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OCR04209 - *YES* Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"


Rexy
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classic track right here. there's some stellar arrangements of this one out there on official arrange cds. let's take a listen.

the initial presentation of the theme is in the harp, mirroring the version on the Best Friends arrange album. it's well-performed, and features some sfx behind that are light and airy, matching the style. the second section brings in some well-realized mallets and light strings. there's some nice melody-adjacent arrangement here to string out the original into some new territory. the overall arrangement is minimal aside from realizing it on the harp and a few bits of original content, but what's here is probably enough. it's well recorded and the supporting synths where added are handled delicately as expected for Rebecca. my main complaint throughout is that the performance felt a hair fast outside of one specific spot that's refreshingly out of time around 1:50. the harp playing sounds very pretty, so it's a shame there isn't a bit more time to enjoy the sustains. There's also probably close to 12 or 13 seconds that can be trimmed off the end. It's quiet enough that compression would be a real bonus, as well.

overall this is really straightforward, but handled very competently. this is on the bare minimum line for arrangement but the performance and recording are real nice. A trimmed ending and this one's good enough for me. Adding compression and bringing the overall volume up would be fantastic but not required.

 

 

YES

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  • prophetik music changed the title to 2019/09/09 - (1Y) Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"
  • Rexy changed the title to 2020/09/09 - (1Y) Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"
  • 2 weeks later...

I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with Brad regarding interpretation - it deserves a lot more credit for what it set out to do.  Everything that wasn't a melody or a chord sequence got thrown out of the window, not leaving much room for interpretation.  It's a simple structure - bookends with the A section, with the two B section melodies having the second half of A attached to the end plus a callback in the ending.  These segments have brief original performance transitions between them, utilizing arpeggios (0:35), scale descents (1:13), and delicate rubato passages (1:49).  The realization on the harp gives the melodic passages life, for sure - but by stripping down the accompaniment writing to something with way less bounce than the original, you've created a fragmented take with a more ethereal mood to it - and that's very clever all on its own.

The overall aesthetic is very similar to your posted vocal performance work in the past.  Instead of your voice riding on top of the new age pads, we've got your lever harp in play - and assuming you used the same microphone to record it as you did your vocals, the cleaner recording quality pleasantly surprised me.  The mixdown is serviceable, and you got the lead instrument's presence in the mix for sure.  Yet, I feel the harp sounds a touch too warm and would blend in too much with lower notes on the pads at times - but considering the tonal spread, it's not an easy instrument to emphasize what works.

It all adds up to a pleasant package - one that strips the source down and works well with what's left, one that uses its delicate qualities to carry the backing track forward, and one that made me question why you hadn't recorded a live harp sooner.  It's a pleasant take that sees both the arrangement and production values over the bar for me - charming work!

YES

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  • Rexy changed the title to 2020/09/09 - (2Y) Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"
  • Liontamer changed the title to 2020/09/09 - (3Y) Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"

Very clean, very elegant. the arrangement is minimalistic, but that's not to say that it's straight forward - there's a lot of subtractive changes that make for some nice, interpretive arranging. The backing instruments (like the pads & light percussion) certainly add some depth to the track overall, in nice, subtle ways.

Production is solid, too, so how about we get another solid Rebecca piece on here?

YES

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  • Gario changed the title to 2020/09/09 - (4Y) Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"
  • Liontamer changed the title to OCR04209 - *YES* Final Fantasy 5 "A Dream of Home"
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