*NO* Xenogears "Back to the Sea, Black to the Fire"

[Emunator]

Attached is a file for this submission to OCRemix. The required informations is written below. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Thank you for the opportunity as always.

Contact Information
Username: HarlemHeat360
UserID:37144
Website: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeatRemasters

Submission Information
Arrangement Game: Xenogears
Name of Arrangement: Back to the Sea, Black to the Fire
Song Being Arranged: Bonds of Sea and Fire

Comments:

Given everything I've learned since I've made this song, it sort of pains me that I can't revisit it easily. The original file is lost to the ether and while I could try and recreate some of it and do some new things here and there...some things are best left in the past and its time to move forward. Thus we come to this song, which if you know anything about Xenogears, sort of represents the past itself. The approach I used is mostly straightforward and adding pieces here and there that represent me as a musician and my influences. In that way, there is my past wrapped up in this song as well. The second half adds some newer elements and I see this as more of the "fire" to the first half's "sea." The end...is a bit unfortunate and I wish I could go back and fix some things and change others. But as with the past, there is no fixing this guy and he is who he is. So as god once said, "come as you are." and as such, I bring "Back to the Sea, Back to the Fire" for judgement! Maybe this old dog of a song will teach me some new tricks through evaluation.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Rexy

[MindWanderer]

Starts off as basically a sound upgrade, but it's quite an upgrade.  The vocals add a ton of richness to the palette.  A little bit of a breakdown, then some riffing on the soundscape without adding any real melodict writing.  Not the most interpretive arrangement, but some gorgeous orchestration all around.

You lost me at 3:12, though.  Everything from there to the end at 4:15 — a full 25% of the arrangement — is the ending, consisting of unsettling ambient sound.  It goes on for quite a bit longer than it needs to.

I don't have any other major complaints.  It sounds great, and there's enough layering and riffing to it to make it more than a simple sound upgrade.  I'd love to hear more creative interpretation in the arrangement, but I won't insist on it.  Just needs the 24 seconds of silence trimmed off the end.

YES

[XPRTNovice]

Man, there is just so much richness happening here. The production quality is really fantastic; I love what you are doing with the vocals, and I love how everyting sits in the mix.

However, I was jarred at the very beginning thinking I was just listening to the game soundtrack. The instrumentation is almost exact, and even within the instrumentation the sound patches sound like you were going for something as close to the original as possible, at the same tempo, in the same key, in the same style. To me, this flunks the interpretation test. 

At 1:50, we add some different instrument, some fun drums, and an oboe, but nothing else really changes, and I'm not even really sensing much interpretative energy, except in small fits and starts. I found myself constnatly thinking "oh...okay OKAY HERE WE Go...oh." and we return to essentially a cover of the piece with some interesting flourishes on top of it. 

Then we get to 3:15, and the earth opens up and swallows us. We completely depart from the piece and have a very "Mitsuda's Ladies" vocal palatte that just sort of takes the piece and throws it out the window. It sounds like an entirely different track, so much so that I had to rewind to the beginning because I was asking myself if we even ended in the same key we started in for resolution's sake (we did.) While in isolation, the section is cool, I don't feel like it fit the arrangement at all.

Overall though, I don't think this is interpretive enough to fit the bill. But man, your mixing is wonderful, the production is so clean, and the minor layers you DID add were really well done - I just don't think it's enough to pass muster here, and then we have a total collapse of the piece for the last minute that didn't really seem to jive with what was happening, arrangement wise. I know it might seem to be contradicting for me to be like "You need to depart from the source moreeeee WOAH not that much" but they really do feel almost like two distinct pieces that don't complement each other. 

NO

[prophetik music]

classic original.

intro is pretty in-line with the original, with some vocal washes over the top. i didn't catch any real differences from the original's arrangement outside the layered verby vox for at least the first minute. if anything, switching the supporting harmonic content from a plucked instrument to pads at ~0:38 was a downgrade. there's some nice scoring at the transition point to the B part of the theme at 0:56, but no changes to melody or chords, just nice layering. all bell and percussive instruments in this section are too loud. the flute realization of the melody is pretty boring and doesn't feel as alive as the original does.

there's finally some more original atmospheric material at 1:38, with the addition of the orchestral percussion. the switch to an english horn for melody is nice, but it's overwhelmed by the rest of the background. there's some real neat added tension around 2:15, but then it's right back to the original material. there's a nice countermelody for this play-through of the B section, but the melodic content is getting lost still unfortunately.

