*NO* Tales of Phantasia 'Crisis Healing Salve'

[djpretzel]

(emailing this for Hemophiliac...)

/Contact info:

-remixers:C.Pacaud, Hemophiliac

-websites:Christian Pacaud (www.christianpacaud.com), Chris Roman (www.onehemophiliac.deviantart.com)

-email: romantaker@yahoo.com (Hemophiliac)

Remix info:

-game:Tales of Phantasia

-song: Mint's theme

comments: if this is accepted would you mind holding it until the release of Summoning of Spirits, please.

my original concept for this track was to start with orchestral and go into this kinda 80s ballad rock...well, after going thru 2 collaborators (for recording of bass and guitars) and then finding Christian (omg thanks!) this rather turned into baroque goes into prog rock. i am still pleased with the final result, despite the departure.

- Hemophiliac

[The Orichalcon]

This is a step away from your normal mixing style. It sits on a fairly mellow tone for most of the mix, occasionally ducking into some heavier sections with CPacaud's guitar and drums. But it's always when you're not expecting it.

The harpsichord in the beginning is a big issue for me. It sounds very fake (MIDI), which in turn makes the woodwind accompanying it sound fake as well. The strings that come in sound a little bloaty for the light tone you've set with the harpsichord too. Not sure if that's all really working together.

When the guitar comes in at 0:54 we get a very noticeable transition from fake to real. And this section sounds so much better. The guitar is very mellow here, and the backing all fits together nicely. This section is pristine and put together well. The strings fit this section a lot smoother too.

That being said, the sound of the piece up to the point where the guitar starts it's heavy part at 2:21 is very empty. When the guitar comes in, it's a good tone, but from 2:30 the background sounds very empty. There's the rhythm guitar, some funky leads, tinny sounding drums and a not-so-bassy bassline too. The strings and light guitar section comes back in at 2:58, so we only get 37 seconds of the heavy stuff before we're on our way out of the mix too.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. There's a very noticeable chasm between real and fake regarding the instruments, which is never a good thing. The mix is otherwise fairly void of complexity, which is all right during the quieter sections, but makes the guitar section fall rather short.

I think this one could use some tidying up, making sure to get the soundfonts and such to sound as realistic as possible to go better with the guitar.

NO

[Liontamer]

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=top - "Mint" (top-111.spc)

Now I know why the first section of Hemo's deal bothered me in this sub as compared to the WIP he sent me in February. In the WIP, the intro was just strings and woodwinds, and the atmosphere on them was good; this version though, the harpsichord synth was added in and sounded a lot drier, like it's not even in the same room as the other instruments. Now, it doesn't mesh right with the strings and woodwinds. Too bad considering that it otherwise did a good job filling the space further, and provided rearrangement value on a support level to the conservative melody.

I didn't mind the sound quality of the harpsichord much; however it may have came about, the sound of it was fine to me. I actually liked the rigid structure of the performance there and felt it worked in this context. Strings were more fake in the performance, but weren't exposed too badly. The whole intro sounded like something one would here on NPR.

Christian's guitar work at :55 did a good job going with a very liberal/original interpretation of the source before things got back on track with more overt arrangement via the strings at 1:29. Heard what almost sounded like a very soft audio glitch in the back from 1:49-1:51. String runs from 2:01-2:10 didn't sound good at all; they're fine for John Q. Public, but the bow movements sounded really fake. Layering the strings further (e.g. 3:07) helped offset that problem in places, albeit briefly. Though not enthusiastically so, I'm ok with these strings overall.

Guitar came back at 2:20 with some wanking with extra wank sauce all the way until 2:37, before going for another variation of the source at 2:38. Pretty nice stuff. I do agree with TO in terms of the sound quality disparity between the guitar and the synth instrumentation, although didn't feel it was nearly as negatively impactful or jarring as he did. The tradeoffs in instrumentation didn't feel unexpected or abrupt to me either. Thematically-speaking, once it happens the first time (which was handled fine in the first place IMO), you can tell by the structure that it'll be happening again later on.

As for the 2:21 section feeling empty, I didn't fully agree, but I can understand the issue. Bass could have been meatier. I was also expecting the drums to be more interesting and fill out the soundfield more myself. Nonetheless, I didn't have as many issues here and felt the execution was handled more than adequately.

