MnP 125: Xenogears - Bonds of Sea and Fire

[TheVideoGamer]

Compo: MnP (Meat 'n Potatoes)

Congratulations to Souperion for winning the last round! As a result, he get's to choose this month's MnP source! Here's what he had to say about his pick:

"Bonds of Sea and Fire" from Xenogears. I've never played the game, but a friend directed me to the song. It's another beauty by Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger/Cross, among others), delicate and delightful." - Souperion

GAME: Xenogears (PlayStation 1)

SOURCE: Bonds of Sea and Fire

VIDEO:

Deadline: 7th July @ 1PM

Closing Date: 9th July @ 1PM

Vote Ends: 16th July @ 1PM

MnP ARCHIVE  - made by Trism 

submit: http://compo.thasauce.net/rounds/view/MnP125

MISSION STATEMENT
The goal of Compo:MnP is to promote that "meat and potatoes" conservative approach to remixing: this includes the mood and composition of source tunes. It is up to the remixer to create their own personalization, or to simply give it a sound upgrade. Moreover, the compo is a great opportunity to hone your remixing skills and give video game music the respect that is due. SOME reinterpretation is recommended, but not required.

MnP Instructions/Guidelines - Now Updated

Rules for Picking a Source:

1. All video game sources are limited to the 6th generation of video game consoles and earlier. This was due to community consensus, where people preferred to remix more retro games, than newer games. 6th generation includes: GameCube, Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast. 
2. I'm now restricting big name franchises (Such as Zelda and Mega-Man) to one source per year. This is to encourage more obscure games, that not many people will know about to be picked. 
3. Make sure you provide me both a video and a MIDI of the source in question.

Note: This is subject to change. Also keep an eye out, if any special rounds come into fruition. 

Guidelines:

1. Modifying the Source is fine, so long as it doesn't sound completely separate from its original intent. 
2. If you're gonna do a genre change, at least make sure the original aspect of the source is not lost.
3. Tempo changes are fine, as long as it's not a big change. I'm talking like, going from 80bpm to 140bpm. 
4. Submissions must be at a maximum of 20mb (keeping in step with ThaSauce's file size max), and submitted as a MP3 file.
5. Only 1 entry per participant. Previous winner cannot participate but can submit a BONUS entry. 
6. Try to avoid making quality-based comments on submissions until after the Round is concluded.  It is to avoid a Bias in Votes.

MISC/TIPS
- When picking a source tune, make sure it has a MIDI to make people's lives easier.
- In-game sound FX are permitted, so long as they don't comprise the whole track (i.e. replacing entire MIDI tracks with just sfx)

Edited June 9, 2021 by TheVideoGamer

[Wassup Thunder]

Sea and Fire? Can I get away with a fire-focused arrangement....

[The Vodoú Queen]

God I love the music from said composer... Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross and Xenogears has some of the most unique, iconic and beautiful songs in the VG sphere. Reminds me that I should actually play through Xenogears. I own it and some of the Xenosaga series, but never went back to complete either. Last big RPG games I slogged through was Baten Kaitos and Legend of Dragoon (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge* for more MnP obscure source ideas. )

I want to ask the question tho, before I get ahead of myself in my remix composition.

I know it's MnP--but is it viable and OK to use a secondary source with the primary source? It's for midground / background affect and purpose. "Bond of Sea and Flame" is still going to be the main melody, with not much bending or change outside of it.

If not, I'll just take the hit on voting I guess. This opportunity is too good to pass up with the other source I found...

[The Vodoú Queen]

Entry in.

Beautiful source as usual, @Souperion ❤️ 

[Souperion]

We may have to do a Mitsuda remix compo sometime XD

[TheVideoGamer]

On 6/28/2021 at 7:41 PM, Souperion said:

We may have to do a Mitsuda remix compo sometime XD

Don't give me ideas....  

[TheVideoGamer]

On 6/16/2021 at 9:34 PM, The Vodoú Queen said:

God I love the music from said composer... Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross and Xenogears has some of the most unique, iconic and beautiful songs in the VG sphere. Reminds me that I should actually play through Xenogears. I own it and some of the Xenosaga series, but never went back to complete either. Last big RPG games I slogged through was Baten Kaitos and Legend of Dragoon (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge* for more MnP obscure source ideas. )

I want to ask the question tho, before I get ahead of myself in my remix composition.

I know it's MnP--but is it viable and OK to use a secondary source with the primary source? It's for midground / background affect and purpose. "Bond of Sea and Flame" is still going to be the main melody, with not much bending or change outside of it.

If not, I'll just take the hit on voting I guess. This opportunity is too good to pass up with the other source I found...

If we can still recognise the original source very clearly, and it doesn't sound too off-the grid from the composers intent, i don't see why not.

