Final Fantasy 1 - Chaos Shrine (Acoustic style)

[MatsuHiroshi]

Hi OC ReMix!

I'm very much new here. About a year ago I decided to get into making music as a hobby, and this is one of the first tracks I published. I'm very keen to hear what other people think of it, in particular if it feels too repetitive or if a particular note / chord sounds off.

I'm also still trying to figure out the legal standing of creating a track like this and publishing it on a personal YouTube channel, not intending to ever profit from it. I've read some things about synch licences and stuff which I didn't have before publishing this. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!  

 

Cheers,

Hiro

 

[Hemophiliac]

Welcome to the forums!

Evaluation:

This has a nice mellow texture that I could put on and enjoy as a background track.  The hang drum in the track is very nice choice for this.  1:44-1:57 is GREAT expansion on the melody.  I usually don't hear people doing even this much interpretation at only 1 year into making music.  Good job!

Guitar is a nice choice to play the lead, and have it strum out some backing chords.  The problem here is the realism of the guitar.  The velocities and performance of the rhythm aren't varied and give a unrealistic feeling.  Change up the velocities so they aren't identical to each other, and maybe move some of the notes around so they don't fall perfectly on each beat.  Also it sounds like a few of the notes might be cut-off sooner than they were expecting to.

The balance (volume/mixing on parts) could use some adjustment as some parts are louder than others.  Drums could use more presence in the mix.  

Quick fade-out ending is weak and leaves something to be desired.

In summary: Production and realism needs work, arrangement is promising (but could go further still), and ending is not ideal.

 

[Hemophiliac]

[This is an automatically generated message]

I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that it's ready for submission to OCR, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and someone will review it again. Good luck!

[MatsuHiroshi]

Hey Hemophiliac, thank you so much for the detailed feedback! I really appreciate you taking time out to give me an evaluation. If you could enjoy this as a background track then I think that's a huge win for me!

It's good to know that the main limitations you feel are the mechanical things which I haven't really learnt yet like mixing and varying velocities. That really helps guide me on what I need to focus on learning next.

 

Cheers,
Hiro

[timaeus222]

Some remarks from me on the first listen:

- I agree on the guitar being mechanical; other than varying the velocities (intensities) and rhythm of the notes to make it more realistic, I think another aspect is that it's overcompressed. There's a limiter that is pumping it. That's maybe not so obvious before the drums come in, but that's what's going on. To fix this, just lower the input levels of the instruments (before they get to the limiter), then raise the overall volume post-limiter in the FX chain. That way it isn't pushing against the limiter, but you still should get a similar final loudness.

- The drums don't really fit the vibe you're going for - they are meant for trap/hip-hop-adjacent music, but if you used a more-acoustic kit, I think it would fit better, based on your hang drum and guitar as your main instruments. (This may come off as a subjective thing but objectively it just fits a different genre.)

Hope it makes sense!

Edited June 19, 2023 by timaeus222