Final Fantasy VI - Terra's Theme (Orchestra)

[suikun]

It's been done to death, but here's one more arrangement to add to the pile of Terra's theme remixes.

It's almost done and currently I only plan on very minor revisions, mainly some small issues in the brass and the ornaments of the irish flute in the beginning. I'd be glad for any feedback though. Note that the strings are positioned in German seating, so from left to right it's Violins 1, Chellos, Violas, Violins 2, and with Basses on the left behind Violins 1. All other sections are close to where you would usually expect them.

The arrangement is as strightforward as it could be so it probably doesn't qualify for the level of transformative work required by the OCR standards, but I'll probably still give it a shot.

Edit: Updated to final version.

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by suikun

[H36T]

Hey man, even though it probably isn't different enough to become an OC Remix song, beauty is still beauty. There is a lot of really nice work in the dynamics here imo. The flute is nice too even though like you said, there are some ornament issues. I guess it was accidentally triggering them? What VST is that btw?

Im wondering though, even though it is straight up and there are many other orchestra Terras on the internet these days, what could be done with a rather moderate arrangement to really make it standout? Maybe once you are done here, you can do some soul searching and find out how to make this really something special despite being moderately arranged?

[suikun]

Thanks for your impressions.

The flute is Embertone's Shire Whistle which punches way above its price point. The ornaments were just me being a derp, most notes were input via mouse and not played in. The general idea is now to have the first run of the theme melody be just that and the second run to add some more variation in the form of ornaments and portamentos.

As for how to make the arrangement stand out more, right now this is as far as my current ability will carry me. This is only my fifth finished work and I will need to gather more experience with other songs to get a better grip on what could be further improved. I already learned a lot from this arrangement, and I hope this trend will continue with the next arrangements I will attempt. However, my main goal was not to make the arrangement different for the purpose of making it different, but to create something that I would enjoy listening to, and regarding this aspect I am quite satisfied. I'm particularly proud of the various counterpoints, the use of tremolos and trills, and the brief Prelude phrase.

Edited May 9, 2021 by suikun

[H36T]

Maybe that's the case for this track and you need some more experience. But from what I can hear, you got at least a good ear on you and a musical mind. I hope on your journey you continue to find what moves you! Looking forward to hearing more.

[Gario]

EVAL

Well let's see what we've got here. I haven't done one of these mod evaluation things officially in ages, but let's give this one a shot anyway - I've got work to do, and this is a great way to avoid it! 

Well first and foremost - fantastic production values! That's some really good sounding orchestra you've got goin', here. I like the breadth of instruments used here, too, plenty of woodwinds and brass to accompany the all-too-common-yet-still-beautiful string sections. The pairing of pan flutes with the strings really gives it a bombastic, Hollywood sound (a trick of their industry, if anyone wants to add a little oomph to a string lead - layer flutes over strings!), though on the second pass of the theme changing that lead out a little bit would help the arrangement stand out a little better as it's overuse does make the arrangement sound a hair static. It's not too problematic since the brass lead for the middle section does help break things up, but it's a thought to spice things up.

As you say, this is a little conservative, but you'd be surprised on how permissive the panel can be on that front. While minimal, there is definitely some personalization going on in here (don't think I didn't catch that wonderful "Prelude" reference at 1:46, for example). It might still be too conservative, but I think it's worth at least sending over to the panel even if you have no plans on expanding it further. The production quality is definitely there, and the arrangement & orchestration is quite good. The worst that could happen is it gets rejected with the judges saying "It's too conservative", so I'd say give it a shot.

Of course if you add some more texture flairs like the prelude at 1:46, or even do some subtractive arranging in the second half of the song (e.g. remove some source elements to give the arrangement some more variety) that would probably be enough to bring this over the top from "too conservative" to "hey, this is interesting and different enough for OCR". Regardless, I think it's pretty well done and I definitely got a kick out of it, so nice work!

[Gario]

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[suikun]

Thank you for the evaluation!

I definitely struggled with setting apart the second iteration of the main theme from the first one. To visualize the structure to make it more explainable, the parts are
Intro, A1, A2, B1 (brass) , C (tremolos), A3, A4, B2
The intensity is currently A1 < A2 = A3 < A4, in fact the only major change between A2 and A3 is swapping the melody support from second to first violins and the tacit on second violins. This is mainly to set A3 apart from A1, and back then I couldn't easily think of more what I could have done. Your comment about subtractive arranging is spot on though. I could have removed the irish flute from A3 and A4 completely and replaced it with alternate instruments; for example have woodwinds do the melody in A3 with the strings supporting and swap that around for A4 (I really like the current sound of the doubled melody across the violins and violas). The irish flute could then come back in for the finale in B2. I might toy around with that before submitting, which I definitely will do

And I will have to come up with a name for the song, oh dear...