Emunator Posted November 28, 2021 Share Posted November 28, 2021 (edited) Hello OCR Team, this is my first submission, so I hope I got this right. Remixer Name: sui Profile ID: 24063 Game: Final Fantasy VI Name of the arrangement: Daughter of the Lands Name of the original song: Terra's Theme Production comments: I originally created this arrangement as a gift to a streamer who was embarking on his first playthrough of Final Fantasy 6. The arrangement is rather straightforward with custom counterpoints here and there and a short Prelude cameo (it just goes with everything). My main goal was not to create an exotic arrangement just for the sake of it, but rather to do a proper orchestration of a familiar theme with good voice leading through all instruments (though I purposefully kept the bass line and thus the chord progression untouched), attention to detail in the MIDI automation and hopefully decent production values regarding instrument quality and mixing. I also tried to build a certain story line: The first part is Terra being alone an uncertain world, the middle part is her finding heart in her friends and thus a new beginning (hence the Prelude excerpt), and the last part is her traveling the world with confidence. On a more technical note, the strings are placed in German seating order, so from left to right it's first violins, cellos, violas and finally second violins, with the basses sitting behind the first violins to the left. This is my favorite seating as it allows treating the first and second violins as more separate voices and enables spatial effects like the panning effect of the tremolos at the beginning. All in all it was a great learning experience and I'm rather satisfied with the final result. I hope that despite the plain arrangement you will find it sufficient for posting. Kind regards Alex Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6t_uyg_pF8 Edited January 24, 2022 by jordi Moving to Judges Comments thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted December 9, 2021 Share Posted December 9, 2021 On 11/27/2021 at 7:05 PM, sui said: I hope that despite the plain arrangement you will find it sufficient for posting. Yeah... you know, I believe I do. It's melodically conservative, but the orchestration is solid. In the interest of speed, I'll leave it to others to expound on this in greater detail, but the presentation is personalized enough despite a lot of similar part-writing due to new parts being added, new instrumentation styles, and mixing and textures that are different enough from the orignal. The samples don't fool anyone (not like they're supposed to), but they're used pretty damn well, certainly above our bar. Production's solid as well; pretty well balanced. Cheers, Alex! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 lot of attention to attacks right away, which is great (although the poor flautist needs some time to breath in there!). very lush orchestration behind it, which i think fits the original well. the swells in the backing instruments are nice, but it does lead to it sounded pretty loud throughout. the big block chords at 1:26 lose a bit of drama as a result of that, and that also highlights the problem of having lots of sustained chords - it sounds like an organ rather than an orchestra. there's a recap after a short flourish that starts around the two minute mark. this second section is pretty similar to the opening part in terms of added content, and a ritard to the end. from an orchestration standpoint, this was indeed adapted to a full orchestra, and there's a lot of attention paid to articulations. my issue with it is twofold. the first is that the melodic instrument is not only very similar to the original's choice, but it also never changes. this leads into the second issue, which is that there's no real countermelodic content in the track - so it's pretty much block chords for three minutes and sounds static as a result. there is essentially no dynamic contrast to the work aside from a quick interlude around 1:52, and the recap of the A section of the melody is very similar to the original presentation of it. there are few examples in traditional classical arrangement or even film work that stay this static for so long, and that's on purpose. my suggestion initially is to vary up the instrumentation around the melody, and then simultaneously reduce the amount of instruments playing big static chords on top of one another and increase the movement behind the scenes. i'd guess that most every instrument is playing the whole piece once it comes in the first time, right? that isn't good sound design, and it isn't good compositional technique. be more intentional about why the trombone is playing that note or why the winds are layering on that chord, and save the big blocks of sound for a specific moment or two of the piece you want to emphasize. from a mastering standpoint, like i said, it's quite loud, and it feels crunched some of the time as a result. reducing the layering like i mentioned above will help a lot with this. the overall soundscape and room verb sounds really nice, though, so letting the mix (and the room!) breathe will make it sound so much better. the technical skill around handling the realism of the instruments is evident here, so now let's get the arrangement up to snuff and it'll be in a much better place. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 On 12/8/2021 at 8:25 PM, Liontamer said: I'll leave it to others to expound on this in greater detail It won't be me, either. It's mostly sampled versions of the same instruments as the original track. Most of the ones that aren't are the same as what's used in official orchestral arrangements of this source (example). It's structurally identical, as well, and consists of two very similar loops of the same thing; not exactly identical, but as near as I can tell, the change mostly consists of an extra layer of brass added to it, which brings up my second point: I'm not on board with the production, either. Take a listen to 0:48-0:50, for instance. The lead flute is completely swallowed up there. I won't pick out every example where balance is an issue, because it's an issue throughout---where the lead isn't buried, something else usually is. It's more severe in the second half, because an extra layer or two have been added. I do agree that the realism is above our bar, and that's often the toughest thing to achieve, so kudos there. But the level of interpretation isn't high enough for me, and the levels do really need work as well (although as proph said, sound design can help with this by itself without touching the volume/EQ knobs). NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted December 27, 2021 Share Posted December 27, 2021 I like the idea of a full orchestration of this lovely theme, but other than the key change this is super conservative. I do appreciate that you've expanded the sound palette and added additional writing. But my main issue is the production. The lead flute as pointed out needs time to breathe in between phrases, and the backing elements are all so loud that the flute gets almost entirely drowned out when everything swells up. I know how difficult it is to get a full orchestra sounding real, and I don't insist that it all sound perfectly real, but the backing strings need some swells automated in so they sound more natural, and they need to come down in volume. The entire mix needs a volume re-balance, and could benefit from some EQ treatment so the elements each sit in their own place in the frequency spectrum. There will still be some overlap of course but if you cut lows out of elements that don't need lows, it will sound cleaner. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordi Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 Hello there Alex, and thanks very much for your submission. From the first second, I was excited by the lusciousness and immediate epic sound of those snare drums, the rising drums, and the tremolo of the string section. I enjoyed the Celtic feel of the main flute with the grace notes tastefully scattered throughout. A wonderful addition of the prelude on the harp as well which I noticed, despite you writing about it in your submission. I think if there is anything to say about the arrangement, I would like there to be some a greater dynamic variation in the structure. There isn’t really a moment in the arrangement where the energy drops at all which I think would add to this, especially considering the strong beginning to it. Ebbs and flows! Although this wasn’t your intention, I would have preferred it if this arrangement would have more uniqueness of its own. I know this is something you’re aware of though, as you stated you opted to remain close to the original track. I just feel it would allow this arrangement to especially shine and stand out amongst others (for example, the Distant Worlds II orchestration that already exists is already rather marvellous as it stands). You clearly know your way around orchestration, and you got a lot out of these sample libraries. On the production-side though, the mixing sounded a bit muddy at times (perhaps caused by limiting or just generally too much going on at once), and it sounds like the higher notes of the flute could be a bit clearer and cleaner (as MindWanderer pointed out, the flute gets swallowed at 48 seconds, and I too reacted to this). Prophetik also picked up on this and I feel that I’m inclined to agree with their description of it sounding “crunched” at times. Despite that, fuller orchestral arrangements are notoriously tough to mix, and it’s not a huge concern. I also noticed around 8 seconds of silence at the end. Overall, I was impressed with most of the arrangement and specifically the orchestration, but I do feel it is worth looking at the mix. I think that you have gotten some good advice from the judges here to help improve this even further. In some ways, this more than meets OCReMix standards, but it’s the areas in which it doesn’t that keeps this from being a “yes” from me. This is very nearly there, and I think this could be absolutely fantastic with a bit more work on the production. I encourage you to take a look at that and resubmit! NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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