OCR04326 - *YES* Final Fantasy Adventure "Palace of Memory"

[Emunator]

This is another remix of the "Mana Palace" theme from the original Seiken Densetsu, also known as Final Fantasy Adventure. Ironically, as with the other (orchestral) version I made, this was chosen by my subscribers on Subscribestar. One person commissioned me to make another version of the track that sounded a little more sombre and distant, since the previous one has more of an optimistic feeling. So, I imagined that the orchestral arrangement represented the palace in its prime, whereas this more electronic, new age version represents its decline. I took inspiration from sounds I associate with ice, snow, and outer space, in order to create a colder, more lonely, empty feeling than before. If you'd like to have some influence on what music I create and/or reprise each month, you can subscribe to me as well! Here's a link: www.subscribestar.com/rebeccaetripp

Source: 

EDIT:

Nuts here, the above source seems incorrect to me.  Zophar has the original file: 

https://www.zophar.net/music/gameboy-gbs/final-fantasy-adventure-[mystic-quest]

 

[prophetik music]

there is nearly 8db headroom on this, with more there if you exclude a single peak. this is years of ignoring basic requests for mastering. i'm tempted to reject this on this grounds only.

lots of FMy bells to start us off with the arpeggio. rebecca also provides a lot of space around these, which is an effective way to reinforce the feeling of lonliness she describes. the bells that enter at 0:30 are notably louder than the other instruments, but after they move on, it's a nice soundscape that is indeed reminiscent of snow as she mentioned in her writeup. the glock playing the melodic content after this is a nice touch - having it in a lower register helps it stand out. there's some weird artifacts around 1:10 due to how bells fade out and the borrowed chords used there.

1:29 is a shift in tempo and focus, albeit using mostly the same set of instruments. 2:25 adds in a sustained instrument for the first time, which is a subtle but nice change. there's some flourishes as the track noodles to an ending which are very mechanical and took me out of the vibe.

arrangement-wise, there's a lot of original here being manipulated in various ways. it's clear it's FFA throughout so i didn't have a problem there. the instrumentation choices are interesting at first and get pretty boring quickly as it's just the same set of bells over and over again with little changes to the usage except from the time change at 1:29 and the sustained synth at 2:25. from a mastering perspective, i like the level of nuance the wide dynamic range provides - after i boosted the output by 8dba. there's room for light compression here, too, as the variety of bell timbres used would allow for bringing up the quieter parts without losing the dynamic impact of those quieter parts. this is the same comment on every RET track, really.

overall this is a great arrangement that chooses mastering decisions i wouldn't have made. i think it's definitely above the bar though and i like the deviation from the standard winds, plectrals, and percs formula that RET's done a lot lately.

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

Funny enough, this doesn't sound as quiet as most of Rebecca's remixes, though I can certainly see what looks like almost 9 dB of headroom.

Not a lot going here, but the source is super simple, so this does do an adequate job of expanding on it.  I too would have liked to hear more than just bells out of this, as it does get pretty boring.  I don't think it's as clearly above the bar as proph does, just because it's quite monotonous.  I think it does meet our standards, though.

YES

[Sir_NutS]

Very quiet track, lots of headroom helped by the instrument choice, sitting in the upper registers it seems almost fine volume-wise because of how ear frequency response works.  That would be my guess at least, because looking at the analyzer it should sound a lot quieter.  It's a sweet track, so no surprises so far this being a Tripp rendition.  

This is a very minimal approach, sort of following the original in vibe, but there are extra layers of harmonization that help a bit with that, and some extra instrumental touches throughout.  Everything is spread out well in the stereo spectrum with some instruments coming in and going, sometimes firmly in one side and sometimes dancing around the stereo space.

I feel like the original material and reinterpretation doesn't really start to kick in until the latter half of the song, but there's not a lot of it unless I'm missing something.  

This is a sweet and soothing track, and outside the now familiar headroom issues I don't hear glaring production issues here.  The arrangement is minimal as well as the interpretation.  This feels more like an upgrade to me, like what the original would sound like in a modern remake.  I think a lot more could've been done on the arrangement side but this is enough.  

YES

 

[Liontamer]

Quick co-sign. Beautiful stuff! As a twin myself, I always enjoy when ReMixes have fraternal twins on the site.

YES