Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 - Wings Of Freedom (Master Mi Remix)

[Master Mi]

This is a little remix of one of my favourite games from the Final Fantasy 7 series I'm working at since a few months.

"Wings Of Freedom" is my interpretation of the OST "The Price Of Freedom". I wanted to create a remix which is a bit more feeling, but also goes into a stronger rock ballad later on - a good track for combining some genres without getting lost of the soul und background of the track.

It begins with a little live recorded piano solo (played this just by ear - it contains also a nice melody that only appears about one time in the whole game), followed by a calm viola part which goes over into a part with a harp, guitars, bass and drums and which leads into a stronger, soulful rock ballad with several electric guitars towards the end.

The rest of informations that might be interesting for listeners and remixers is in the description of the Youtube upload.

It's also the first remix I've created a video (with ingame scenes) for.
Hope you and especially the fans of Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 enjoy it.

Original game track:
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Newest version of my remix >>> 1.2
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>>> https://clyp.it/vx2pp4xy

[Kat]

Writing this as I listen:

 

The piano at the beginning was nice enough, but I think you could do more with it. Maybe add some chords or counter melodies/harmonies. I can understand if you just wanted that single melody, though. Once the rest of the instrumentation kicked in, the harp stuck out a lot. Seems sort of loud to me, but this is on a pair of monitors. It could also be that it has a fair amount of reverb while the rest is pretty dry. If you added reverb to it I'd tone it down a bit. If that's the sample's natural reverb, a little bit added to the drums and bass might help. That's not my forte though.

 

At 2:20, the acoustic guitar was exposed(moreso than it already is) and the strumming sounded very fake. As I usually record my own guitar when needed, I can't really help you with adding realism to the sample beyond telling you how I'd play it. When playing like that, a guitarist will usually be alternating strums up and down. As it is right now, it sounds like what would happen if you only down-strummed(something I often did when first starting out). I'd suggest adjusting the velocity and volume a bit so it sounds like down/up strumming, and occasionally accenting down strums that are on beat. Really, if you're going to go acoustic I'd suggest having someone record it or investing in a good sample. You could even pick up a relatively cheap acoustic guitar and learn yourself - Unlike a lot of instruments out there(brass and winds, violins/viola/cello, vocals) the guitar is relatively easy to pick up and play. And you've got a whole internet full of tabs(including ones for this song's rhythm guitar) to work with.

 

My biggest complaint would be the repetition, though. After the piano intro, everything just sort of looped with more elements being added every 4-8 measures. That's more of a dance/trance music technique that doesn't really work well if you're going for a ballad. It needs more variety, more dynamic variance. It needs a break from the usual chord progression. At 3:07 when the second electric guitar comes in, you had the perfect chance to kick everything up and go into a heartfelt original solo. I was honestly a bit disappointed that you didn't.

[timaeus222]

I agree that the piano by itself in the intro isn't enough; in other words, it's too sparse IMO, for 40 seconds of material with nothing else. I get that you were probably going for an isolated feel with the pause at 0:18 - 0:23, but it just makes the track sound unintentionally simple and empty. The thing is, does it make sense without the video? I would say no.

The violin sample tone is alright, but the sequencing is lacking in realism. I can tell that from the phase reset that occurs on every single note. Each note repeatedly swells in the same way. It may not be obvious on the lower velocities, but that's what's happening. That's a sign that it lacks round robins, which are crucial to realism. The sample also appears to have the exact same volume envelope every time. A human being is more random than that. No human being plays the same exact thing over and over again, in the exact same way, 100%. You have to figure out how to overcome that with your sample, using volume automation and really paying attention to the swells you get as a result. It can't be assumed that you always get what you expect when you do something in a DAW, and this should be kept in mind.

The harp is indeed loudest near 1:00 and on. The timing also seems a touch off on the second note in each copy+pasted pattern. You may have wanted it to be the melody, but if so, I don't often hear harps as melodic instruments unless in subtle circumstances, so keep that in mind. Maybe consider changing instrument roles around.

