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OCRA-0006 - Chrono Trigger: Chrono Symphonic


Claado Shou
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Unknown needs to create a tutorial or something explaining how he does that. I'd pay money. Seriously.

hahahahah

guys

I'm not nearly as good at this as you seem to think. I've just been using those samples for about as long as I've been writing orchestral music - you learn what sounds good.

hence, I write in like, one style. (this one)

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Even though RoeTaka hasn't appeared in here yet, I'd still like to ask him why he decided to put in those interrupting, out-of-place drum riffs at about 3:18 and 3:50 of The Last Stand. He completely stops the music for a moment and disrupts the flow of everything twice, which doesn't match with an epic battle, to me. That was pretty much the biggest beef I had with the music, aside from The Third Guru as a track. I was expecting something more grandiose for a final battle as well, like huge epic fantasy orchestral stuff, so I kept waiting for the orchestra to really flare...but it never did. But that doesn't reall bug me as much as the random stops in the song.

On to my randomness. Cheers to Rellik for the most awesome rendition of Undersea Palace ever. That chorus section at 2:03 just rocks my world. It's very appropriately eerie.

A Parting of Ways was the most brilliantly original use of Magus' Theme...I didn't know it could be put into so many forms in a single song and still be awesome. Also kudos to the mysterious little section around 2:32. The little high-pitched trail-off into the violins has to be my favorite section of the song. It's the little things in life, I tell you.

I still fail to see where Singing Mountain is in Revelation of Fire. And, Wings that Cross Time in The Third Guru. Slightly disappointed over the former.

At first, Pixietricks' singing jumped out at me a lot, but then the song grew on me and took its spot as my favorite. I actually like how clear her singing is. And, I love the Japanese and English together -- I don't think it's pretentious at all, and it's a neat twist that I didn't expect.

And speaking of Pixie's songs, I'm glad the orchestra backdrop didn't make it into To Far Away Times. It's better as it is now.

Also, where did "The Epoch" and "Zeal Ice" go to? I know Magus' Redemption became A Parting of Ways, and I assume Darkened Skies became The Rising, but those two seemed to have disappeared, replaced by The Third Guru and Beneath the Surface. Were they just deleted? Zeal Ice, I was really looking forward to, and it's even a WIP on the old page. It had the Zeal Palace music (Zeal evil theme) on it, which I was really hoping would show up clearly on the album.

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Well since Claado hasn't responded to my PM regarding the matter here's quasi-feedback on the project.

Since I was rather awestruck at the music of this arrangement I went out and made some more art for it, just a wallpaper. (I'm curious btw, I noticed this while colouring, why does Magus have such a white skin tone compared to his family?)

Anyway, I don't know why, but listening to the orchestral version make me think of some scenes that were lacking a little more emotional premise in CT (although if overdone it ends up like Xenosaga where people moan about too many cutscenes :lol:), one being Magus and his rather dark past. Soo.. just an impossible oneshot of his one loved one in this world before she died. If this was a movie or something I don't know if Schala would actually realize that Prophet was actually her brother or not, but anyway I took off his hat and lookie who's inside ^^ Poor girl.. her mother's insane and tries to kill her, Dalton pretends she's his bitch, her brother gets dimensionally MIA, and after all that she dies. I think she could use that hug :<

In an earlier design phase I was debating putting a scene with her injured lying against the wall with a ghostly Magus with her right as the temple was collapsing but I figured that might be overdoing it a bit.

Click for Preview

Photobucket won't hold the full 1600x1200 image so I've stuck an archived version for download on filefront, tell me if it doesn't work.

Wallpaper Pack (2.49mb) (included are fullsize jpg and png versions, winrar archive at highest compression)

If it's worthy enough I hoped the project coordinator could stick it in the torrent but whatever. I spent too many sleepless nights on this ><

Comments n crits and stuff welcome.

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I went through a few interesting tracks, and I must give you guys props on this. The main thing that pulls me in is when you put this in your main page.

