*NO* Chrono Trigger 'In His Castle, Haunted by the Past'

[djpretzel]

ReMixer Name: Sentiental

Website: www.duke.edu/~ahb5

Game Remixed: Chrono Trigger

Names of Songs Remixed: Magus' Castle (Confusing Melody), (Themes From: Undersea Palace, Zeal Palace.)

Link to Song:

Comments: I went for a mix of contemplation and remorse as my main inspiration. GarageBand's capacity to do advanced editing is limited to say the least.

[Liontamer]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Confusing Melody" (ct-2-23.spc), "Zeal Palace" (ct-3-05.spc) & "Undersea Palace" (ct-3-08.spc)

If you mix 4 source tunes, Anthony, at least give some sort of breakdown of how you used them all in the arrangement. I almost didn't feel like digging through to listen and compare everything like that, and even though I have, I could have missed something that would be to your credit.

First thing's first. You'll either love the approach or see it as a mere mish-mash of pieces, but in either scenario you have to listen for a while before you vote and compare with the sources, otherwise you'll make a very uninformed call here. Lemme try to break it down:

Got "Confusing Melody" as the base of the track. Aside from that sustained synth, the vox like notes taken from CM are used from :09-1:36 & 3:43-4:05 of the track. Straightforward piano reference from the "Zeal Palace" intro from :28-:37. Some nice airy thumps in there, especially at :39, nice and dense. Not sure what's up with all the distortion and so forth, but I'm willing to see where it goes. Bubbly noises in the back from :49-:54 making an appearance, only to be brought back from 2:32-2:39.

Good panning techniques employed here with that thumping gradually sweeping from left to right from :59-1:24, though it cut out fairly abruptly at 1:24. I liked the xylo-sounding melody from 1:11 to 1:24, but don't recognize if it's arrangement from another CT theme.

Yeesh, weird use of the sound effect from Confusing Melody here at 1:32, 1:37, 1:41 & particularly 1:45-1:48. Not sure how it ties into the remorseful aspect of this; sounded really out of place to me. Don't see the point of the light percussion being used so briefly from 1:52-1:58

Zeal Palace reference again from 1:44-2:03. There's "Undersea Palace" at 2:11-2:32. That particular reference seems rather pasted in here, as it noticeably didn't gel with the other sounds. Weird groaning SFX again at 2:29 that seems to be REALLY out of place, though the sawing-like sounds worked for me. I honestly though can't knock these decisions just because they don't fit the assumptions I had for this when I read "contemplation and remorse"

2:56 has a combo of something with the Zeal Palace piano, but I can't identify it. Undersea Palace again at 3:15 with the really toy-sounding keyboard which sort of works, though that first note at 3:15 was jarring.

Really not a bad idea to basically take the Confusing Melody, arrange it in a basic manner, and then build stuff on top of it with minimal pieces from those two other source tunes along with a good amount of additional ideas. There's a lot of synergy involved in the arrangement, as even the references to Zeal & Undersea Palace are each handled with 2 different sets of keys when used here. The combinations of sounds and themes ultimately work well.

But my main kicker for NO is that listening to the SPC, the base of the track just involved taking the original and reinstrumenting it. It's too similar in instrumentation, like a grade-up version of the original. Even the shorter sustained notes in this mix are apart at the exact same intervals as the original. Then you come to the other source tunes involved and they're reinstrumented and integrated nicely, but there's no melodic interpretation.

Dave might argue that the synergy of all of these original & fairly verbatim source elements is its own form of legitimate rearrangement like he did with Zelda 64 "Prayer", and I can't necessarily blame anyone else for going along that kind of reasoning, but that's just not how I view things here. Tough break here. I could actually see how this could be YESed for this approach due to the many cool additive things here, as well as the non-medley references to other themes here as well that do click to me. The production was pretty clean and solid all things considered. Keeping this.

NO

[Vig]

eh. it's a cute song. The atmosphere is pretty cool, although occasionally it will drop out for a few seconds. what's that about? The piece isnt strictly ambient in nature, there's a lot of harsh attention-grabbing stuff going on (panning synth) but there's really no direction in the arrangement. it's more or less 4 minutes of noodling around with melodies over ambience. i'd like a little more thought and direction.

NO

[Sam Ascher-Weiss]

Why don't more people ReMix Uematsu's stuff from CT? [bike Chase, Boss Battle 1 {with Matsueda}, Burn Bobonga, People Who Threw it All Away, Prehystoric Rhythm, Sealed Door, Sewer, Silent Light, Tyran Fortress].... oh well.

I'm definitely feeling this appoach to meldey-ing. Take one theme as the bass and then have the other two interact with it, mostly through layering. It's true that none of it is too significantly interpreted, though the Undersea Palace stuff was adjusted to fit the 4/4.

The Anchor in this piece is the Bb that's being sustained for four minutes straight. The occasional eigth notes streams of panned percussion work well over this. Because this track is NOT entirely ambient in nature as Vig stated, it would be a good idea to head in the direction of more fullness. When you add the charleston rhythm on top of the percussion waves, this starts to take effect but they soon leave us by ourselves with the Bb again.

Aim for more of a build from start to finish by gradually increasing the depth of the arrangement. Also, you changed the chords in confusing melody from fifths to minor thirds. That definitely counts as some interpretation, but it would be a good idea to use both since the first one has a much more open feel which will provide some nice contrast.... in fact you could also try turning them into sixths or sevenths by sometimes moving the bottom note down again, but also by moving the top note up instead. If you do this, it will give the track a natural sense of direction, especially if the arrangement becomes richer as the intervals expand.

n0 (resubmit)

[Harmony]

Good stuffs on the sound quality front. The juxtaposition of light airy drone synths with distorted percussion and SFX works really well. I enjoy the strange FX and subtle groove from 1:32-1:58 and the panned distorted kicks are interesting as well. The loss of the pads from 2:27-2:40 is odd but the vibraphone deal at 2:56 is wonderful enough to let me forget.

Arrangement is engaging but as Vig mentioned, this piece noodles. Although there is obviously a lot of foresight and planning on display here, more thought needs to be given to cohesion. No one melodic/percussive section feels well related to any other section, making the piece seem more haphazard than it should. I also think that “Confusing Melody” deserved more attention than it got, it being the backbone of this mix and all. Sure that drone stays with us for most of the mix but why not rearrange that to give the piece more ebb and flow, more rise and fall? Let the note morph from one synth to another. You did this in the beginning where the note started out with an organ then switched to strings. I was hoping to hear it further evolve. Let the note expand to some chord, then fall back to a single note. It doesn’t have to be as intrusive to the ambiance as one might imagine.

This mix very much reminds me of Sheila Chandra’s "ABoneCroneDrone" series of songs which each use one root note that evolves throughout the piece with flowing synths and harmonies. Check her out for good ambient music and possibly some ideas for your mix. In the end, this is a cool piece that just needs some work tying things together. I hope to see a resub of this one.

NO (Please Resubmit)