If you do, do it though, make sure the primary source is the priority, not the secondary source. After all Bonds of Sea and Fire is what we are mainly remixing.

Edited June 29, 2021 by TheVideoGamer

[Souperion]

Bonus done. Good luck to ya'll.

[Wassup Thunder]

Got mine finished!

[H36T]

 

Unfortunately the original project file is lost due to an accidental overwrite so the only thing I have left is my compressed YouTube version. I want to post it on the website but I only have a YouTube link

 Regardless, I wanted to channel some of the flavor of Xenogears and some of that "ethnic" vibe that is sort of non-descript yet everyone kind of knows haha. I suppose at this point its a mix of things. Anywho, I choose to bring that out in the choir sections and added some percussion in inclusion to the original. Lastly, there are two different soloists. One is a lady vocalist and the other is a Xin Di I think. I can't remember which Chinese flute I used haha. There is an outro I used for this version which I would have cut for this competition since its meat and potatoes so I won't comment on that. So just a nice conservative approach with some added goodies here and there. I wish I had a non-YouTube version to share! 

[Wassup Thunder]

4 hours ago, HarlemHeat360 said:

Unfortunately the original project file is lost due to an accidental overwrite so the only thing I have left is my compressed YouTube version. I want to post it on the website but I only have a YouTube link

 

Noooooes! Maybe you could run it through a yotube converter website to get an mp3 of it?? It'd probably compress things badly, but you could at least put it onto thasauce. This deserves to be voted for.

[The Vodoú Queen]

This might help:

https://yt1s.com/youtube-to-mp3/en13

Doesn't compress too badly, TBH. I used it recently for my Battle Garegga remix in yanking some of the Cowboy Bebop samples from YT (since I couldn't find them elsewhere).

[TheVideoGamer]

12 hours ago, HarlemHeat360 said:

 

Unfortunately the original project file is lost due to an accidental overwrite so the only thing I have left is my compressed YouTube version. I want to post it on the website but I only have a YouTube link

 Regardless, I wanted to channel some of the flavor of Xenogears and some of that "ethnic" vibe that is sort of non-descript yet everyone kind of knows haha. I suppose at this point its a mix of things. Anywho, I choose to bring that out in the choir sections and added some percussion in inclusion to the original. Lastly, there are two different soloists. One is a lady vocalist and the other is a Xin Di I think. I can't remember which Chinese flute I used haha. There is an outro I used for this version which I would have cut for this competition since its meat and potatoes so I won't comment on that. So just a nice conservative approach with some added goodies here and there. I wish I had a non-YouTube version to share! 

If you want to upload it, i would do what the others have recommended and do a Youtube to Mp3 conversion,

Or alternatively if you want i could upload on your behalf, but that's assuming if it doesn't work.

Good luck anyways, sorry things didn't turn out so great.

Edit: Ok looks like it's already up there, i don't think i checked. Disregard this message.

Edited July 8, 2021 by TheVideoGamer

[TheVideoGamer]

Welcome to the Voting Stage!

• There are 5 entries this round.
• There is 1 Bonus entry(s) this round
• There IS a voter bonus this round!
• Souperion has a vote worth 2x. 
• When Voting, if possible, avoid granting 1:1 covers top spot.  MnP requires a bit of remixage after all.  
• Don't vote for Bonus entries please. 
• Do let me know if you have problems voting, and we can sort something out.
• Try and not make any comments about each entrant until after voting has concluded. Thanks!
• Participants may not vote for themselves.  

Vote ends 16th July 1PM.  

Vote here: https://compo.thasauce.net/rounds/view/MnP125

[Souperion]

Vote in. This round was a real pleasure.

[Wassup Thunder]

Voted!

[H36T]

Don't worry guys, I'm going to give feedback lol. I accidentally pressed the vote button before I could add the feedback. I got it in a notepad on my desktop and I'll be posting it here in a few hours once I return home! 

[H36T]

Feedback time! Sorry I wont press the button so fast next time lol.

Wassup Thunder - What Fire Taught the Sea

Everyone's titles are so cool! I think as with Vodou, I have to say I wished the guitar here was backed off jusst a bit. The main lead guitar that is. Honestly, this mix though is uhh, fire lol. I am really enjoying the energy you got going on here. These drums too are really doing it for me. Maybe I want a bit more from the samples but dude you are working them. 

OOOOOOHHH the drums right before the last section where you kinda break it down right before the guitar kicks back in?! Now that was sick. This last section works well enough for me but maybe I wish there was somne more energy? Hmm, no, I think what I'm looking for is maybe its a bit too dry for me in the mix. Like there isn't enough air to the overall sound. Honestly though, I have a problem keeping my tracks from being too wet sounding so this could be personal preference ya know? Still, I think the mix sometimes sounds too robotic and straightforward and could use some life somewhere. Unfortunately how to do that is uhh, beyond me! 

