds me - without any of the processing, a lot of this would sound like an 8Meg soundfont. The square lead gets pretty grating as well. Some type of filtering or envelope would greatly enhance its enjoyability. I'm also hearing an audio pop with every strike of the organ. This may be intentional, but a square wave pop is not a good attack for an organ. The strings don't sound too bad, but their sound quality isn't the problem. Arrangement - The strings seem to vaguely follow the progression laid out, sometimes hitting dead on and enhancing that "funk feel", but sometimes seem to meander without any real purpose. This, along with the fact that the whole thing has been oversimplified from the original. Matoya's theme has a lot more to offer than this song is letting on. It seems like the rearrangement is trying to hinge on fx and drum tricks to make its way along. Then, the ending string run sounds very arbitrary and random. Overall, some nice synths going on, the pads in the background especially. However, the arrangement suffers from oversimplification, and the additions that are there are somewhat hit-or-miss. Sound quality needs some attention. EQ sounds pretty decent all around, but many of the synths are dry and lifeless. I'd say back to the drawing board on this one. NO -D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zykO Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 i think it really did go out and do something entirely different with the source than had been done before but i question how well it accomplished that. i don't agree about the stutters; they sound fantastic to me as they really are limited to the main melody phrase and is used as a token identifier rather than something that is in your face, necessarily throughout the piece its very awkward and unusual at first but its experimentally sound and is very groovy in its weird, seemingly sensless way. however, i think the mix is too empty behind the stutters forcing the gating to stand on its own... and that really hurt the mix, i think. there's too little going on behind it... those strings are stale even for intentionally stale electro strings. the bass register of this whole mix is missing somewhere... i'm sure its there but it left this thing sounding so incredibly hollow the arrangement doesn't do much, sorry. i liked where it was goin the first 30-40s or so and then realized a minute later it was still doing the same thing. sorry but despite how much i enjoyed some of the stutter effects, nothing else in this stands out as noteworthy NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcos Posted March 2, 2005 Share Posted March 2, 2005 That first hat we hear is at a frequency that really hurts the ears if it's too loud. I really liked the stuttering, and I didn't think it was overused at all. The rest of the mix, however, just isn't that interesting. It sounds ok, but there is nothing gripping about it, the mix just seems to plod along. I think this mix may have been relying on the stuttering to pass. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Israfel Posted March 3, 2005 Share Posted March 3, 2005 As an aesthestic preference, I don't much care for the stutters; they don't seem stylistically appropriate; that is, the stutters are shoe-horned into an otherwise conventional mix such that they are neither convincing nor musicially satisfying. It is in essence a consistency problem, in my opinion. Given the straightforward nature of the rest of the mix, the stutters serve no real purpose beyond their own novelty. It also seems to me that the theme itself is only minimally and simplistically used thoughout, with the bulk of the mix's length devoted to developing other ideas. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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