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*NO* Final Fantasy 9 "Crazy Moon"


Rexy
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ReMixer name : Bak.R

Real Name : Backer Ruth

Website : www.Bak-R.be

Userid : 34757

Submission Information

Name of game arranged : Final Fantasy IX

Name of arrangement : Crazy Moon

Name of individual song arranged : Jesters of the moon

 

Link to the original soundtrack : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUCeXApQxNw

 

Comments : This is my arrangement of the song. I try to keep this clownly mood in to the hole song. I have added a new variation on the song, trying to keep the same spirits with this new original composition. It’s orchestrated a lot of classical instruments with modern cinematic touch.

 

 

Edited by Rexy
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  • 2 weeks later...

right off the bat, i noticed that there's quite a bit of headroom on this track. the glitches and electronics are fun, but they're much louder than everything else and cause the overall track's balance to be thrown off. a compression pass would really help this without requiring significant changes to the silly synths you're experimenting with.

from a scoring and implementation perspective, there's a lot of really interesting instrument choices - purposefully, i think - and they make for some interesting soundscapes throughout. i'd say that i think your samples are really holding you back here - you've got a really cool cinematic harpsichord (it's almost a cimbalom sound which is really a clever choice here), and the cinematic toms, some fun phased electronics, and a ton of orchestral pad samples that seem to be from an orchestral hits pack. the pad strings have such a long swell that they really preclude use in any upbeat track like this, and while the pizz are fun and sound good, the constantly-repeated horn rips and the really not-great trumpet lead pull down what could be pretty fun. some simple humanization on the trumpet - adding in some spaces where a player'd breath, for example - really would help a lot.

from an arrangement perspective, this is a pretty safe arrangement. you're essentially restating the original tracks a few times with different instrumentation. i would want to see a lot more creativity applied to the melody - maybe passing it around, some variation to the notes or rhythms, something to make it yours! - before i'd say that it's enough. beyond that, the synths that are fun early on are just constantly reused without volumization, in dramatically different dynamic situations, until they're irritating. lastly, the drum kit never changes, and doesn't sound great to begin with, so it also becomes something i'm not a fan of.

from an execution standpoint, your arpeggiating synth keeps going after the last horn rip, which seems like an oversight. you'd want to have some automation to silence that channel at the end to avoid that.

overall this is a great first pass! i might sound like i really don't like it, but i think there's some really fun soundscapes here that need some more touchup to make them really solid before i'd want to pass it.

 

 

NO

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  • 5 weeks later...

I like this a lot.  It's funny, and clowny as you said.  Very quirky stuff that worked for me, lots of different instruments that you would think would be messy to have them together but it somehow works here.  The samples aren't the best 100% of the time but for the most part I think they are somewhere around the bar, maybe slightly lower.
My main gripe is the arrangement, which... there's not much of it.  Sounds a lot like the original, instruments and all, and there's not a lot of interpretation going on.  Since this remix follows very closely the original thematically, there's no adaptation to be talked about here.
This needs to be expanded further to make it for me.  Also an upgrade in the intrument quality/sequencing would be welcomed.

NO

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  • Sir_NutS changed the title to 2018/07/31 - (2N) Final Fantasy 9 "Crazy Moon"

I love this source tune, highly underappreciated, and one of my favorites from FFIX.

At first I was in agreement with proph and NutS: it is very conservative for large sections, with 1:1 instrument substitutions for the most part, many of which are just sound upgrades of the original instrumentation. But the more I listened to it, the more the differences stood out to me.  The quirky instruments and effects add a fair amount of character, there's a nice arp added at one part, and the bridge is original while maintaining the tone of the rest of the arrangement.

The samples aren't exactly a highlight, but they're serviceable, and with the wacky samples you don't expect too much realism.  Balance, too, could be tweaked, and it's definitely mastered more quietly than necessary, but it's not egregious.

There's certainly room for improvement, and all of my fellow judges' criticisms are helpful and appropriate.  But I think this does enough to squeak by.

YES (borderline)

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I immediately felt the mixing should be cleaner. Arrangement-wise, this is a nice sound upgrade, but I didn't feel this arrangement was personalized or interpretive enough to stand apart from the original, particularly until 1:54. If the structure is going to be this conservative, it needs even more interpretation via instrumentation and textural changes, and original writing additions.

NO (resubmit)

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  • Liontamer changed the title to 2018/07/31 - (1Y/3N) Final Fantasy 9 "Crazy Moon"
  • 3 weeks later...

What a fun soundscape - I appreciate your "clown-like" intent with mixing orchestral sounds and glitched tones together in a whimsical palette like this.  The orchestrated sounds themselves aren't the most realistic when left isolated and could've done with more articulation and humanization, as prophetik stated.  Combined with the synth work, though, they just needed to co-operate together so one doesn't overpower another on a timbre standpoint - and that's what this track achieved.

However, it's got some nasty flaws.  First of all, the mixdown is unbalanced.  It's a muddy mix where instruments bleed into each other, to the point that I can barely even hear your leads.  The glitch tones and pads also overpower the rest of the instrumentation on a volume standpoint, so consider doing another volume pass in addition to any EQ cuts.  Thirdly, most if not all of your instruments are drowning in reverb, and while I understand that is the norm for orchestrated sounds, it amplified the muddiness too much.  Consider bringing the wet mix down for those affected instruments.

And of course, the arrangement isn't interpretive enough.  The glitch tones, arpeggio and trumpet solo at 1:54 were all fun additions, but the source itself didn't end up with any significant tweaks outside of instrument changes.  prophetik listed some sweet ideas to add personalization to your work, so do take them to heart.  A couple of fun ones I can add on top of it are to put the melody on top of a different chord progression, or the sillier thought to change everything into a major key - though I doubt you'd go in that direction for this particular track.  And while I understand the constant kick-cymbal pattern to be an artifact of the source, that too is also constant and can do with some changing up after each section, so it sounds less like it's on auto-pilot.

It's not a bad first pass with a fun sound palette idea, but the arrangement and mixdown both feel lacking in this current form.  I hope you'll be able to go back and improve on those aspects in the future, whether on this track or future works.

NO (resubmit)

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  • Rexy changed the title to *NO* Final Fantasy 9 "Crazy Moon"
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