*NO* Final Fantasy 6 'Decisively Metal'

[djpretzel]

Link to MP3 -

[Note: It's on my personal webspace {On my friend's site}, because I don't have the password to the FTP for the band's site (Since I'm not the maintainer), and the one up there is 320kbps and 8.5 MB, both above the limits.]

Your ReMixer name - Powerglove [Well, that's the band's name] - Members: Bassil Silver-Hajo (Drums, bass/synth), Alex Berkson (Guitars), Chris Marchiel (Guitars), Ben Durgin (Guitars)

Your email address - discipleofthewatch@hotmail.com [it's my own.]

Your website - http://www.vgmetal.com

Your userid (number, not name) on our forums - 154 [Again, my own. As far as I know, none of the other band members are on the forums. And yes, I'm Emperor Nakoo Hiryuu, and I'm FINALLY submitting something.]

* Name of game(s) ReMixed - Final Fantasy 6

* Name of individual song(s) ReMixed - Decisive Battle

* Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. - In Powerglove's neverending quest to find badass video game songs that could be pushed over the edge in awesomeness by process of metalization [Wow, what a long clause...with a new word in it to boot], we decided that Final Fantasy music was quite easy to work with, and rather difficult to make it sound crappy. That, and all of us have always quite enjoyed this song. Lends itself to metal quite well, we think.

Perhaps I went a bit overboard on the parentheses, but meh.

[Liontamer]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "The Decisive Battle" (ff6-124.spc)

It's interesting how some things come around. Before VG Frequency ever started, Emperor Nakoo Hiryuu was one of the contributors to my "(Insert Name Here)" All-Originals radio show special I did back in early 2003, which featured only original tracks from artists in the VGM remixing community. Never heard of him much around the community again beyond that, but it's nice to see him still active. Even having heard the track before it hit the panel, I didn't even know Ben was a member of Powerglove until now.

Played this one on VGF49, so I was already very familiar with it. Let's keep it short and sweet. This was an excellent genre adaptation piece. The mix was full and the sounds meshed together without sounding overly muddy and sloppy. The drumkit was fairly good and the guitar work was spot on.

While the melodic arrangement was conservative, it was still nice and expansive nonetheless on the instrumentation. I thought the arrangement was in danger of being too repetitive as the track went on; after hearing one iteration of "The Decisive Battle" played through, I was looking for something beyond simply another playthrough of the same material at 1:37 (though with different percussion in the background).

At 2:32 at the third run of the source melody I was preparing to dispense a NO, getting ready to ask for some more thorough variation, but these bros came through with even more comprehensive alterations in the support instrumentation along with some good rearrangement ideas and personal touches for the melody itself. The ending at 3:28 was fairly quick and unsatisfying as a resolution to the mix to be honest, but that didn't detract in any significant way from the big picture.

The mixing could have been a little bit cleaner, but at the same time, I felt the texture was rough yet well done. Everything conveyed a good amount of power & intensity. Sounds excellent. I actually remember hearing Powerglove's Dr. Wily's Theme & Storm Eagle remixes this past summer since they posted them to the Work-in-Progress forums, and I felt they had a lot of potential. This material right here outdid those previous mixes and shows that they've dedicated themselves to becoming a solid group. In terms of community music, the style sounded like a crossbreed between The Black Mages & S.S.H. Hopefully, these guys'll keep making more.

YES

[The wingless]

Lawerence performed the Invokation of The Wingless, thereby binding me inside a pentagram until I review this song. Recharge time: 24 hours.

I think it's great. Great equalizing. Varations in dynamics, tone, rhythym. Everything's all good. Plus, we're lacking in hard-driving metal mixes here, so when a really exceptional cross my path, it tends to stick out.

I'd be very curious to hear the rationale behind a NO for this one.

YES'm

[Malcos]

The first thing that strikes me here is the instrument placement and mixing which I like very much. I'm not one for heavy metal, so I can't really give a detailed analysis in that respect, but I think this is OC worthy. Was a bit surprised that they ended on a major key!

YES

[DarkeSword]

I think there's too much reverb on this song, specifically on the guitars. The whole thing would just sounds a lot cleaner without it. The soundscape is kind of messy.

There's also a lot of repetition going on here; first its the main melody, then an interpretation of that melody that gets repeated over and over again. Arrangement is lacking.

I'm not feeling this one; sounds like too much sound shoved into one place.

NO

[zircon]

I have a few issues with this one. I disagree with Larry on the expansive factor of the arrangement. It sticks very close to the original melodically, with very little variation, and not much original material to spice things up. At 2:15, things start to look up, but that section doesn't really help as it doesn't last long enough. As Darkesword said, the same melodic riff keeps getting repeated over.. and over.. and over.. pretty much verbatim. The instrumentation and execution is OK - I would have advised less volume on the rhythm guitars, more emphasis on the lead, with light reverb/delay on it so it really cuts through the mix. But the execution simply did not bring anything new to the table. This mix is not quite a cover, but it's close; it simply doesn't have enough of a unique interpretation in terms of arrangement or style. There are lots of ways to make a guitar-centric mix interesting. Non-traditional instruments or playing styles, more synth action, creative processing tricks, variations in the dynamics of the song itself (rather than just the same type of thrashing throughout).

Let me just make it clear that this is NOT a bad remix or a bad song. I enjoy it. However, it is not quite at the level of rearrangement that I would like to see, given this site's standards. I recommend a resubmit.

