Final Fantasy VII - You Can Hear the Planet Cry

[H36T]

Hello! I'm a long time fan but I finally got the gumption to join the forums and submit something haha. I mostly dabble in more orchestral kind of music but I wanted to try something different with more hybrid sounds. I guess to me this track is mostly done but I feel like it is missing something or maybe isn't liberal or daring enough to really submit. Any feedback that you can provide would be great!
 

Current Edit:

Finally have reached a point of completion in which I feel ready for a review. Thank you so much everyone for your support as I've gone step by step through the uhh..process haha. Any help you or the mods can provide or just feedback would be so appreciated.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hZgXfRJiPTE2IllhEbNEOTqGkYNHIr5h/view?usp=sharing

Edited February 8, 2021 by HarlemHeat360
Review completed

[Lampje4life]

Uh oh. The link brings me to an Overture FF8. Perhaps wrong copy paste?

[H36T]

1 hour ago, Lampje4life said:

Uh oh. The link brings me to an Overture FF8. Perhaps wrong copy paste?

 

I'm sorry! I fixed the original link and it should work now hopefully. Thank you for letting me know about it.

[Lampje4life]

No worries  The track is pretty sweet, great sound, well balanced. It's very true to the original so you're right that it would not be liberal enough to submit to OCR yet but if you work in some original ideas, this is a great foundation. 

[Julien Mulard]

Nice track, quite well produced. I love your sound design and the overall atmosphere!

Right now, I feel the track is a little short. It's like you have a great intro, but it stops when I thought it would really begin. The huge bassy sound at the end is really great, and I was expecting the song to kind of explode at that moment. Maybe you could try to use those growly tone to build a more aggressive variation? I also like the glitchy vocal sound at the beginning, and I think you could use more of those texture too.

I think if you manage to add a more intense variation on the theme using more of the dark electronic textures you use in the first section, you could have a very good candidate to be published. I'm no mod though, so maybe I'm wrong? I'm also leaning more towards aggressive/intense genre of music, so if it's not your thing, don't feel compelled to work in that direction.

Whatever, I hope to hear more from this track, it a very nice arrangement!

Cheers!

Edited November 17, 2020 by Julien Mulard
Typo

[H36T]

4 hours ago, Julien Mulard said:

Nice track, quite well produced. I love your sound design and the overall atmosphere!

Right now, I feel the track is a little short. It's like you have a great intro, but it stops when I thought it would really begin. The huge bassy sound at the end is really great, and I was expecting the song to kind of explode at that moment. Maybe you could try to use those growly tone to build a more aggressive variation? I also like the glitchy vocal sound at the beginning, and I think you could use more of those texture too.

I think if you manage to add a more intense variation on the theme using more of the dark electronic textures you use in the first section, you could have a very good candidate to be published. I'm no mod though, so maybe I'm wrong? I'm also leaning more towards aggressive/intense genre of music, so if it's not your thing, don't feel compelled to work in that direction.

Whatever, I hope to hear more from this track, it a very nice arrangement!

Cheers!

Thank you very much for the feedback. I think I'm right there with you on the length and taking the track somewhere else. I kind of lacked inspiration once I got where it is now and felt the need to put a bow on it. Maybe I'll explore more of my electronic textures and fiddle with them to see if they give me more ideas!

 

5 hours ago, Lampje4life said:

No worries  The track is pretty sweet, great sound, well balanced. It's very true to the original so you're right that it would not be liberal enough to submit to OCR yet but if you work in some original ideas, this is a great foundation. 

 

Thanks a lot! I really haven't dived into this type of sound yet but I've always liked it. I think I'll take some time to think on the original piece and see what I can do to add to it instead of more surrounding it with new layers. Also I'm glad to hear the balance is good because I've been trying to work on learning more about mixing and I think that's partially why I wanted to showcase this as a piece I've worked on making sound good in that regard. All in all however, I should really dig in and try to make this more of my own.

