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Final Fantasy VI - Searching For Friends


Robotaki
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Hey guys!

So, ummm, hey again after like 2-3 years of being gone from OCR lol. I don't know what the inclination was to suddenly work on this ancient WIP, but I've added a few measures, cleaned up the project file (my project management was complete crap back then and still is a bit), and done some overall levelling with EQing. It was really weird using Squidfont soundfonts again since I haven't touched those in ages. The time I spent away from this site was primarily because I moved to Montreal for university, and I wanted to put a more official foot into the music world. But enough of myself, to the music:

Link:

Final Fantasy VI - Searching For Friends (Robotaki Remix)

I hope nothing's changed too much around here! I really missed this community. I'm not sure who's still around from when I used to post to these forums but it'd be great to catch up with those people who helped me continue producing : ) Shoot me a msg! Ah, I just remembered the guy I worked will was Jeff Ball who provided me with a violin line of the main melody - sounded amazing back then and it still sounds amazing today. Anyway, hope you enjoy the oldie.

EDIT: HAHA I just noticed I still have my old ass sig made in MSPaint. Too good and lame.

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Holy @#$!, you're back! So happy to see you here, I thought you'd just up and left for good! :-D

As expected, this sounds fantastic! I don't have my headphones at the moment, though, so I can't really offer up any critiques.

On a sidenote, ever plan on finishing that Manoria Cathedral Remix? ;)

This. But perhaps even more importantly, what about that Okami remix? :<

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Holy @#$!, you're back! So happy to see you here, I thought you'd just up and left for good!

^ This.

even more importantly, what about that Okami remix? :<

^ and very much this. Glaciers Never Sleep was also the stuff of legends.

Here are the remixes in question for anyone wondering: Okami | Metroid Prime

Now for the FFVI one... wow! Pretty inspiring stuff to say the least. Source is used plentifully and arranged in a nice and intricate way.

Percussion work is up there, and the piece oozes with atmosphere. Absolutely loved the whole asian/ethnic vibe you've given to the original.

This really sounds like a theme straight out of a japanese anime, or a badass adventure movie musha-shugyō style.

And of course that wouldn't be one of your remixes without the abrupt-Robotaki-ending-that-leaves-you-begging-for-moar.

Just hope you won't leave the OCR folks begging for 3 years this time. ;P

Looking forward to all your awesome remixes being finished, subbed and posted. :)

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Huh, the orchestration has a similar vibe to the Tor remix you have on Youtube (which is the shit, by the way). Very interesting.

This mix has a lot of additional personality, with the guitar, percussion, piano and atmosphere - very impressive considering the source was something with enough personality to go around, to begin with. The rest of the orchestration is quite beautiful, might I add.

The reharmonizations are great - they really make for a more bold arrangement than the original, without losing sight of the source. Awesomeness is all around, there.

I'm feeling that the mids in the song are crowding quite a bit when the song has a full soundscape, even to the point where I hear a little fuzz from clipping in that area. It's certainly the plucked instrument that's causing much of the problem (the one that enters at :30), so perhaps tone down on either it's strike or the sustained bass note behind it. In a great track, it stands out quite a bit, for me.

The flute at 2:01 is a little bit too artificial (especially compared to the handling of the rest of the instruments) & sometimes out of tune, for my tastes. I think the tuning can be 'fixed' at your leisure, though - I understand in a more human performance it would actually be pretty tough to make it pitch perfect, so that might actually help you out. I hear a lot of breath noises, which really help it along in the right direction, but there are some parts you go straight with pitch bends without any sort of breath in between which is throwing me off a little bit. Perhaps it's a nitpick, but it's salient enough to me to make mention of it.

That's really the only thing I have against it, though (well, that and the fact that it's incomplete). It's really a well done track. I'm personally glad to see you back in the remixing game, here, and hope that you stick around with us for some time, man. :-D

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Hey guys!

Thanks on the comments and welcomes. It's great to be amongst great ears and producers. Seriously, those over WIPs need to be addressed also - to be honest, I think creativity was much more natural back then when production wasn't such a worry of mine. I'm a little saddened by this fact. I'm hoping that maybe restarting some of these old projects will bring to light the same spontaneity that led to their making. I feel like nowadays everything I make is too formulaic and safe, following the same process. My Manoria Cathedral project file is on my old computer which is now somewhere stored away.....arghh I should have backed things up back then. I don't think I could come close to recreating its sound if I tried nowadays :( mega sad

Gario - So glad to know that you're still active on OCR! The similarities between this mix and the Tor one (cheers on the kind words) are undoubtedly because of recycled samples. Unfortunately, I don't have too much control over the timbre of my instruments beyond altering velocities because I primarily use sound fonts for instrumentation. Being honest as well, my control of automation within my DAW is terrible, so I'm not capable of sculpting sounds as much as I'd like. Question on that, do you think it's submittable by today's standards? I've always dreamed of getting something on the site but I have the terrible tendency to never finish things - seems like the Tor remix was an unusual exception haha. I don't have the freaking project file though!!! Arghh it's on my old hard drive and I have absolutely no access to it right now. :(

Anyway, as always, very helpful critiques towards the track! I consciously boosted the mids of the slightly-faux sounding bass plucking instrument, so I've definitely overcompensated - well spotted. As well, completely agree on that flute, it's quite fake sounding and I forgot to mention that I was hoping that I could replace it with something live or just a better sample in the future. I do like the "worldy" quality it does add to the soundscape though.

As far as the melodic lines go, I'm wanting to be able to vary it up more, especially with the violin played by Jeff Ball. I only have one recording from him so it's a bit of a problem. If anything, I'll have to somehow make a violin sample lyrical enough so that it doesn't contrast too strongly with the live sample.

Until the next update!

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... wait, you're not a posted remixer yet? I don't know how that is possible - did you not submit that Tor mix?

*Ahem*

Well, as for this mix, I do think the issues I addressed will hit you when it comes time for judgment, but actually the sample quality and such are fine, for the sake of submission. As for the pan flute sample, I hear a lot of little details in there that make it sound really neat - more of those effects would certainly help. Also, if you need another parameter to mess with, can you mess with the attack on the soundfont so that there's a slight swell to the attack? If not, you can add one manually via a quick volume increase from 20-100%. Small swells to break the attacks from time to time (and I mean small - 50-100ms) can give the illusion of the performer breathing into the instrument.

The clipping-ish part is something you can fix on your own, I suspect. ;)

I hope that helps, man - I mean other than that, you're really on the right path, if you want to get posted. Keep at it.

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