NO

[analoq]

yeah, pretty conservative arrangement when compared to the black mages version.

mixing seems odd,

i agree with zircon that the rhythm guitars should be cut down a bit and the leads should be clearer (i disagree that delay/reverb will help anything, though)

nice try on the ending, but it fails to really bring the mix home and just comes off as awkward.

however, these complaints i have don't quite put the submission into the 'no' zone.

most metal does little for me, and this mix is no exception.

yet, i recognize the effort in the execution and feel it's passable as-is despite its faults.

yes

[Israfel]

This is about a good an execution as one can reasonably hope for in an amateur community, and so the question is whether or not this has enough arrangement to qualify for the site. Now, it's clearly not a straight-cover, and so this is just going to come down to a rather subjective judgement on whether the ratio of new to original material is acceptable- and for my part, I think it is.

YES

[GrayLightning]

Since I did arrange this theme in my Return of the Phoenix OCR mix, it's probably incumbent on me to weigh in on this.

I agree up to the part that larry mentioned, 2:32 was minimal arrangement in my opinion. After that part until the end, for me was repetitive "showmanship" that any decent to good guitarist could pull off. And in this case the guitar performance is extremely well played. While I do admire the performance, I feel ultimately the arrangement is not very daring or as expansive.

Production is not perfect, as I too wish the guitar had more clarity among other things, but for me it's above the bar in that regard.

Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy this, I do enjoy it a lot. Powerglove rocks. It's also very well played and it also does sound pretty. I don't view this as a mere cover, but I simply don't see enough expansion in the melody, harmony or structural changes to say with certainty that this is an arrangement of artistic merits that I could pass.

I suggest a resubmit. Borderline NO.

[danny B]

I don't agree that this arrangement attains the level of originality that we aim for here. Rather than expanding upon the original, I hear mostly showboating (which isn't in itself, a bad thing). It sounds like the source is being quoted very closely and accompanied by guitar licks. Other than the ridiculously busy drums, there isn't much difference from the original in the structure itself.

The playing is fine, and the recording is decent. However, the mixing/mastering leaves a LOT to be desired. The instruments are not very well defined among each other, and all I can really hear is a low-mid range mudfest. Everything else is peeking out over top of that, and lacks definition.

The drums are well done, but seem to utilize complexity for complexity's sake. It's not very pleasing to me to hear a drum solo all the way through a song, which is about what the percussion amounts to hear. I don't advocate hiding drums behind a mix, but they really do need to kick back and let the guitars do the talking sometimes. I'm guilty of overplaying my drums often as well, and I realize it's a difficult thing to restrain.

The major keyed ending is awkward and contextually innappropriate, in my opinion. It seems gimmicky to start the song with the battle soundbite and end it with the victory tune.

Overall, this song need to be more of an arrangement and less of a demonstration of virtuoso passages loosely tied together by the source.

NO

-D

[Vig]

The performance is adequate. not perfect, i notice a lot of points where everybody slows down for a few beats..ugly. the arrangement is also adequate in my opinion.

the problem here is the mixing. the lead guitar is way too far back, too much reverb. fix this and it's a yes.

NO

[Harmony]

Well the good news is that I think that there’s sufficient arrangement here to pass. For the genre, the gratuitous guitar shredding intertwined with the source works for me.

Nice “solo” at 0:33. Good use of reverb there, but after that you’ve gotta tone it down. With the reverb flooding the soundstage, the notes of would-be crisp guitar runs get muddled together and ultimately drowned out. This is accentuated by the less than spot-on performance in some places. Also, the rhythm guitars are nicely done for the most part, but they overpower the lead which I’m straining to hear starting from 0:08.

I agree with Jesse. Put the rhythm back in its place and more selectively apply reverb and this would pass. Work on it and resubmit.

NO

[zykO]

ahhh - the moment we've all been waiting for... zyko chimes in for what has become his role as house tiebreaker...

let me get this out of the way, first: very nice band you got there, fellas. keep up the great work... we need more heavy vg bands; i, myself, was playing bass in a local vg death metal band and while i love the minibosses and chromelodeon and others, there needs to be some pure metal acts out there... so more power to ya

now onto business. barring the very beginning moments of the intro, this is boring up until 2:32. i know that cue point has been brought up a ton of times already but it has for a reason; up until that point, its a cheap black mages knock off. you really don't offer anything new and in fact fail to achieve the same efficiency of their arrangement of the same theme.

the intro itself up until about :34 is a problem area. the lead part does not sit well in the arrangement... not to mention that its WAY WAY too far back in the mix... while this may be an artistic decision on your part, i think it takes away from the track.

except for some standard shred runs, the playing is decent and not always engaging... and like jesse mentioned earlier, there are points where the guitars slow down and speed up again and its confusing. the drumming is rad... i took a peek at bassil's kit and i can see why. the original material in the expanision is very reminiscent of swedish prog rock... namely mayadome so kudos on that

so far, so good... (and knowing a couple of you guys are megadeth fans, here it comes...) so what. when all is said and done, you have some serious mixing issues here. i like this track, i really do... but you need to work on that intro, maybe tighten up the overall performance but most importantly... give that lead guitar some breathing room. you guys are mixing a rather thick mix, here... three fully cranked metal guitars and the weakest bass presence ever. i know the genre and i know how bass takes a back seat at times... but shit, fellas, the bass is fuckin chillin in the trunk (and i don't mean in the form of rockford fosgate 15's, either... i mean bound and gagged and screaming for help). because you have such a busy mix, you have to make sure your lead doesn't get murdered

something to think about when you resubmit. you fix these things and you'll get a big fat YES from me. but as it is right now, i regretfully play death angel today...

NO