OCR04349 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Temple of Time: Chant & Carillon"

[Emunator]

Dear OverClocked ReMix judges,

It's been over a decade now since my first (unsuccessful) submission, so I thought it could be worth a retry with one of my more recent live improvisations, which might be a bit...uhmmm...unconventional. Meanwhile, I've dug deep into the world of pipe organs as an autodidact, with many lessons learned already and even more to still learn -- but decide for yourself as you take a listen. Hope you'll enjoy!

Contact Information
===================
- ReMixer name: "Woody/mC" (alternatives: "WoodyofmC" or just "Woody")
- Real name: N/A
- Email address: 
- Website/Discography: http://en.wpoa.de/
- Additional equipment info: http://en.wpoa.de/www/organ.en.php
- Userid: N/A

Submission Information
======================
- Name of game(s) arranged: "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time"
- Name of arrangement: "Temple Of Time: Chant & Carillon"
- Name of individual song(s) arranged: "Temple of Time"
- Link to OST: 

Download Links
==============
- Submission audio (FLAC 2.0ch 16bit 44.1kHz):

- Original recording master (FLAC 7.1ch 16bit 48kHz):

- VOD illustration: https://youtu.be/u4MjElSvRVI
Other surround/stereo downmixes (MP3 etc.) can be exported on demand in a snap, if required -- please don't hesitate to contact me in that case.

Additional Comments
===================
Following my childhood dream and fascination for pipe organs, to become a self-taught pipe organist with a focus on VGM and movie soundtracks was an unevitable destiny with regards to my hobby and passion. Thus, the live improvisation on one of TLoZ:OoT's most notable themes is somewhat a milestone for me, as I was able to put that big cathedral grandeur and acoustics into a piece that would be more than fitting as an OST for the place where the game actually placed the original.

In fact, "Temple of Time: Chant & Carillon" consists of two interwoven movements, namely the chant portion in the first half (resembling an "accompaniment" to the vocals heard in the OST) and the carillon section, which refers to a "carillon piece" in the context of pipe organ music; these try to imitate the ringing of church bells through fast arpeggiated chords while the main melody is often played with the left hand on another manual or with even the feet using the pedals, featuring a different registration (= timbre).

The piece itself features almost the full dynamic range of the organ with a more or less linear increase, reaching its first culmination point at a striking dissonant chord around 6:10, before it enters the finale section which eventually utilises "full organ" (= all stops activated) for the final chords cadence (hope you'll own a decent LFE to enjoy the frequencies around ~16Hz).

Just like many of my other creations, this has been played live at home using a three-manual DIY organ console with Milan Digital Audio's "Hauptwerk" as the software backbone and features MDA's "1903 Notre Dame de Metz" sample set being mapped to four different speaker pairs. The "audio artifacts" you might notice, such as key attacks, blower noise and some hizz from certain pipe ranks are indeed intended to be present in the final recording and are both a sign of realism and paying attention to the details when the sample set was recorded as well as they're vital for the authenticity of the piece's final recording.

It should be noted that this exact recording -- like pretty much all of my music -- is a unique on-the-fly improvisation, which means that it cannot be revised or otherwise be "polished" in any way, not even for a resubmission attempt. Be sure to watch the VOD if you'd like to see the pictures that I had in mind when I improvised this (and for some nice goosebumps during the final measures -- at least I hope so).
--

Greetz, Woody/mC
 

[Emunator]

Tagging @prophetik music for this, I think you would have some unique insight and perspective onto how to evaluate an arrangement like this. I've got to admit, I'm stumped. 