Yep, the guitar strumming is strum-down only. What is better is if you imagine an actual guitarist, because they do not strum down all the time. That is not efficient or realistic technique. You can tell that it is only strum-down from again, the phase reset of the sample. That is almost always what happens with samples that don't have round robin. Keep in mind that with round robins, you can play multiple samples per note on the same velocity. Without a decently complex algorithm (a cycling script, which you don't find in soundfonts), you can only play one sample per note per velocity. That means unless your simple plugin has different samples at very slight velocity differences, you cannot get altering up/down strums without literally alternating your sequencing for each note, without round robins. You may be able to do it by repitching each note a bit and then writing the note in so that it's the same pitch again, shifting the harmonics with a degradation trick, but play around with that before you actually do it if you do it.

Most importantly though, yes, there is a lot of copy+paste with layering of elements. It's really not enough IMO to add variation. Change the actual notes, too. Your instruments are not electronic---they're organic; treat them like organic instruments and the fact that they are played by real people. Real people don't play the same thing over and over again, whether it's the notes played or the playing style or the tendencies in their technique. Subtlety substantially matters here.

[Master Mi]

Thanks for the detailed Feedback.
Of course I will progess with developing the track - the next step will be several automations - but this might take some time.

So for the rest...

1) At first - the piano part will guaranteed remain as it is from the structure - maybe I will include some less dominant, supporting and natural sounding pad sounds - but not much more there.
Never thought about making this intro too complex - cause I think it might kill the silent viola solo afterwards.
I would rather prefer to bring in some piano chords in the parts after the viola solo plays - might fit as a middle man between the harp and the bass.

The pause in the piano part at 0:18 was not intentional to fit the video.
Never thought about making a video when I was creating this track several months before starting to make a movie with ingame scenes.
I just played this piano part just by trying to feel the melody - and I felt a about 5 seconds lasting pause there.
Could be a good part for a light pad to bridge this smartly and in a decent way maybe. 

2) The viola will be definitely volume-automated und maybe gets some tougher velocity varieties in the next version.
Though I still like the sound of the sample without further automations.

3) The thing with the harp's a bit strange. My metering device shows me, that it is about 1 to 2 dB more silent the the piano part at the beginning and nearly the same program loudness of the single guitar lines afterwards. Maybe it's because of the stronger peaks of the harp, the strong reverb/delay and the bigger velocity differences within the harp part.
The problem is, that if I turn the volume of the harp about 2 dB down, it totally perishes within the bass.
Automating the bass in attack, volume or velocity doesn't seem to bring too much useful effects.
Not quite sure what I will do there - I definitely want to have a calming harp part in the beginning - maybe I'll try to play another octave or smooth the velocity differences of the harp a little bit.

4) For the electric guitars I will try some velocity variations and volume automations in the next version - not sure how I will do the pitch stuff without imitating some heavy fingernail blackboard scratches - but I'll try a few things.
I will also automate the timbre of the acoustic guitar chords for the next versions.

Let's see what I can do.


 

[Kat]

3) The thing with the harp's a bit strange. My metering device shows me, that it is about 1 to 2 dB more silent the the piano part at the beginning and nearly the same program loudness of the single guitar lines afterwards. Maybe it's because of the stronger peaks of the harp, the strong reverb/delay and the bigger velocity differences within the harp part.
The problem is, that if I turn the volume of the harp about 2 dB down, it totally perishes within the bass.
Automating the bass in attack, volume or velocity doesn't seem to bring too much useful effects.
Not quite sure what I will do there - I definitely want to have a calming harp part in the beginning - maybe I'll try to play another octave or smooth the velocity differences of the harp a little bit.

 

From personal experience? Ditch the meter and rely on your ears. Don't turn the harp down 2dB just because your meter implies that to be the solution. Make very slight adjustments and listen to the results on a variety of mediums(open speakers, headphones, earbuds, monitors if available) and get a feel for how it sounds. People are going to listen to it in different ways, so you should approach it in different ways. For that you'll need your ears, not a meter. A meter is certainly helpful, but don't let it make the decisions for you.

[Master Mi]

Yeah, I know - but what I hear depends also on the device (speakers & the sound in the room, headphones) I'm listening to.

At my speakers and headphones, both was fairly okay - at your headphones or speakers the harp might have been a bit too loud.
That's why I never fully trust what I hear through my headphones and ask the spectroscope additionally.

For the next version I think I'll try a little compromise for the loudness of the harp between your as well as my acoustic perception.

[timaeus222]

On 10/22/2015 at 10:42 AM, Master Mi said:

Yeah, I know - but what I hear depends also on the device (speakers & the sound in the room, headphones) I'm listening to.

At my speakers and headphones, both was fairly okay - at your headphones or speakers the harp might have been a bit too loud.