Basically, this is a project aimed at re-imagining Chrono Trigger the way it was imagined in its creators’ heads…a tale of love, and triumph, and struggling for the good of others while leaving your own inhibitions and fears behind. It’s the tale you’ve waited forever to hear…and now, you’re able to hear it.

The spirit that you ocrs carry I feel needs to be more spread throughout the world, and I congratulate you on that.

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I've been listening to this for a couple of days, as a 25-track playlist. I'm pretty damn pleased by this. The tracks meld together nicely (most of the time) and a lot of these remixes make me enjoy, again, tracks that I've become sick of, listening to them way too much out of love. (Side note: I can't play Chrono Trigger any more. I've done so too many times, and I've memorized it.) This stuff is solid and I like it. That said, I find it easier to say what I don't like than what I do.

Inciting Incident: Holy crap, dude, this is awesome. Seriously. Here's a theme I've heard way, way too many times, that's had all the life stripped out of it, and you make me like it again. Thank you. The pounding drums at 1:20-2:27 are a particularly nice touch.

Morning Sunlight: A nice piece, but I find it overall unremarkable. It has what I think is the right sense of emotion.

Blue Skies Over Guardia: Heard it before. Love it. I think I like it better without the claps, but possibly over time I'll change this. My girlfriend (who has a more keen musical ear than I do) tells me that there's a drum sound from 1:33-2:19 that my ear can't really hear well without dropping all but the 1k band on my Winamp equalizer.

To Lands Unknown: The tail end of this song reminds me a lot of some of the music from Warcraft II, though the audio samples are notably better. But really, it's a short piece, and it feels transitionary, so it's hard to say much about it. Given the movie-soundtrack goal of the album, this is probably a good sign.

Darkness Dueling: Here's another piece I've heard too many times, with new life breathed into it. Thanks. I'm not sure what the point behind the break at 1:07 is. I sort of feel as though the track would have been better if it didn't take that moment to pause - if it just blew through, as it were.

Lucca's Arrival: Nicely epic. A decent listen. Not something I'd be likely to pull out and listen to again as a standalone, but that's not the point of this project.

Revelation of Fire: Spekkosaurus pretty well owned Trial. Zircon did so more recently. Compared to those two... I just can't enjoy any rendition. This prevents me from having any useful comments.

Hymn of Fire: This song has a good solid slow build, which I'm generally a sucker for. It's well put together (though some of the strings strongly remind me of Lords of the Realm 2 - same sample set maybe?). The end seems grafted on. Like, there's a pretty poor transition between what I'm hearing at 2:50 and 2:53. The actual end of the track is also a little abrupt, as has already been mentioned.

Frog's Intervention: Here's another slow build. It's worth it. 1:52 starts a section that begins 'really nice' and builds rather quickly to 'gorgeous.' The end is stupidly abrupt, including the final fade, which is too fast. (At first I wondered if I had a bad file.) All around a good piece.

Denadoro Climb: This is a nice rendition of Wind Scene. It's appropriately cinematic, which I think is tricky to do with the original. I have no idea why this is here in the listing though - the original doesn't really match any of the script that I see, or anything. Still, a fine job by the remixer here.

The Masamune: More epic Frog stuff from ellywu2. Similar to the other piece, but that's not a complaint.

Black Omen: At the moment, this is my favorite piece on the entire album. It's gotten panned by a couple people for being really similar to the original, but it sounds good and that's what I value most. 0:25-0:29 - this is a straight rip from the beginning of FF6's Airship theme. It fits well, except for the part where it jars me as I say to myself "wait, wrong game." Anyhow, I love all over this track as a standalone piece and plan to give it plenty of airplay - but I have no idea why it's in the middle of the album or the script.

Confronting the Mystic: This is not the Magus remix I am looking for. (The Magus mix I'm looking for has a bad ass brass section.) That said, this piece is still pretty fantastic and I think I can classify myself as a sephire fan now. The opening needs work - it only plays two or three notes, when a low tour through the first few bars of Magus proper would (I think) serve a lot better.

