OCR04104 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild "Foraging Melodies"

[Rexy]

RebeccaETripp
Rebecca Tripp

http://www.crystalechosound.com/
ID: 48262
Game(s): 
Song Title: Foraging Melodies

Songs Remixed: Hyrule Field (Day)
 

[MindWanderer]

<sigh> Another almost 12 dB of headroom.  Look at that waveform.  Music shouldn't look like that.

This source is a tough sell as a candidate for a remix.  It's so minimal that turning its sparse 1-4 note trills into a full piece of music is bound to be nearly unrecognizable.  So Rebecca's approach here, which is basically to remove all the silence and then remix that, works reasonably well.  For someone who's played a lot of BotW (and who's played it at all without playing a lot of it?), this will sound immediately familiar, if possibly difficult to place.

That said, it's a pretty minimal arrangement.  It's certainly more than the original's simple piano, but it's not really a full orchestration either.  But it does cleverly switch between lead instruments, constantly without sounding chaotic, and does add layers in key places.

There's no real ending, but I can see how ending this in a fulfilling way would be tricky.  Not impossible, though, so it could certainly be better.

I'm leaning towards passing this.  The effect is pretty good, and honestly it's a lot like what I wish the BotW soundtrack itself sounded like.  It's far too quiet and should have an ending, but otherwise it works better than I expected.

YES (conditional on levels)

[prophetik music]

what an interesting source choice. after listening to it, i'm going to say that there's little here to actually call melodic content. there's a consistent use of the #4 in passing, there's a few specific rhythmic elements, and there's what passes for chordal movement around 2:30, but that's about it.

the intro section, through about 0:45, i'm not a huge fan of. it's essentially just orchestral flourishes over a few sustained chords that aren't particularly idiomatic for the track. the section after that though has a lot more recognizable parts - the three-note rhythmic motif, some of the extended arpeggios, and the chordal shifts between a I and bVI are nice. i also appreciate the attention paid to varying the leads. along those lines, there's a lot of variation in the instruments burbling up in the background, which is also nice. i wasn't a huge fan of the tremelo string pad that was used throughout, though, i felt it was pretty overused by about halfway through.

i didn't think the piano was particularly well-realized. most of the flourishes were too mechanical and didn't have enough nuance to the variations you'd see in the velocities on the interstitial notes. it also didn't sound like the keys were in the same space as the rest of the instruments.

the arrangement wraps up pretty nicely overall, continuing to play with tonality and still emphasizing that #4 that was predominantly featured throughout.

the arrangement is pretty well-done considering the nature of the original track. i consider it to be transformative, substantial, and original enough that it's standing apart from the original without being unrecognizable. if it wasn't so comically quiet, this would be a clear yes. as it is, i am going to mark this as conditional on levels.

 

 

YES (conditional on levels)

6/10 edit: the updates to volumes are fine. this is now a YES.

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by prophetik music

[Emunator]

Of all the minimalist Zelda arrangements I've heard from Rebecca lately, I feel like this is far and away the most fully-realized and successful. Although the original source is very abstract and doesn't provide much to latch onto, the original writing in this arrangement helps seamlessly weave together the fragments of original melody into something much more concrete. The instrument tones were all full-bodied and complemented each other well, nothing sounded egregiously unrealistic. Particularly, I found the low-register piano to be particularly moody and helped punctuate the track in a very dramatic fashion. There's a lot to love here. 

Aside from the volume fixes, this is an easy pass in my book. 

YES

Edited May 26, 2020 by Emunator

[Rexy]

Now, this is what I call an example of making something substantial out of something so minimal!  Once again, Rebecca took the "two variations" route with the arrangement - but in this case, the melody treatment feels unique on both sides, and some of the phrases even got developed multiple times with some occasions involving multiple lead part switches, before moving on to the next.  MindWanderer nailed the description better than I can - taking all the silence out and remixing what's left - which is basically what the listener will get.

As of today, we've also got an updated version that bumps up the track volume - so I'm glad to say that the headroom issue got fixed.  The mixdown is clean, nothing is poking out on a volume perspective, and the velocity variations and sustain control feels very human.  I'm with prophetik on the rigid timing, though - not only on the piano but also on the other instrumentation.  Hence, I would've preferred the pacing to be more rubato-like, but it's no big deal when many other aspects got done right.

Nevertheless, it's an explorative treatment of a source with little content - and with the polish sustaining it, I'm all in favor of seeing it get posted.  Good work!

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Bravo on turning this sparse source into a full arrangement, this is impressive.  The instrumentation is humanized just enough I think.  Everything sounds lush and full.  I'm glad I'm voting on the higher-level master version.  This is a very easy YES for me.  Love it.

YES