That's why I never fully trust what I hear through my headphones and ask the spectroscope additionally.

That's true to an extent; if you pay closer attention to the faults in your audio systems, then in understanding the faults, you have a better idea of what is acceptable on the particular system based on the characteristics inherent in that system. In other words, with experience, you can make mixing decisions on any decent system. However, training your ears on a good system first is where I would start, rather than trying to mix on many systems early on.

Personally, I would trust your headphones more than your speakers if you have not done much to your room, because your speaker output is mainly influenced by the treatment of your room acoustics. Your headphone experience is not influenced by that.

[Master Mi]

Got a nice update of the track - further informations of the changes in this version you can find in the description of the upload for Youtube.

Let me know how you like this version 1.2:
>>>

>>> https://clyp.it/vx2pp4xy

[Rozovian]

The O in Of probably shouldn't be capitalized. It looks weird to me, and it's against what wikipedia's referenced style guides recommend. Dealbreaker? No. Bugs me? Yes.

eval:

The drums are strangely weak. The whole mix is a bit too soft. Not much. Find some remixes from here with a similar sound or style, and compare how loud they are. Try to put yours on roughly the same level. Err on the soft side, but make it louder than it is now.

I'm not a fan of the choice of snare sound. It's too short and snappy, and too same-y when it feels like it should be more dynamic. I don't like the guitar sound either. There's a weird tapping sound at 2:30, probably part of the cymbal rise. I don't particularly like the piano-reverb sound. There's a sound probably from the piano's mechanisms that becomes rather prominent on the higher notes, and bleeds into the reverb as well. It might be possible to filter it out of the sound. If it's recorded audio, and includes the room sound, it might be difficult to get rid of it, but you can experiment with eq to try to reduce how prominent it is. The sound choices overall are good imo, but there's those little things that stand out.

The arrangement is quite conservative, but the instrument choices are in part different, and the sound and elements like your piano intro set it apart. Can't say if it's sufficient, but I know I've been needlessly critical of this stuff in the past. Tough call.

It sounds like a nice arrangement for a real band, and many of its shortcomings are because  it's not played by a real band. There's a lack of detail to many of the sound choices and performances that I think a real performer would have done something about. Drums and acoustic guitar in particular. Dulcimer (or whatever) too. Electric guitar is well handled and shouldn't need more work imo.

I think it's a mediocre remix. I don't mean that in a bad way. In many ways, it's neither notably good nor notably bad. It'd be nice to hear a higher level of performance (or illusion of performance) here, because I think the arrangement is worth it. Whether it's suited for ocremix is difficult to say.

I'd definitely sub this, I'm just not sure how much work I'd put into it before subbing. Definitely raising the levels, looking into the piano eq thing, and trying to get more performance into some of the instruments. Just not sure how much.

Nice work.

[Master Mi]

Thx for the feedback, Rozovian dude. ))

Haha, guess I like the Dealbreaker Style in this case.
I really don't like such lowercased exceptions in headlines while other words you regularly write lowercased are capitalized there.
I have seen this style at many other mp3 titles and just adopted it - pretty uniform and easy to memorize.
No problem if you change the upper and lower case of the title to your standards later on.

According to my perception and music equipment I think the loudness of the drums is quite okay (maybe 0,5 to 1 dB I can go up with these - but not more). In a rather melodic rock ballad like this I prefer some kind of "integrating drums" that support, but not predominate the melody.
When it comes to the overall loudness of the track I'm really in love with the mastering standards of EBU R 128 which allow more than enough headroom for uncompressed and full dynamic range of the tracks which are all at one loudness level.
So, for my own uploads I'll keep it this way - but as a version for OCRemix (when the track is good enough and really finished someday) I could easily export it with a loudness that is about 6 dB higher than now (without any kind of dymanic compression). This should be around your average loudness standards in OCRemix.

Hm, the strumming sound at 2:30 - yeah, you're right. The velocity goes a little bit over the edge there - guess I'll will fix it in the final version and check the whole strumming section completely as a solo played track once again.

For the piano part I think I'll leave it as it is.
The side noise in the higher piano section might be part of the piano itself and it rises recogniceably at a certain level of reverberation/wetness.
For my perception it's not even an annoying side noise. Somehow it goes really well with the video where glass breaks into many shards.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.
I'll keep working on this track and especially on the performance of some instruments in the future.