3:15 is a significant shift in style. i think what it's doing is cool in a vacuum, but there's little if anything to tie it back to the first three minutes. and then it ends with 30s of silence. i believe that the tension-filled section at 2:15 was intended to be a precursor to this, but that's tenuous at best.

there is some really great scoring and beautiful soundscapes in this. the attention on the whistle leads is great (although it then calls out how bog-standard the flute is in comparison), and the variety of percussion used and especially the transition at 1:38 sound awesome and really felt like the piece was about to break out. but the track is essentially twice through the original with nearly no changes (most of the orchestration is even in line with what's in the original, and is primarily a sound upgrade), and then a sound demo tacked on the end for another minute. there's nowhere near enough transformative arrangement to say that this can pass. what you've made sounds nice, and i get wanting to submit something because you can't go back to it, but i don't think this passes our bar.

 

 

NO

[DarkSim]

Lovely source tune, and listening to the remix I can see how it started out as a cover, and then felt you getting more experimental as it went on. That Irish whistle lead is haunting, in the best way. A great counterpart to the melody, and mixed perfectly so that it doesn't sound shrill.

The vocal pads are also a stellar addition, and the slight element of discord at 2:15 works well with the whistle, adding a definite point of difference from the original. I enjoyed the percussion as well - lots of ethnic additions and metallic sounds keeping things fresh. The mixing on the bells/cymbals is definitely bringing too much heat though, which is a bit of a shame because the reverb is so nice on everything else. Just needed to turn the volume down a bit there, or maybe wetten the reverb a bit.

There's also some audible artifact playing quite often from about a minute in. Actually, turning my volume up and listening out for it, it might be intentional! However, it does sound like an artifact due to the dryness and crackliness of it. Could be a shaker?

The last minute of choir practice doesn't sound bad, it's just not what I was expecting! I'm not sure it entirely belongs there in that state, but based on the quality of what precedes it, I'm not going to judge it too harshly. This one does do enough in my book, the section from 2:15-3:14 doing the bulk of the work getting it there.

YES

[Emunator]

I can't help but admire the approach here - you stick very close to the original in terms of backing instrumentation and writing, but at the same time, you've found numerous ways to fill this with life beyond what was ever capable on the original PS1 soundtrack. Obvious highlights include the accompanying vocals and the gorgeously expressive whistle that enters at 1:38, but the lively percussion writing was notable as well! Production and sequencing is crisp and lifelike; everything feels like it exists in the same space. All of these upgrades add up to a substantial amount of interpretation to me.

I was admittedly off-put by the "choir practice" at the end when I first heard this submission, but listening again, I can imagine it working in a cinematic context. I hear this sort of tonal dissonance used in film scores frequently so, although it does still feel like a bit of unrealized potential, there's certainly a context where it works.

I dig it; regardless of how the vote goes, this will stay in my listening routine. I'm glad you chose to submit, even in its unpolished form. 

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Lovely 6/4 source tune!  The remix does start out sounding like a major sound upgrade; it is essentially a cover from the beginning until the whistle lead begins at 1:37 (whistle is beautiful).  I agree with Brad that the bells and some percussion are too loud, nearly piercing.  I feel like there are enough creative variations and additions to this source to be transformative.  The choir is very interesting and haunting.  The complete changeup at 3:15 may not be everyone's cup of tea but I totally dig it, I love arrangements that tell a story.  (Although I do agree with Joe when he said "you need to depart from the source more, WHOA not that much!")  It does turn out to be a very unique arrangement.  The mixing is good despite insane amounts of reverb on absolutely everything (and probably too much lows in the reverbs).  My only mixing complaint is that there is a great deal of low frequency energy in the mix, most notable at the ending; the choir has some straight-up rumble between 20-100Hz that could have been EQ'd out to create a cleaner and less loud master.  Other than that, like Wes said, I dig it.