[HoboKa]

Wow, this is some ASMR inducing atmosphere going on here.  Oh man...I can't wait to hear more after that spooky transition effect.  I think that'd be a good point to do some discreet original touches, if you're aiming to get posted.  Make sure to time-stamp all changes, since this is, thus far, a very conservative remix.  Please make this one longer!  uWu

[H36T]

9 hours ago, HoboKa said:

Wow, this is some ASMR inducing atmosphere going on here.  Oh man...I can't wait to hear more after that spooky transition effect.  I think that'd be a good point to do some discreet original touches, if you're aiming to get posted.  Make sure to time-stamp all changes, since this is, thus far, a very conservative remix.  Please make this one longer!  uWu

Thank you for your feedback! I made a post replying to you earlier but I guess it didn't actually post? Huh, anyway, I've made progress on a new direction and I'll explain some of the progress below.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19WpDBraO7YyJT9-9VFuiPU_ZHFYapBUh/view?usp=drivesdk

 

Here is the latest updated version. It says 6 minutes long but it's not haha. I just let pro tools go into the distance haha. The new stuff starts at about 1:49 and progress stops at about 2:50. Before then is basically what I had made before unchanged. I want to start very atmospheric and conservative and then kind of explode into something else.

I think I took it in a much different direction than some of you may have imagined initially. I really wanted to play around with the theme more so it's much more melodic/harmonic and less atmospheric than the beginning. Some things to note. Firstly, I haven't cleaned up the production yet so there is some unwanted clipping. Some of the distortion is intentional though. I'm also not done adding effects so there will definitely be more to come! That ominous ending from before will make a return, but I'm saving it for later. I'm also not sure if I want to use it for a transition or a closing like I originally intended. Anyway, let me know what you think!
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[H36T]

Still working on this! Just hadn't been able to put in the work really hard. But I added some new progress in the original post. Still a lot of work to do but I'm in the home stretch composition wise. Then it's all the mixing and stuff I'm bad at haha.

[HoboKa]

Woah, 2:39 surprised me.  That is a cool string articulation.  Interesting jazz beat you got going on.  I used to do jazz beats with my ambient stuff too (except the mix was ass and samples were all soundfonts).  It could work.  You got some big cahones with this approach and I'd love to see it develop more.  

Edited December 8, 2020 by HoboKa

[H36T]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:36 PM, HoboKa said:

Woah, 2:39 surprised me.  That is a cool string articulation.  Interesting jazz beat you got going on.  I used to do jazz beats with my ambient stuff too (except the mix was ass and samples were all soundfonts).  It could work.  You got some big cahones with this approach and I'd love to see it develop more.  

 

Honestly where I'm at now, I'm kind of...stuck. I'm like dude I went into a whole new direction, which I like, and I think I'm doing fine with, but I am just unsure how to get home exactly without just kinda...mailing it in. I'll keep working but right now what I have isn't too much different than what I last gave. Really, I'm just trying not to do too much. I'm playing this line between cool effects and atmosphere and sensory overload. That and it's like coming down from the mountains with the climax I just did haha. Anyway, I think I just need one last visit from the muse that got me here and I'll be able to take it home.

[H36T]

....I think, I'm ready for review haha. This has taken forever and I'm sure there are plenty of flaws in the master...but I think this is my limit without feedback haha. Honestly though, I like the way it has turned out and i had so much fun. It helped me find a lot i actually enjoy about some of these more...hybrid electronic/trailer like sounds that I normally can't stand or find really cliché in like movie trailers but in some game music really can make magic. Anyway,  i hope you guys enjoy the first version of the full song start to finish! And I hope whoever reviews it has fun with it as well and can help me with whatever they choose.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hZgXfRJiPTE2IllhEbNEOTqGkYNHIr5h/view?usp=sharing

[SilverFox Jams]

Wow, this is blowing me away. The intro is so ambient and atmospheric in addition to orchestra elements. I love it! Nice touch with the bells, and you don't overdo them. The vocals sound so good and clean, and that static/stutter effect to them make it unique and special. There's a wide variety of sounds going on. Again, wow!

