*NO* Final Fantasy 9 'Frogstep'

[djpretzel]

This one grew on me - perfect title, and the accelerando/ritardando elements are implemented nicely. -djp

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Hello,

 

I’ve created a remix of Qu’s Marsh from Final Fantasy 9. Here’s the link to the MP3 file: 

 

Contact information

 

Remixer name: Waterside

Real name: Jan De Bruyn

Email address: 

Forums userid: 31584 (username Helmut)

 

Submission information

 

Name of game arranged: Final Fantasy 9

Name of arrangement: Frogstep

Name of individual songs arranged: Qu’s Marsh

Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

Link to the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hNTl1jALcM

 

My comments about the mix

 

Motivation for this song

 

Qu’s marsh has left a lasting impression on my younger self. It felt so peaceful and the music gave it a sense of space, as if there was more going on, like a history behind the marsh. I’m often remembered of the song when I’m in nature.

 

Such was the case last Saturday, when I went out mountain biking. The song popped up in my head, I started humming the theme and eventually, I was “beatboxing” a chillstep drum with a more funky version of the song. When I returned home, I opened Ableton and with the melody fresh in my head, I was able to make the song I was humming.

 

The mix itself

 

I chose the sounds primarily because they sound well together, but I sneaked in some frog-like sounds in there. I listened to some frog noises, and the ‘rolling’ sound a lot of frogs make stood out for me. I tried to recapture this in the bassline, which resembles a slowed-down frog sound. The arpeggiator that follow the lead also reminds me of frogs at times when its tempo is just right. I experimented with actual pond noises and frog calls, but I never got them to work with the rest of the song, so I left them out.

 

This is actually the first time I’ve created chillstep. At least, that’s what I think it is, not too sure nowadays. I always thought the genre had a very real aliveness to it, mainly because of the contrasting parts. This turned out to be perfect for the Qu’s marsh melody, which features 2 very different parts, and I used that to full effect in the build-ups.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read and listen to my submission.

 

Kind regards,

Jan De Bruyn

Edited February 20, 2017 by Liontamer
closed decision

[Gario]

Is that... electric accordian (like at 0:16)? I can't stand it, but there's nothing technically WRONG with it, I suppose. Just sayin', is all.

Otherwise, I like this approach. The track feels a bit heavy in the high EQ end, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the production otherwise. The arrangement is neat, and there's plenty of source to go around. The sounds overall are quirky and weird, which... well, it IS Qu's swamp, I guess, so it makes sense.

Not too much I can say about it - there's a lot to like and a lot to dislike about it, and I think it'll be fun to watch everyone say as much in the comment section on both Youtube and OCR. Give it some front page love.

YES

[MindWanderer]

I'm with Gario here: while this isn't the sort of thing I'd download for myself, I don't have much other than that to object to.  I don't near any production issues.  The arrangement is clearly of Qu's swamp but takes a creative approach to it.  My one big concern is that it is on the repetitive side, especially when it runs though the main part again from 1:36-2:29, which is only distinguished from the first loop through by a brief subtractive section (2:04-2:17).  Otherwise, each repetition does change something significant and interesting.

I too think there will be a lot of negative feedback for purely matter of preference, but it seems to meet all our standards.

YES

[DragonAvenger]

Nothing really to add here, the mood is pretty cool, and while this isn't my thing, it's a fun adaption of the original. My nitpick is there are a couple of times where the soundscape feels too empty. Some light pads might have helped fill out those sections, but it doesn't end up being a dealbreaker for me. 

Creative for sure!

YES

[Chimpazilla]

This is kind of a bizarre thing.  The drops are... odd.  They are dubstep drops, but there is no bass, so my bass-loving brain is betrayed and bewildered.  There are wubs here, but they are so tame.  The lead writing is so very stiff, choppy, and repetitive.  I like the slowdown and speedup of the synth from 3:15-3:53, that's pretty darn cool!  Although I think some other effects could accompany that element.  There are some cool sounds in this mix, but ultimately I find that there is too much straight copy pasta repetition here.  The following sections are (nearly) identical:  0:13-0:40, 0:40-1:07, 1:36-2:03, and 3:53-4:20 (although this section has padding).  That is four playthroughs of nearly identical material.  Then 1:08-1:34 is almost the same as 2:31-3:25 (except this part is more iterations of the same thing), even with some filtering and that speeding up synth it sounds too samey for me, personally.  This one isn't there for me yet.