[prophetik music]

a 8.5 minute organ improvisation? interesting. organ's a great option for the melody. the natural room sound is superb for this track's original ambiance.

here's the breakdown (bar references are based on this

first four bars is "A"
second four/five bars is also "A"
next two bars, then repeated, is "B"
last five bars (which contain half of "B") is "C"

0:00 - 0:15 - A
0:15 - 0:37 - A with expansion
0:37 - 0:47 - reminiscent of the start of the C section but i didn't see a direct parallel
0:47-0:57 - middle of A with expansion
0:57-1:13 - this sounds like it's following the shape of C but no direct parallel
1:13-1:35 - A with expansion again
1:36-2:07 - descending line is the end of A pretty consistently (3-4-5-1 pattern), but this is a tenuous connection, if i'm stopwatching i count half of this time in total
2:07-2:26 - this continues using rhythmic motifs from the original but i don't hear a lot of melodic connection
2:26-2:47 - more expansion of A
2:48-3:10 - pad chord with C melodic portions
3:10-3:52 - cadential pattern leading to descending fifth motif from most of the original, with A-reminiscent expansion in the foot pedals (i love this section)
3:52-4:21 - recap of A and a beautiful resolution
4:21-4:53 - traditional carillon intro, with flourish over root movement, expansion of the tail of A
4:53-5:19 - continuing root movement, registration change but no clear melodic content
5:19-5:44 - A section recap, clear melodic content, with condensed B motif following
5:44-6:20 - more escalation content, sounds like the implied chords from B
6:20-6:59 - more A under right hand flourish
6:59-7:35 - B content, malformed, following a straightforward A recap and some more escalation content
7:35-8:30 - registration change, same escalation content, final chord and tail

this is well over the 50% mark for at least motivic representation. that's my only concern, because the rest of the work is superb. there's a clear two-movement concept being relayed here, and the registration choices and improvisation throughout are excellent. if anything, i wish there was more motivic development - there was a ton of room to explore other tonalities and get even crunchier from a compositional standpoint. i also didn't hear as much B content and would have liked that, but that's such a nitpick it's hardly anything.

this is a clear pass for me. the intense care taken on the realism aspect, the expansive arrangement, superb registration work, and perfect soundscape all really make this a mix i can't wait to see on the site.

 

 

YES

 

[MindWanderer]

Wow!  That's some pretty powerful stuff, and certainly nothing like anything we have on the site.  That it's all improvised is incredibly impressive, and I'm stoked to have something like this in the library.

Arrangement-wise, the only thing I'm critical of is that there's what sounds to me like dissonance in some of the more complex sections, most notably 5:50-6:17.  I' m not sure if it's some obscure chord or the fat harmonics of the organ, but it doesn't sound good at all.  Given that this performance can't be reproduced, though, it's not a dealbreaker by any means.

The one thing I'm going to come down hard on is the levels.  The beginning, through 1:44, is extremely quiet, to the point where I had to put my volume at 100% to hear it at all, and even then it was too quiet.  It gets better, but even through 3:25 it's far too quiet. Here's the visualizer from the music player I use, Clementine:

See that pure black at the beginning?  That means that, relative to the peak loudness of the track (the white part, which is the climax), the volume level is basically zero.  You shouldn't be seeing that except when there's supposed to be silence.  Even the next part, where there are occasional spikes of dim pink and yellow, are far too quiet for actual music.

Also, that's just relative loudness, across the piece by itself.  Even the climax is about as loud as the quietest part should be.  The whole thing needs a volume bump.

The good news is that none of this is complicated.  You just need a compressor applied.  It's a quick fix.  However, it is a necessary one.

Also, speaking of silence, the last 9 seconds are pure silence and should be cropped out.

It's an amazing, unique piece, and I don't want to miss out on this being posted by any means.  Please get this tweaked and sent back to us ASAP!

YES/CONDITIONAL (on compression)

Edit: Here's what Jupiter, that Gario shared, looks like in Clementine, for comparison:

Only one short segment in the middle (5:32-5:56) that's completely black, and only a few seconds (2:38-2:48) that's close to white.  That's much less dynamic range overall.  Moreover, it's mastered much louder: despite having twice as much headroom as this submission, it's comfortable for me to listen to without jacking my volume up all the way.

If I had this submission in my playlist as-is, listening to it without looking, I would assume playback had stopped, because it would be completely inaudible at my normal listening volume for three and a half minutes.  But the peaks are high enough that you can't just raise the volume much without clipping. To be sure, there would be an element of the performance that would be lost through compression.  But there's a usability factor to consider as well.

