Rexy Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 Hi, Here's my submission of a track from Final Fantasy VII. Submission information: Game: Final Fantasy VII Arrangement Name: Black Suits Song arranged: Turks' Theme Contact information: ReMixer name: infinitytone Real name: Karol Kosacki Email address: Website: https://www.youtube.com/infinitytone userid: 34463 Collaborator: subversiveasset Email address: Andrew contributed his fantastic saxophone skills to the track. Hope you have fun listening and have a great week! Best, --- Karol (Charles) Kosacki | Infinity Tone https://www.youtube.com/c/infinitytone http://infinitytone.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 opening is suitably funky. the bass is effected such that it's hard to hear or understand what it's doing, but when the group comes in, it's pretty fat and i love it. there's some weird harmonic content going on that sounds intentional but is hard to grasp why. there's some crunch at 0:34 that appears to be an augmented fourth, followed by an odd inversion of the pad in the background. it sounds interesting but it's admittedly crunchy. the quick transition at 0:52 is nice. saxophone is quite flat when it comes in. there's some fun noodling (which continues to be flat in the upper part of the lower register, b-c# is always flat!) that flows into more melodic content at around 1:38. the strings and organ behind the sax are pretty nice here, and having the organ drop and just leave the strings is a nice choice at 1:55, although some new writing there would have been good. the sax is out of time coming in at 2:12 as well as flat, which is unfortunate because that's a pretty hip entrance there. i like the zipper synth playing the melody in the back behind the sax part. the track suddenly ends with a musicbox-like section that's not very long. from an arrangement perspective, there's a lot of great stuff going on here. this is a repetitive melody that could easily get really boring really fast, and it stays pretty fresh throughout with a lot of changes to the background and harmonic content. i don't like the sax's tone (it's quite sharp and very forward in the mix) nor the pitchiness of it, but what it's playing usually is pretty good and does a nice job framing the melody while doing its own thing. ultimately i don't think the sax pulls this down enough that this is below the bar. this is a fun track and i think a lot of people will like it. i'd love to hear a re-record of the sax part though, or at least some pitch and time fixes in post. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 27, 2021 Share Posted October 27, 2021 I had to turn up the volume a touch to truly hear the details. I'm OK with the looseness of the timing in parts; nothing sounded out of place. There were some flat moments with the sax, but nothing close to making this not a pass on performance grounds. Great variations of the source tune throughout; lots of great varied iterations from both Karol and Andrew, and strong dynamic contrast during the whole piece! Short and sweet, good deal! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 (edited) Normally, I like to form my opinions without reading votes from other judges, so they don't bias me. However, seconds into this, I knew I had to read prophetic's vote because of the weird harmonies, which I knew he'd explain. The pad that starts building at 0:30 is seriously weird harmonically, and the arps in 0:53-1:07 are at a strange interval, too. After that there's a new organ-like pad that's also weird. Proph explained some of these, but not all. Otherwise, I like this a lot. I love the rich, rumbly bass. The performances may not be perfect, but it's the imperfections that make recordings better than samples, and it's played with passion. It does a lot with a very short source, despite still clearly leaning on that source throughout. I'm not quite going to mark this as a YES because I'd really love to hear another opinion regarding those harmonies. They just sound wrong to me. I'll be happy to vote in favor if they check out, though. Edit 11/29: I'm not going to hold this up. The dissonance is unpleasant but it's not a dealbreaker. YES Edited November 29, 2021 by MindWanderer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 I am also feeling a little put off by some of the harmonic choices going on here. The pad builds I think are the worst part of it, but it definitely through me off. The groove is really nice, and the soloing overall feels pretty good, despite being a little out of time and some occasional intonation issues. I do think that the track strays pretty far from source territory for decent chunks of time, and I think I'd have liked there to be more connections (like in the backing part or even rhythms during a lot of the soloing). There's enough there for a pass, but there are definitely moments that feel like an entirely different song. The crunchy bass and the overall soundscape are a fun combination, and when it is together it feels good. I'm pretty on the fence here, but I do think it slips by here. YES (borderline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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