OCR04414 - *YES* Final Fantasy 10 "Yuna at Zanarkand, Her Mind on Lost Friends"

[Chimpazilla]

Hello OCR Team,

on to my second submission, again with Final Fantasy.

Remixer Name: sui
Profile ID: 24063
Game: Final Fantasy X
Name of the arrangement: Yuna at Zanarkand, Her Mind on Lost Friends
Name of the original song: To Zanarkand (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fp81GzKarQ)
Download link: 

I my quest to improve my counterpoint writing I arranged FFX's "To Zanarkand" for piano trio, in this case piano, violin and cello. There were several challenges during the writing process:
* No one wants to listen to the original songs just with an added cello base note and the violin playing the melody. This is supposed to be an exercise in counterpoint writing, so all instruments should be interesting to listen to.
* There are only 3 instruments to work with, so you better make every note count.
* Give every instrument and every instrument combination their time to lead and shine.
* Make the two iterations of song sufficiently different. Copypaste is not allowed.
* Keep everything humanly playable, especially the violin's multiple stops. In mean, the 4 octave jump in the piano's left hand at 3:07 should still work at that speed, right?

All instruments are modeled, i.e. synthesized at runtime and not recorded samples. This was my first time handling this kind of instrument, so getting to understand their behavior and reworking MIDI CC automations accordingly actually took up most of the production time. And even then I feel that at some points getting out of the uncanny valley required too difficult of a climb for me. The advantage of modeled instruments is that they do exactly what you tell them to do, so you are never held back by the recorded samples from creating the sound you want. However, the flip side of that advantage is that they only do what you tell them to do, so you better know how to exactly draw in those CC curves to play the vibrato like a human would.

In the end I think I still got it into a presentable state. If you can imagine Yuna breaking into sobbing at 2:57 and screaming her heart out in tears at 3:05, then I believe I've done an ok job.

Kind regards
 Alex

[Chimpazilla]

Initial impressions:  Starts out 100% piano cover, then adds cello and violin.  Orchestration is lovely, not too bad for using modeled instruments.  Arrangement is still extremely conservative.  Warning, there's one reeeeeally high violin note at 3:25, if you're on headphones, please beware, it's a brain-piercer.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Chimpazilla

[prophetik music]

hard to imagine a better pairing of game tone and intro track as this. FF9's intro track is close but nothing quite captures the wistfulness of FFX's story like the melody of this track.

i respect very much your approach to this arrangement.

violin and cello tone are obviously sampled (and way louder than the piano), but you have taken excellent care to realize them appropriately.

1:10 is lovely. the extra space you've added in timing is appreciated throughout. there's a few times it's a bit much but overall i like letting the melodic content breath more.

2:05 surprised me since it's essentially the first time that the arrangement strays from the original. the richer tone gained by using the lower range here is great. the doublestops in the violin are probably not super attainable by one player, but still a neat idea. adding the initial melodic lick in the cello under the C theme in the violin at 2:55 is superb work. 3:10's harmonic is a great idea and sounds great. i didn't think it was too loud, it's idiomatic and handled well.

this is indeed a conservative arrangement overall, from the perspective of what the original has and what's included here. i'd argue however that the contrapunctal additions and especially the performance nuances added via space, timing, and tempi changes are very much transformative. i am absolutely shattered that we're not getting a live version of this by three players in the same room (or maybe four, all told), which i think would be just incredible, but as it is this is excellent and well above my bar throughout.

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

Absolutely stunning synthesized instrumentation.  There are times you can tell the violin is fake, but a lot of the time, it can pass for real, and even when it sounds fake, it's not that obvious unless you're listening for it.  This might be my gold standard for exposed virtual instruments going forward.

The structure is conservative, but the part writing and emotion put this well over the bar as far as interpretation go.

Since Kris called out that shrill note at 3:25, I wanted to talk about that for a moment.  Here's the frequency analysis of just that note after everything else trails off:

So, while that G7 may be a shrill note, it's still a note.  You can see the harmonics on there a bit, but they're much quieter, and there's nothing above 12k Hz or so.  I have really sensitive ears to this stuff, and have voted against many submisions because of shrill notes, but this was just fine for me.  This is how you do it right.

Superb skill on display on every level here.

YES

[DarkSim]

Beautifully executed idea. When we talk about adding humanisation to synthesised instruments, this is what we mean. The 3/4 time signature gives the track a natural flow, and from there, a lot of care has been taken to allow the instruments to feel like they're being played by real humans. The way the track ebbs and flows each bar is delightful, altogether building to that big, piercing finish.

I've gotta say, the high note was too loud for me, almost comically so. It certainly made me sit up and take notice, somewhat breaking my immersion. I would definitely have preferred a bit less volume on that note, particularly with the long sustain. Perhaps a bit more decay on it before the sustain would have sounded more pleasant to my ear, and perhaps been a more natural sound. Either way, it's a minor criticism of an excellent piece of work.

YES

[Liontamer]

Opens as a cover, the has the violin come in at :13; OK, I see the vision. Stays conservative but personalized nicely, with fun tradeoffs of the violin and pianos as leads, with some brief doubling moments as well.

Tone of the violin at 1:32 was odd and came off more like an e-violin, so I'm going to charitably roll with that; it's a very nice sound, just not organic if you're listening closely. That said, loved the way this piece progressed, with the strings taking the lead in the second half.

Literally laughed out loud at the piercing note from 3:26-3:32; again to me, that's seemingly not something a real instrument could pull off, but there's a stylistic pass I'm giving this that's fun. These samples are used pretty well.

Love it, sui, welcome aboard! Let's pierce some ears!

YES

[prophetik music]

gonna add a note here - The Note is absolutely a 'real' one. it's a harmonic and used regularly in violin works. in fact i'd even go so far as to say that using it to end a phrase that's trailing off is standard for the instrument. this link has great examples of a ton of them, particularly the entry from Firebird: https://www.quora.com/What-classical-pieces-have-examples-of-good-usage-of-natural-or-artificial-harmonics-on-violin

[Liontamer]

On 2/15/2023 at 2:26 PM, prophetik music said:

gonna add a note here - The Note is absolutely a 'real' one. it's a harmonic and used regularly in violin works. in fact i'd even go so far as to say that using it to end a phrase that's trailing off is standard for the instrument. this link has great examples of a ton of them, particularly the entry from Firebird: https://www.quora.com/What-classical-pieces-have-examples-of-good-usage-of-natural-or-artificial-harmonics-on-violin

Very nice! Happy to be enlightened, as that high note is insane (or insanely loud, one could argue)!