YES

[Liontamer]

Super conservative cover to start, though at 4 1/2 minutes, there's plenty of runway to eventually play with. Nice sampled voice stuff. I feel like I'm hearing a lot of light crackling before 1:30.

1:37 finally made the instrumentation pivot I was looking for to start personalizing the sound more. 3:12 had some nice female choir vocals as well to add some original writing, definitely very anime-esque.

So about 90 seconds apiece of a super-close cover, 90 seconds of more interpretive instrumentation but still melodically conservative treatment, then 60 seconds of an original choir. Unlike some others, I didn't have an inherent problem with 3:12's choir section being "disconnected" from the rest of the track. The transition to it was just fine, and structures of tracks come in all sorts of forms; it's just important to keep in mind from an OCR arrangement standards perspective that none of that original writing section's material is interpretive arrangement.

That said, the development and level of interpretation applied to "Bonds of Sea and Fire" needs to be more substantial for me to feel comfortable passing this. No issues if if ultimately passes, but I think the arrangement bar is higher and requires further personalization. The final non-VGM section is fine in a vacuum and doesn't need to be altered, IMO, but because the source tune isn't being invoked there, it just means the amount of time given to more thoroughly interpreting the source track is too limited.

On the production side, this sounds great, and if this didn't pass as is, I don't think it would be a heavy lift at all for HarlemHeat to get this above the bar. Now can you dig that, sucka!

NO (resubmit)

[DarkeSword]

This is a really nice sound upgrade of the original track and would fit right in with a Xenogears remake. I like the more interpretive bit from 2:15 to 3:15. But it's not enough. The choir section at the end feels tacked on and honestly isn't doing ANYTHING interesting; just some sustained chords, which don't even feel like they relate to the source in any way. Joe was right in that it's going for that Mitsuda Ladies sound. Anyone who's listened to CREID will immediately recognize that vocal quality. But unlike CREID, nothing is happening here.

Would like some more originality and an axe taken to the choir practice at the end.

NO, resub

 

[Gario]

Sounds heavily like a sound upgrade in the beginning, much as others have said, but I think it diverges from the source plenty past the one minute mark - would've marked this as too conservative if it had gone down the "Source but with some added elements" route that it was going down but even just the material from 1:37 - 3:13 is plenty personalized and interpretive for OCR's bar, in my humble opinion.

Overall the arrangement sounds pretty gorgeous, and I really do dig them choral clusters in much of the arrangement. I'll echo that the ending choral section doesn't sound appropriate - would've appreciated a version that cuts that out entirely. It sounds great, but it doesn't tie very well to the rest of the arrangement.

I was really leaning toward passing this - I actually really like this arrangement overall - but that ending just does not work, and it's long enough of a section to bring the arrangement down. I'd be alright with even just ending the arrangement at 3:13 and letting it ring out, though an actual ending would be a better fix overall. Otherwise I think this is great, but I just can't let that ending slide.

NO

[Rexy]

These production values have cemented a beautifully articulate piece of work.  All your instruments, even the choir samples, had been expressed realistically - packed inside an organic space with plenty of appropriate reverb breathing room and great detail to panning.  Regarding the presentation, there's hardly a foot stepped out of place, and even the critique about the percussion is no dealbreaker.  It's very lush.

But then we have the interpretation, which, as mentioned, is a sound upgrade run-through of the source proper, a livelier transformative run, then into the original choir.  That stretch from 1:37-3:13 has more than enough transformation throughout, with the additional Irish whistle, livelier percussion, and change to brass as your main lead.  These little details had done enough to give that section a unique identity, but when paired with a minimally altered first run-through and the original choir swells from 3:13 onward, I feel there hasn't been enough transformation to make this work yet.  Changing the ending is possible, though one idea I can think of is aiming for something Rebecca Tripp likes to do and utilizing either the source proper or a secondary source as part of the minimal instrument wind-down.

I'm all for seeing a track like this on the site, but this needs more rearrangement and something done with that ending before it can get posted.  This soundscape has a lot to love, so I hope you're willing to return to it.

NO (resubmit)