Still, this was such a fun listen and you put a lot into the different instruments and their place within the enemble. What a pleasure to hear.

 

TheVideoGamer - Bonds of Kick and Hi-Hat

Off the cuff, this mix is too loud for my tastes. Like its really loud even for an electronic song. But once I put it down, I'm finding a lot I enjoy. Firstly, I love that rhythm with the low synth. I think its just really interesating to take this song and switch the genre up but still keeping the original DNA somehow. Its not something I'm too great at and I could learn a thing or two from this. 

I will say this song sounds like one of the older OC Remixes I've heard but I can't quite put my finger on which one. I suppose thats a good thing but it also maybe takes away from some of the uniqueness? Going to the outro, I'm wondering if you could have taken the opportunity to bring something new into right before fading out. One problem with the song I think is the amount of repitition? Sometimes it just felt like it all blended together. Still, that rhythm had me moving throughout so its hard fro me to be too negative haha. 

Another thing I really wanted more of was this polyrhythm feel. I really suck at rhythmic sections and such but there were parts where it felt like it was touching polyrhyhtm and others where it felt full on poly. But everytime it would hit that sweet spot, the beat would seem to even out? I'm wondering what I'm hearing there. Anyway, good job!

 

TheVodouQueen - Seafoam and Brimstone, Upon the SHores of Tallon IV

First of all, what a gorgeous name haha. Thats some real artistry. So we start here with these lovely sea and waves samples. I adore this type of stuff so I'm digging it. 

Oooh some interesting work with the panning and the different instruments. I think the percussion is just a tad harsh sounding? It could be the time of night that I'm listening to this. I'll see in the morning if its the same.

I am wondering about these samples for the strings you got. They sound really close to the original to my ear. Moreover, they work very well.

Okay, more samples with the thunder. Super dig it. I wonder which samples you used? The choir coming in after is a nice touch. Still a bit harsh for me I think. 

I think going through this song you had some really lovely ideas with the effects and the approach to atmosphere. I think though, personally I was a bit underwhelemed with the melodic and harmonic aspects of this song. Partially it is the VSTs being used maybe but I think there was a consistent harshness to them or rather, a lack of subtlety when I wanted it. I think I would have really enjoyed this more if this was laid back and the song explored more of the melodic and harmonic aspects than the effects since this was meat and potatoes. That being said, I'm a sucker for the effects so I would adore to see this expanded upon one day if you ever choose to. Good job!

Souperion - Dream of Flowing Fire

Once again, everyone had lovely titles. Even the bonus! As you said in the description, you kept it really simple. Some interesting choices with the melody. going for the dotted quarters and dotted eighths instead of the more straight forward original. It gives it a nice little pulse that I'm enjoying. What a pretty koto and yangqin though! If I had any cash I'd be interested in getting a VST with some. Unfrotunately a lot of stuff with those instruments seem to be a bit more than I'm willing to pay for. Anyway, you use them well here. I think my only wish is if there was some more exploration here, but I think you just wanted to keep it really chill here and laid back and let the original arrangement work for you. Not a bad decision imo!

[TheVideoGamer]

Results

• In 1st place with 18 points: HarlemHeat360
• In 2nd place with 12 points: TheVodouQueen
• In 3rd place with 10 points: Wassup Thunder
• And the last place hero (Again...) with 8 points: TheVideoGamer
• Souperion created a bonus mix.

HarlemHeat360 please PM me with your source pick for Round 126. Ideally for next week. (Roughly the 25th of July)

Congrats to everyone who participated, you peeps did great! 

Comments:

Fun round this month, great entries everyone! Surprised to be last again lol, but onwards and upwards eh?

[Souperion]

Congrats to HarlemHeat360! I enjoyed everyone's pieces, keep up the good work.

[TheVideoGamer]

Congrats HarlemHeat360!

Next round is up!

 

[HoboKa]

Pardon the necro post, but just wanted to chime in... Lotsa good remixes here.  My favorite was Souperion's "Dreams of Glowing Fire"...funny how BONUS's often wind up being my fav's lol. 

Status Update:

I don't know if I'll be able to return on any capacity, as yet.  But it's good to see that the compo scene is still going on here.  Gotta say, life has been easier without the pressure of trying to come up with coherent feedback on any given submission and often it was a stretch, because my music theory skills are pretty basic.  Still have some emotional burdens and regrets about it the whole thing, but it is what it is.  I think I am coping alright otherwise.  Final Edit.  Christ that was like 10 edits.  good ole OCD and ADHD. 

So yeah, I hope the compo scene stays afloat for many years and I wish the best for you guys.  Peace UwU

Edited August 14, 2021 by HoboKa