Door to the End of Time: This is bad movie soundtrack, it's way too busy. It's a fine song to listen to, though. It's a pretty impressive medley, and it flows surprisingly well - I really wouldn't think you could blend the parts together as well as they have been. The bit at 3:40 reminds me of something, and if I could remember what it was...

Manifest Destiny: This is gorgeous. The string lead really makes the track - good call on using it. This is another track I'd gotten burned out on, and like again. It's very busy and full of wonder, and fits the mood the script calls for perfectly. I think the end would be better served by a slow fade out than the wind-down it has.

Schala and the Queen: Oh dear. It's Schala's theme. I sort of have this vision of Claado et al. thinking of all the different people that would want to cover Schala, and only wanting one track, then making up for it by making that track six and a half minutes long and then giving it to two people. I don't know if that's really what happened, but whatever decision was made, it was a good one. The instrumentals are really solid, and the vocal work is the best on the album. Overall the piece has a nicely operatic quality that I really enjoy. This song is not easy to listen to, but it is very good. The end is really nice - not what I'm expecting, but good stuff with the horns. Again - burned out on the melody, new life breathed into it by the Chrono Symphonic team. Hurrah!

The Third Guru: I'm not really impressed with this. The only thing that really stands out is the measure-marking bass/cello beat, which is Too Much, in that it wants to be a foghorn when it grows up. With the bass turned down this is a nice track to listen to - and who doesn't love 5/8? Not a standout track, but that's okay, it's supposed to be a transitional piece. The last couple of seconds sound like a tip o' the hat to Wutai.

Beneath the Surface: This is a really interesting and different take on Undersea Palace. I like it a lot but can't entirely explain why. The end is missing some key percussion (wooden block? tambourine hit? not sure exactly how to describe either of them) from the original and I feel that gives it an incomplete sound.

The Rising: zomg, leitmotif. Good transitional piece. Not so much fun to listen to on its own, but a really well put together track nonetheless.

Crono's Dream: I swear, I can almost hear the crappy seagull synth in the background. It's like my SNES is calling to me. And then it proceeds to creep me out. Again - not a good standalone piece, but excellent soundtrack work, especially from the scene description I've seen.

The Chrono Trigger: This song is kinda... schlocky. I suppose that means it's good stuff from a soundtrack point of view, and it probably has all kinds of technical things going for it, but... I don't like it.

A Parting of Ways: Interesting take on Magus. I was neutral on it until I read the part of the movie it's supposed to accompany, now I think it's fine work. I'll have to think on this piece more before my opinion solidifies, but I like it.

The Last Stand: I'm pretty impressed that you can roll up all the various battle themes from CT into this little ball of cool. Some of the transitions are a little rough, but overall it hangs together pretty well. The end is... anticlimactic.

The New Beginning: I call shenanigans on this whole "Chrono Cross" thing. The Guardia Millenial Fair part is really fantastic, and considering the other versions of Millenial Fair it has to stand up against (Blue Skies, Jethro and Vash, the Brink of Time cut) that's no mean feat. I very much get a movie-montage-goodbye feel as I listen to this piece, so good stuff there. The end sort of takes me by surprise - if this is really supposed to be the last piece before credits, a longer roll-out might serve better there.

To Far Away Times: It's easy to evoke emotion with this piece if you don't fuck it up. That said, I think doing it right is really hard. Doing it right in piano *and* vocals at the same time is tricky, but it's been done. The vocal work feels a little grafted on in places - it doesn't complement the music as well as most of the vocal work earlier on the album. That said, from what I've read, the vocal stuff was in fact added on, so the fact that it only feels that way in a couple places is probably a really good sign. I'd be interested to hear an instrumental version - is there one available? I sort of wish this song were longer, but I think that what I really wish is for To Far Away Times (and hence the game/album) to not be over already.

This is good stuff, guys. Thanks for taking the time to put this piece together, for coming up with it in the first place... Claado, the script overview I've seen does a decent job of condensing the relatively complex plot of CT into something you could screen in two hours, and kudos to you for being insane enough to start this project in the first place.

