OCR03166 - *YES* Final Fantasy Tactics 'Finding Somebody to Love in This Meager World'

[Chimpazilla]

OCRemix Song Submission:

Song name: Finding Somebody to Love in this Meager World

 

Contact Information:

Your ReMixer name – Level 99
Your real name - Various
Your website – http://level99.nighthorsemedia.com
Your userid – 13318

Submission Information

Name of game(s) arranged – Final Fantasy Tactics
Name of individual song(s) arranged – Delita's Theme, World Map, Hero's Theme
Composer: Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata

Comments on the song:

Well, it's been nearly 2 years since I last sent you an email, submissions inbox. I'm sorry I'm so bad at keeping up my end of the relationship. It's not you, it's me. I know I've treated you like you don't exist, and I'm going to try to make up for it now. Please take me back, baby. I miss your automated responses.

Last Summer, I went on a quest to get a 12-String Acoustic Guitar. I found the one I wanted, but was a bit short on the funding to get it at that time. For the first time ever, I turned to my fans for help. In return for a small monetary contribution towards getting the guitar, I would make them a song of their choice using it. One fan in particular, Daniel Kaelin, donated and requested that I do an arrangement of Final Fantasy Tactics. He didn't care which song I did, just do something from Final Fantasy Tactics.

(Oh boy, I haven't gotten any better at not writing essays for submission emails, have I?)

Here's the thing with Final Fantasy Tactics: I am scared to death of arranging it. The music is so complex, and layered, and perfect basically as it is. It is source material that I am afraid to touch simply because I feel like I will most likely not do it the justice it deserves. The first arrangement I ever made, back in 2004 for vgmix 2 was an arrangement of FFT. I didn't even know what I was doing back then, and once I started learning about what I was doing, I just didn't want to do FFT again until I felt competent. With this remix request from Dan, I no longer had a choice about it.

This is nothing but guitars. I recorded my-my-my-my Mitchell 12-string into a MXL 990 powered by Focusrite Saffire 6 USB preamps. There's a total of 6 guitars playing at one time max. The main chunk of the song is Delita's theme, with the bridge being the World Map partially incorporating the Hero's Theme motif. The ending is Delita's theme with the Hero motif modified on top of it. Should be plenty of source usage by OCR standards.

I am absolutely in love with this guitar's sound. I try to utilize all aspects of acoustic guitar sounds, and now with this new axe, I can really make the high end harmony shine while exploring the additional percussive aspects the additional strings provide.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the remix, and I'll hopefully send more again soon. Stay well, inbox!

Delita:

World map:

Hero's theme:

[Chimpazilla]

Well howdy thar, Stevo! And a hearty welcome back to the Land of Inbox!

What a lovely track, such a nice tone to that guitar. You are right, the upper end sounds luscious and the percussives are crystal clear. Beautiful performances and mixed super nicely and appropriately.

I kinda wish there was some bass in here somewhere but I won't cry about it. The track stays in the same gear throughout, which is fine, but I sure would have liked at least one section that sounds totally different, like a super slow emo breakdown. Source use is just fine, sources are woven nicely together into a cohesive whole.

YES

[Flexstyle]

It's tasty and I love it. Really nice guitar work here, Stevo. My one complaint is it feels rather overcompressed--you could probably let this mix breathe a bit more and have a bit better dynamic range, to suit the emotion of the piece. That might partially solve Chimpa's complaint, too, about letting the song have a breakdown section at some point. 

 

Anyways. Nothing too major, beautiful arrangement, love the guitar tones. 

 

YES

[zykO]

oh my, this is so good

first of all, nice guitar! huge fan of 12 stringers (though i've never made the plunge for one, i do fancy my 12 string oud very much) and this one has a very sweet, clear voice. secondly, your chops are on full display here, brotha; the performance is clean, confident and emotive... check, check, check. really nice stuff.

can't complain about the production here though there is a bit more compression than is entirely necessary unless your performance was deceptively uneven (which i strongly doubt just from what i can hear... which means it might not hurt too much to bring out the dynamics a smidge more by loosening it up as flex suggested). the arrangement is on point, too: the really impressive bit here is that when combining the three sources, it is never in doubt that delita's theme is the most fitting to take the lead... because then world map feels like a natural fit as the bridge. that balance is usually where multi-source arrangements tend to be uninspiring as even experienced remixers don't optimize how different sources fit together. you did. (by the way, i think i remember your vgmix 2 FFT mix!)

i've literally been listening to this most of this morning, now and probably will for some time as i am at work, have a ton of writing to do and this can make me write a novel without noticing that a week has passed. so much for getting some other judging in this day lolol

YES

 

[Liontamer]

Whether an artist thinks the music untouchable or they can't hope to rise to the challenge of competently interpreting it, I love hearing artists compelled into arranging music that's seemingly sacrosanct. It's music and it's art, so it's not sacred. Dive in!

Excellent job at changing the rhythms and mood of Delita's theme; very, very nice. The changeup at 1:58 to the world map theme was abrupt IMO, but the flow isn't badly broken. I agreed with Chimpazilla that more dynamic contrast somewhere would have been cool; for me, it's not even pointing out a flaw, rather just expressing a preference.

 

I love how the tone and rhythms of this remind me a lot of Final Fantasy X's "Silence Before the Storm." Stevo's really grown since his more leathery [ ] attempts at music back in the day, and he's been killing it with his work for years now. That said, hearing him present this excellent 12-string arrangement, it's always great to hear him add new wrinkles to his game. Very nice work.

 

YES