Edited December 22, 2021 by MindWanderer

[Gario]

Pretty much a fantasia on the Temple of Time theme, and it sounds just fantastic throughout. It's not hard to hear the source in this one throughout (especially with that lovely timestamp that Prophetik gave), and due to how short the source is there are a lot of nice slices and dices of that source material to expand it as musically as possible. Production is also clean, and that organ is just sounding delightful.

I must disagree with adding a compressor to the track, though; dynamic range of this scale is not only not bad, it's necessary to have this level of variance if you want the instrument to sound realistic. This is just how solo organ performances sound, if you're familiar with organist solo music (here's a lovely example of that dynamic range, in practice). Please do not compress it, as that would drain quite a bit of realism out of the track.

Yeah, one of the easiest votes of the year for me, great work!

YES

[Liontamer]

The track was 8:38-long, so I needed to hear the source tune in play for at least 259 seconds for the source tune to be dominant in the arrangement. Thanks a lot to proph for his thorough breakdown explaining the arrangement, which definitely made things clearer. The B and C sections of the source were so much less memorable, but the arrangement mainly deals with the most known melodic portion, so it thankfully wasn't difficult to wrap one's head around.

:00-:37, :47-:57, 1:13-1:35, 2:30-2:47, 2:58-3:10, 3:24.5-4:21, 4:38-5:08, 5:15-5:36, 6:23-6:52, 6:59-7:22.5, 7:53-8:00, 8:03-8:06 = 268 seconds or 51.73% overt source usage

I'm sure there's other times one could count, I'm just IDing what I could to justify my vote re: acceptable source usage. Great concept, strong sound. IMO, it's mixed too quietly and it could have a cleaner less muddy sound, but those aren't huge issues for me, and the arrangement easily carries it. Nice job, Woody, and congrats on attempting a new submission with what was clearly a lot of personal growth under your belt since the last time you tried. Very impressive!

YES

[Liontamer]

I asked Woody about a possible louder version and he feels it's dynamic enough, just FYI.

19 minutes ago, Woody mC said:

LOL, please don't mind me saying that, but I think the judges should listen to the very end. The piece starts quite intimate with pretty low levels, but almost linearly increases until it reaches full intensity near the end (peak levels are at -0.1dB; remember that pipe organs have a HUGE dynamic range, which is presented in this piece to its full extent).

Levels / waveform for your reference:

...and for the 7.1 surround version:

 

[prophetik music]

i feel the dynamics compare favorably to several other wide-dynamic works that i've heard in the past. the recording of martin's mass by the westminster cathedral choir won awards for its mastering of a highly dynamic work and it has a wider ranger than this one (the sanctus movement is a great example of this if you can find it unaltered, i can send it if you want). the nature of the medium is such that significant variation in volume is a big part of the instrument.

also i really want to hear the 7.1 mix on a proper set of speakers.

[DarkSim]

I've listened twice through and it's a very impressive performance. Organ music is not at all something I've ever chosen to listen to - although I do appreciate the spirituality of the instrument when in a religious setting.

The dynamic range is certainly huge - I found myself turning the volume up at the start, and then by the end it was pretty loud. As stated though, this is intentional and I don't have a problem with it. I'm not sure this piece would fit into a regular playlist of tracks for casual listening, so compression isn't really necessary to normalise the volume there.

Over 8 and a half minutes is a long time for improvisation, and I only counted one instance around 5:25 where it sounds like a duff note has been played. The dissonance around 6:10, as mentioned in the submission email, was intentional. It does a pretty good job of grabbing your attention right before the really fast arpeggiated section.

In Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf can be found playing the organ just before the final battle. The first half of this piece evokes the calm serenity and contemplation offered by the Temple of Time. The second half escalates into - in my mind - the dramatic boss fight at the end of the game. A fitting tribute to the game's lore which I'm sure OoT purists and any pipe organ fans out there will enjoy.

YES