I won't lie when I say that a piece of just sequenced material by Chris could not pass on its own. I still think you have a ways to go before you can pull off realistic-sounding enough solo work, but working with Christian in tandem did a good job of providing new instrumentation ideas and creating something better than the sum of its parts. Wouldn't mind some tweaks for more realism on the sequenced stuff, but it doesn't need it for me to reasonably pass it despite its flaws. Cool stuff, y'all, and a solid contribution to KyleJCrb's "Summoning of Spirits" project.

YES

[zircon]

Harpischords naturally sound somewhat "fake" given that they have no sort of dynamics by default. If anything is supposed to sound mechanical sounding, it's a harpsichord. So that doesn't bother me in the least. However, I am absolutely in agreement that it doesn't mesh well with the other instruments. I'm no expert on baroque music, but from what I HAVE heard, the instrumental parts mesh better than they do here. Not a dealbreaker though by any means.

The next section with the guitar is an interesting change. I liked where it was going up until 2:15; then, the guitar parts became very mushy. The drums are weak. Once a strong theme comes in at 2:41 it's ok, but the guitar performance and mixing is simply sloppy. The guitar "noises" don't help at all. There's no real connection to any earlier part of the mix, and the transitions across the board don't work. It sounds like there were a lot of ideas but none of them were fleshed out. Rather they were just put in somewhat haphazardly. Finally, the ending is awful. It just putters out without any sort of resolution. PLEASE change that.

This needs a lot of polish, primarily in the cohesiveness of the arrangement, and the production. There are plenty of good ideas and no one aspect is particularly weak. More work all around will make this into a passable mix by our standards. Keep it up.

NO

[DarkeSword]

Strings at some points need a better attack, but for the most part, they're alright.

I wish there wasn't such a dichotomy in the soundscapes of the guitar stuff and the baroque stuff.

The flute sounds dry and really far forward compared to everything else.

Rockin' guitar is pretty neato, but its accompaniment is pretty weak. Meatier drums+bassline please.

I like the arrangement though.

SUPER TOUGH DECISION (desu)

NO please tweakstuff and resub

[Vig]

this song is lacking in polish. obviously teh harp dont sound great, there are occasional iffy note choices, and the guitar line at 2:20 gets a giant WTF? for "Was That Flatulence?"

However, i find this mix to be well concieved and adequately delivered. Some of the guitar lines are just beautiful, and while larry described it as a bit empty at times, I dont think this is a problem, in fact i think the minimalism is a positive thing. Wish the production were tighter, but good enough, i think

YES

[GrayLightning]

I was impressed by the WIP when I heard it, but admittedly was not too familiar with the source. After hearing the source though carefully, my opinion on the mix was softened some.

The sequencing is generally solid. But I wish there was more going on here, at least to fill out the soundscape. Even minimalism uses interesting processing or dense sounds so that it's not so vacant.

I thought the arrangement concepts were fairly straightforward and at times there's dichotomy between the liberal take on the mix via CP's parts and the aforementioned bit...

Zircon called this ("There's no real connection to any earlier part of the mix, and the transitions across the board don't work. It sounds like there were a lot of ideas but none of them were fleshed out. Rather they were just put in somewhat haphazardly. Finally, the ending is awful. It just putters out without any sort of resolution. PLEASE change that."), while I wouldn't go that far, I too thought this could be polished some more.

Production is generally plain, it almost sounds like the samples are completely untreated. The flute does sound forward although technically it vis-a-vis its recording. But personally that doesn't bother me - I don't think orchestral needs to follow typical orchestral placement - it can follow the studio concept of treating things individually, even if we say have a flute that is infront of everything else. I do wish the instruments had some more tail here, and as I said the lack of treatment makes it at times sparse in general due to the thin instrumentation. I think more reverb would have made the soundscape more interesting.

Drums sound thin, and very very intimate. Like it was recorded in a small room - in relation to the orchestra. I wish that too had a little more reverb and density.

The guitar is the highlight, I have no beefs with that at all. Like Liontamer pointed out, I think Christian's work and personal ornamentation with the performance helped this a lot enough where I am torn to give this a yes - even some of the issues floating about, but given I have enough reservations - very, very borderline NO.

Hemo you're probably one of the most improved mixers of the last year, so don't take the decision too harshly. Keep at it, you're this close.