Liontamer Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 Remixer Name: Shea's Violin (https://ocremix.org/artist/18601/sheas-violin) Real Name: Shea Henry Email: Websites: youtube.com/sheaviolin linktr.ee/sheaviolin User ID: 18601 Name of game arranged: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest Name of arrangement: Forest Through the Trees Name of individual songs: Beautiful Forest (a.k.a. Level Forest) OCR song link: https://ocremix.org/song/12616/beautiful-forest More sound information: https://vgmdb.net/album/81348 Comments: I started this arrangement for a dwelling of duels competition. I've done a lot of covers that don't transform the original material very much, and I think this arrangement and production represents a lot of the experience I've gained over the past two years. The very first track that I talked about in the workshop channel on the OCR discord was a bossa re-imagining of Celes' theme from Final Fantasy, but at the time it was more of a mashup between celes and terra and had a lot of improvisational elements that didn't pass the 'original material dominant' sniff test. I had been a little discouraged about entering since then, but after a few conversations with folks in the OCR discord (and my very first mixpost as a collaborator!) I decided to actually submit one of my tracks. All of the instruments on this track are live, and I was aiming for a classic violin and guitar bossa nova. The tempo is faster than the original to give it a little more of a pulse. The improvised solos are harmonically conservative because they were recorded and created "live" without writing something down, and I didn't want big execution risks to ruin my takes. I kept the solo sections short so that the original material wouldn't dominate the arrangement, and I tried to create a transitional line in the improvisation to tie back into the last theme of the original song, which I think I succeeded at! Thanks for encouraging me to submit something! I've been an OCR fan since very early on, and when I finally do get a submission accepted (some day!) I'll be so happy to have contributed something to this community that's fostered so much wonderful and creative music over the years. THE LINK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted May 12, 2023 Author Share Posted May 12, 2023 Yes, I've been working on getting Shea to send something in. No need to put OCR on a pedestal. Two key critiques I've had for some of Shea's past arrangements are that 1) some of the concepts haven't been fully developed (i.e. ~2 minutes long and could be more substantive) and 2) the percussion was on auto-pilot, which led to a plodding feel. That wasn't uniformly across her content, but I'd see it enough that I knew untapped compositional and dynamic potential was there just waiting to be realized. The track was 3:20-long, so I needed to identify overt source usage for at least 100 seconds for the source material to be considered dominant. The hand percussion's also derived from a 3-beat pattern at the foundation of the source from :01-:03 that underlies the whole source tune, and it's used every other measure here in the arrangement. I could be not recognizing something else within the soloing, but didn't have a problem with the source usage: melody - :00-:56.5, 1:56.5-2:08.25, 2:35-2:37, 2:54.5-3:19 = 94.75 seconds drumming - :59-1:01, 1:03.75-1:05.75, 1:08.5-1:10.5, 1:13.25-1:15.25, 1:18.5-1:20.25, 1:23-1:25, 1:27.75-1:29.75, 1:32.5-1:34.5, 1:37.5-1:39.5, 1:42.5-1:44.25, 1:47-1:49.25, 2:11-2:13.25, 2:15.75-2:17.75, 2:20.5-2:22.5, 2:25.5-2:27.5, 2:30.25-2:32.25 (most audible example of the rhythm if you want to compare it to the source), 2:39.75-2:41.75, 2:44.75-2:46.75 = 36.25 seconds This is the good stuff, y'all, straight up pro arrange album material. We've HAD official FFMQ arrange stuff stolen, submitted, and POSTED way way way back, before my time, so it's nice to get something that would pass the sniff test as a fan arrangement that sounds elite & pro grade. I love the treatment of the theme, with the arrangement taking a basic source-soloing-source sandwich approach. If you had told me this was released back in the mid-90s on an official Square album, I'd have said "No doubt, this sounds great!" and went investigating on VGMdb for who made it. I just said in the writeup for "Song of the Desperado" that Shea and her fellow string players needed to stop wowing people so much, but she doesn't listen. :-( For the last hit of the melody at 3:12, when she elongated that final note, I yelled [cuss words of amazement & friendship] at the screen again! Elegant, silky, smoove. Strong stuff that illustrates how DoD encourages folks to bring out their best! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 I'm glad Larry posted first, because my one and only concern here is that it goes off the rails with a lot of original riffing. I trust Larry when it comes to needing to timestamp, though — at least, I trust him not to be too generous! Fantastic performances, fantastic arrangement, fantastic production. Excellent adaptation of a tune to a genre. Really just a stellar job all around. This could have been a DP, IMHO. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPRTNovice Posted May 14, 2023 Share Posted May 14, 2023 Man MQ just doesn't get enough love. This Bossa version of this is fantastic right out the gate, with a really great groove, good mixing, good production, and excellent performance. Agree with MindWanderer that this probably could have been a direct post. Really love that guitar tone too and the solo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emunator Posted June 26, 2023 Share Posted June 26, 2023 Quote I trust Larry when it comes to needing to timestamp, though — at least, I trust him not to be too generous! Ain't that the truth? Stunning job all across the board! This really benefits from the wide breadth of live instrumentation, and you demonstrate a great level of technical prowess on all of it. Where have you been? Let's get this posted! YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts