Emunator Posted April 18, 2021 Share Posted April 18, 2021 (edited) Remixer name : jmabate Real name : abate jean marc Email : website : https://www.youtube.com/user/jmabate userid : 35644 Name of game(s) arranged : Final Fantasy IX Name of arrangement : It’s an Ambush Name of individual song(s) arranged : Ambush Attack Composers : Nobuo Uematsu System : Sony Playstation Original : https://youtu.be/DGbGtlixygA Track infos : arranged and performed for the Pixel Mixers Final Fantasy IX Tribute Album "Beyond the Mist". Hope you will enjoy this cover. Best regards Jmabate Edited June 13, 2023 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 i didn't remember the original from the FF9 OST at all. been too long since i've played it apparently. great initial hit with the full band sound. the original is clear right away, and it translates to this style really well. there's some choir and instrumentation adds beyond the standard band sound, and it's all clear and able to be heard without too much silliness, although there's some boom in the low end around 1:32 to the drop. the initial breakdown with orchestral instrumentation and choir is well-handled, and has some neat ideas with the strings. there's another big band section at 2:27, and the presentation of the A section is layered with some additional stuff this time around, which is great. the section from 3:29 onward is hugely meaty and sounds great. the end has some theatrical elements that are a bit more Trans-Siberian Orchestra than i expected, but it's a fun rising tone to end it. this is an easy one. the band sounds great, there's lots of new stuff in here, it's clearly over half for the arrangement...nice work on this one jean. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted September 30, 2021 Share Posted September 30, 2021 Great arrangement, great performances, great expansion of a short source tune. All of that is fantastic. Metal with orchestral elements is one of my favorite things, so I'm really digging this. The one big imperfection is the machine-gun drums from 0:24-0:40 are loud on top of being frenetic and off-beat, and drown out everything else; this is particularly unfortunate because it's the weakest part of the whole arrangement, and it's nearly at the beginning. Same deal at 3:29 and 3:37, briefly. The production is also just a smidge muddy in general, especially in the busiest sections, but orchestral metal does so damn much that getting this perfect is extremely challenging, and I won't ask for perfection. While I strongly dislike those sections, they're not enough for me to send this back over. I'd love to see a version of this with better drums in those parts, but otherwise this is very well done. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 13, 2022 Share Posted March 13, 2022 You're gonna feel I dislike your work in a blanketed way. There's genuine skill, but the current mixing/production is needlessly killing this off. The vox at :24 genuinely stinks; it's both quiet AND extremely fake-sounding, so it doesn't add anything. Theme kicks in at :40. The source countermelody is in my left ear (only) from :58-1:15, but it's extremely quiet and slightly behind the beat. From 1:32-1:42, the panning stuck out as being too wide; there was a lot of mud (powerful mud, but mud) that was just blaring in the right ear, but none of that was in the left, so you've gotta watch the balance there. The vox at 1:42 again had an odd quality of being distant and quiet, then it cut off in an unnatural way at 2:00. Anything you can do to improve the vox realism and depth would benefit this piece. Guitar panning was too wide again from 2:09-2:27 (and continued like that during the denser sections, where the cymbals were also panned far right until 3:10). The arrangement's creative and solid, and the final couple of minutes has the epic orchestral metal feeling down pat, Jean Marc, but I'm sincerely not understanding why the mixing and panning's like this at all. From 2:28 until near the end at 3:55, the entire soundscape is just cramped and everything turns into mud. Maybe it's because I'm listening on headphones rather than speakers/monitors, but while the arrangement and energy are all sorts of good, the mixing still needs another pass from me; too much descends into being indistinct for too long. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 This is a great arrangement, performances are tight. I agree that the machine-gun kicks are distracting and off-timed, and I also agree that the choir/vocal sound is not good, it is too heavy in the mid-lows. The mixing is on the muddy side which doesn't bother me too much until 1:16 at which point the choir and backing elements (is that brass, I can't tell) are so loud that I cannot hear the lead guitar in the middle at all. Starting at 3:12 there is a solo string (I think) doing something but it's so buried I can barely identify it. I feel like this arrangement is close to passing, but it needs another round of mixing, balancing, and EQ treatment to make the soundscape less muddled and let the elements breathe throughout the piece. Be careful about relying too heavily on panning as a mixing device, instead EQ the elements so they aren't in each other's way in the frequency spectrum. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 Amazing energy and arrangement, but there's so much going on that a lot of detail is being lost due to mixing issues. Often I can hear the choir louder than the lead guitar, and the low strings sound great until anything else is competing in the same frequency range, and then I'm hearing a lot of mud. 0:59-1:16 there's something in the left channel that sounds like a choir maybe? I can't tell what the instrument is, as it's very muddy and perhaps 1 layer too much. The final section from 3:57-4:22 is by far the cleanest, and sounds awesome! I find myself wishing that all the previous parts of the track sounded on par with that section. 1:44-2:28 also sounds good, then once the hi-hats come back in things start getting very busy. If you can go back and clean this up so that all the detail can be heard without really straining to listen, the remix will be improved massively! I hope you can give this one a listen with a fresh ear and focus on the mixing to do it justice. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted April 14, 2023 Share Posted April 14, 2023 Okay, there's lots happening here, but ultimately a great arrangement foiled by mixing issues. :28 threw me; this doesn't feel tightly timed at all and really threw off a great intro. We fall back in at :45, but I feel like I hear more timing issues coming up now and then with the drums. The high guitar lead is too loud throughout this first section, as are the high hat sizzles; I'm hearing a lot of high end not supported by what should be some big fat low ends in this genre. The bottom kind of falls out of the mix around 1:51, almost like it was a totally different track. I know we're sort of switching feelings, but it sounds sparse; all of that stuff can come up to meet us when the rest of the metal part drops out. Mixing issues persist 2:20, we hear the strings way too loud over the guitar lead, which now gets buried in the background. Synth(violin) lead at 3:17 is totally buried, I can't figure out what is being played there enough to even judge the performance. The dump-everything-in-there drum fills at 3:30 kicked me out of the piece, it didn't seem like it fit there at all and I couldn't really hear what else was going on in the mix because it was just so chaotic and above everything else. A fantastic arrangement though; your interpretation of the source is innovative and interesting and the instrumentation is fun, but there are a lot of mixing issues here in addition to the timing mess at the beginning that are making this a no from me. I was left a little bit wanting at the end, but adding some of that low end back into the mix might help this; it felt like it was supposed to go out with a bang, but the bang was a little more like a fizzle. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gario Posted May 8, 2023 Share Posted May 8, 2023 Orchestral metal, it's bombastic and loud, as all good things should be. The source is quite clear and the arrangement is pretty good, to boot. The production values are good, but it's certainly where this track lags the most. I will agree with my fellow judges that the mixing is the weak point of this arrangement, with many instruments getting drown in the wash of sound, but I don't think it's a case where the important melody carrying instruments are being drown but instead the textures fighting to be heard to where most just sound like a wall of sound. You'd get a greater deal of appreciation of the backing instruments if each were more distinctly able to be heard - that string counterpoint that happens at 3:12 for example would be a whole lot more impressive if it wasn't competing with the horns, the guitar texture, the vox, etc., but I will grant at the same time that it's not the most important element of the track at that point. The arrangement is full of things like this; if you want to have a tone of cool textures you need to have a soundscape that can accommodate them, otherwise people mistake the activity with "mud". That isn't enough to sink the arrangement in my mind since the genre tends to be pretty forgiving toward this style of wall-of-sound arranging, and I don't hear too much clipping or production artifacts beside that. The "live" instruments aren't of the best quality, either, but they're pretty drown in the mix so the quality doesn't impact the overall track, either. The performances are pretty spot on, though (even the machine gun drums that some have issue with - there isn't a timing issue, that's just how that style of drumming sounds in this kind of music, trust me), and the arrangement is really cool besides. Yeah, while I think this has some issues I don't think this is below the bar. Good work, but do pay attention to your mixing and ask whether some instruments are necessary in your arrangement next time. With your style of music "Less is More" could help bring your music to new heights. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted May 16, 2023 Share Posted May 16, 2023 Arrangement is incredible but the production leaves a lot to be desired. Other Js have outlined it really well. The percussion sounds like it has timing issues because of how it's mixed. The choir at the start of the track sounds ill-defined and muddy. There's a lot of mud overall in the track. The middle is nice and the choir is okay there. There's a solo synth string that's just out of place; it's too quiet to convey the melodic line but noticeable enough that it distracts you. I like this track but it needs another pass. NO resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted June 13, 2023 Author Share Posted June 13, 2023 No need to drag this one out any further - there is a LOT to love in this arrangement but it is overstuffed and messy as a result. The blastbeats come out of nowhere and don't flow naturally with the rest of the arrangement. There's a lot of conflict going on in the mixing that could be cleaned up if you so choose, and lots of great feedback to work with from other judges. I hope to hear this back, there's a great deal of potential here! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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