NO

[Liontamer]

Sounds harsh on the high-end to start, but nothing dealbreaking, at least initially. Around :40 in, and the groove is sounding cool, but basic, so I'm hoping it goes somewhere more sophisticated with the sound design.

Whoa, the textural change at 1:08 definitely wasn't expected; curveball in a good way.

Goes back to the beat-driven material at 1:36, and the lead synth for the melody is feeling very plodding and vanilla; are we ever going anywhere interesting with that lead? (Answer: nope)

2:30 recycles 1:08's writing, which was still good, but copy-pasta'ed. OK, so there's some added effects for this section, but it's basically 1:08's section looped longer. Kind of eh, creatively. That said, the very gradual build of the stuttering synth line in the background from 3:00-3:30 as a transition was smartly done.

3:52's section brings back the source verse again with some additions to the textures, before the beat dropped out at 4:20 for the finish.

The synth lead first used at :13 really needs to do something else creatively over the course of the 5 minutes, especially with the tempo purposefully being slow like this. I agreed with Chimpa on how the copy-pasta of some of this hurt, as it dragged on due to the tempo. And there should be further variation on the writing or textures when core sections are being repeated.

There's so much going right with this that I wouldn't die if if was posted as is, but I felt the number of smaller issues added up to needing some more development. It's maybe 80% of the way, IMO, Jan, but I see why folks are digging it; it's a creative approach, for sure. Definitely tweak this to fully realize the potential here if this version doesn't make it.

NO (resubmit)

[DarkeSword]

There's a sparseness to this track that's really bothering me. I like the sound design but that section at 4:00 with the pads should have come in a LOT earlier. You're kind of relying way too much on that variable-speed plucking synth too. There's really very little going on except for percussion and lead here; even the builds are mostly just the synth's speed changing. This is repetitive and plods a bit. Needs more variation.

NO (resub)

[Jivemaster]

I agree with the concerns regarding lack of variation that Chimpa has. The beginning portion of the mix right up to 1:00 follows a fairly similar pattern and doesn't change up a whole lot between bars. At 1:09 during the breakdown, tension is built but energy not delivered when the drop hits at 1:35. At the mid point things feel very similar to the start of the mix. The rolling pluck effect here to transition into the next section set this apart from earlier on, but went for too long IMO. 3:53 the drop hits better. When rolling pluck is used again at the end of the track its uniqueness is lost. I felt the ending could've been stronger.

Source is completely noticeable in the mix, although things weren't often taken into original territory. Production is ok but some accompanying parts were a little dry and could've done with some reverb. Some highs were beginning to become harsh at times but didn't pass the point of great concern.

Ultimately I feel the arrangement lets this down a bit, as sections are quite similar sounding and then repeated later on which makes the problem more noticeable. I'd like to see some work done on this to make the sections more unique, which could come down to simple tweaking of the already existing synths and wubs.

NO

[Sir_NutS]

Yikes those high frequencies are in serious need of taming, I had to turn the volume down just to be able to listen to this.  The snare splash is noticeably piercing to my ears.  The mix seems pretty empty overall, with some instruments feeling very static such as the pad in the breakdown, which also has a pretty jarring envelope with no release but a noticeable attack time that's just... odd.  

The arrangement feels pretty repetitive as well.  even though you introduced some neat tempo effects in some of the parts, they didn't help much to keep things interesting when all the other parts felt very samey.

If the frequencies are balanced correctly, and more work is done in the arrangement so it's less copy-paste and more cool/quirky stuff, as well as working on making the more static/boring sounds more interesting, I could see this making it to the front page.  But only then.

NO (resubmit)

[Liontamer]

Just putting it out there again, Jan, that this was really cool, and we do want to post this in some form. Definitely re-submit this; it'll skip the wait time in our inbox, and we'll come back to it more quickly. Nice work so far, and I don't believe it would take much to turn some of us into additional YES'es.