My only suggestion is to make this a bit lengthier (at least a minute longer), before that interesting end point. Try some more various things with this beauty of a track. Best of luck in your submission. 

[H36T]

On 12/18/2020 at 2:06 PM, SilverFox Jams said:

Wow, this is blowing me away. The intro is so ambient and atmospheric in addition to orchestra elements. I love it! Nice touch with the bells, and you don't overdo them. The vocals sound so good and clean, and that static/stutter effect to them make it unique and special. There's a wide variety of sounds going on. Again, wow!

My only suggestion is to make this a bit lengthier (at least a minute longer), before that interesting end point. Try some more various things with this beauty of a track. Best of luck in your submission. 

Thank you for the feedback! I really do appreciate that. I enjoyed going through and experimenting. Probably the problem ended up being I had so much I wanted to do, tryi g to stuff things into the soundstage and without making it clip too hard became a project in and of itself. But I also realized...I have a lot of things in my libraries worth just making more music so I can explore them more! I have my go to's of course that I almost always use but at a few points I was like "Wait...don't I have a library for that already? Yep...yes I do lol"

I've been listening for a few days and maybe agree another section before the ending would be nice. I just am unsure where to take it and the source doesn't give me much. So I'll have to be more liberal if something ever comes to mind. Maybe I'll just sit and experiment with stuff and see if something I like comes to mind.

[HoboKa]

On 12/16/2020 at 12:12 PM, HarlemHeat360 said:

....I think, I'm ready for review haha. This has taken forever and I'm sure there are plenty of flaws in the master...but I think this is my limit without feedback haha. Honestly though, I like the way it has turned out and i had so much fun. It helped me find a lot i actually enjoy about some of these more...hybrid electronic/trailer like sounds that I normally can't stand or find really cliché in like movie trailers but in some game music really can make magic. Anyway,  i hope you guys enjoy the first version of the full song start to finish! And I hope whoever reviews it has fun with it as well and can help me with whatever they choose.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hZgXfRJiPTE2IllhEbNEOTqGkYNHIr5h/view?usp=sharing

I enjoyed the new stuff.  Got nothing helpful to add as this is beyond my scope...though I must say that I LOVE ambient shit.  We really coulda used you for the All Metroid's Round...Probably would've blown us all away and stolen my victory there, no sweat Rofl...Hope this passes the bar at OCR!

Edited December 28, 2020 by HoboKa

[H36T]

On 12/28/2020 at 7:04 PM, HoboKa said:

I enjoyed the new stuff.  Got nothing helpful to add as this is beyond my scope...though I must say that I LOVE ambient shit.  We really coulda used you for the All Metroid's Round...Probably would've blown us all away and stolen my victory there, no sweat Rofl...Hope this passes the bar at OCR!

Lol you are too kind. I don't know much Metroid music so I wouldn't have been able to connect!

[timaeus222]

MOD REVIEW

Honestly, I didn't have much to say, but let's see.

Arrangement

Seems to stick to the structure of the original for the most part, and is almost note-for-note the same on the piano and some of the choir. The main distinguishing features are the additional atmospheric elements and the elevation of sound quality. On the first listen, I do hear a good sense of progression, and a clear dynamic curve, so I think this does separate itself from the original enough, despite that.

Mixing/Production

Mostly very enjoyable. The only thing I'd say is at 2:38 - 2:43 you have some clipping due to the sub bass being dominated there. A suggestion I have is that the reversed sounds could take more advantage of the stereo field; they feel narrow, so maybe you could use some automation clips to pan them left and right.

Overall

I think this is actually really good already, and can just use a few final polishing touches. In terms of a stereo image, I think this would be good to compare to.

END OF MOD REVIEW