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Denadoro Climb: This is a nice rendition of Wind Scene. It's appropriately cinematic, which I think is tricky to do with the original. I have no idea why this is here in the listing though - the original doesn't really match any of the script that I see, or anything. Still, a fine job by the remixer here.

Claado told me my scene was just background music for a scale up a mountain anyway, and that the actual scenes would involve "battle music" and dialogue with pauses, so I just took a track I liked that matched a.... big mountain-like scene and arranged it. I would've arranged Underground Sewer as that is Denadoro Mountain's music, but as I said in an earlier post, I already remixed that song just before collaborating with this project and I didn't feel like re-arranging it again. I felt that Wind Scene was appropriate anyway, and I liked that song... :roll:

[quote name=Aurora Firestorm

]Even though RoeTaka hasn't appeared in here yet, I'd still like to ask him why he decided to put in those interrupting, out-of-place drum riffs at about 3:18 and 3:50 of The Last Stand. He completely stops the music for a moment and disrupts the flow of everything twice, which doesn't match with an epic battle, to me. That was pretty much the biggest beef I had with the music, aside from The Third Guru as a track. I was expecting something more grandiose for a final battle as well, like huge epic fantasy orchestral stuff, so I kept waiting for the orchestra to really flare...but it never did. But that doesn't reall bug me as much as the random stops in the song.

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You know, I think it's funny how Person 1 loves track A but hates track B, Person 2 dislikes track A but loves track C, while Person 3 doesn't really care for track C but has a thing for track B.

The great thing about Chrono Symphonic seems to be you are guaranteed to love something about it, even if you dislike something else.

And then there are those of us who are simply in awe at the entire thing.

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Hi all, I'm a newbie on this, so If there is anything wrong in what I'm gonna say... I apologize.

I haven't seen any URLs for the direct download of the soundtrack... so I offer a subdomain to host the whole soundtrack (in a single file) on it.

What do you people think? If anyone is interested please send me a private message ...or it would be ok to reply in this thread.

Thanks for reading,

- Hagure_Metal.

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Thanks for the replying.

Well, of course my pack would be nothing if it's not official, I mean, if you don't link it in the official website.

Respect to torrents, there's many people like me who doesn't use it, so it would be bad to download bittorrent only to download the soundtrack.

But well, that's the only thing why I've offered that. Anyways, if you don't want to accept the request, it would be fine.

greetings.

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Hi all, I'm a newbie on this, so If there is anything wrong in what I'm gonna say... I apologize.

I haven't seen any URLs for the direct download of the soundtrack... so I offer a subdomain to host the whole soundtrack (in a single file) on it.

What do you people think? If anyone is interested please send me a private message ...or it would be ok to reply in this thread.

Thanks for reading,

- Hagure_Metal.

There are direct links on the website for you to download the MP3s one-by-one.

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heh, my "Author's Comment" and bio were written by someone else, without anyone asking me. maybe it'd be better just to remove the link? or clarify that it isn't me writing? I know that you guys gave me plenty of warning in regards to writing one of those things, and it's totally my fault that I didn't (I never really had time, but I'll still try to get around to it), but I would have at least appreciated it if you would have run this ghost written version by me, since it contains a few things that aren't true.

also, my arrangement doesn't have any of the Battle With Magus (as far as I know?) - just Marle's theme, the main battle theme, and a small hint of the Lavos theme.

I PMd Claudo about this and it still hasn't been changed. Anyone else I should talk to?

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heh, my "Author's Comment" and bio were written by someone else, without anyone asking me. maybe it'd be better just to remove the link? or clarify that it isn't me writing? I know that you guys gave me plenty of warning in regards to writing one of those things, and it's totally my fault that I didn't (I never really had time, but I'll still try to get around to it), but I would have at least appreciated it if you would have run this ghost written version by me, since it contains a few things that aren't true.

also, my arrangement doesn't have any of the Battle With Magus (as far as I know?) - just Marle's theme, the main battle theme, and a small hint of the Lavos theme.

I PMd Claudo about this and it still hasn't been changed. Anyone else I should talk to?

Message StarZander, since he's the webmaster.

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