OCR04479 - *YES* Final Fantasy 7 & 7 Remake "Strife"

[Emunator]

ReMixer Name: Pixels & Paradiddles

Real Name(s): Seph and Josh Brown

Email Address: 

 

Game Arranged: Final Fantasy VII

Name of Arrangement: Strife

Names of Individual Songs Arranged: Judgment Day, Mako Reactor
 

(If you are unabled to access the .mp3 file hosted at the link above, please see the attached .mp3 file)

 

Comments:
 

This arrangement ties together the BGMs of Mako Reactor 1 and the Great Northern Crater, the opening and final "dungeons" of FFVII. It also brings in arrangement influences from Harry Gregson-Williams (specifically his works on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) mixed with a heap of The Way of All Flesh era Gojira. We were shooting for death metal meets dungeon noir. Or something like that. Special thanks goes to Clint "its_CLINT" Allday for his help with the final mix.
 

To make the two pieces mesh better, we transposed "Judgment Day" into C Minor, the initial key of "Mako Reactor." In doing so, we could easily move from the intro of the latter piece into the intro of the former, quoting the rhythmic motif of "Mako Reactor" underneath "Judgment Day." Better still, it was an opportunity to quote "Vacuity" by Gojira in the drums, alternating choked and open crash cymbal hits over a stiff four-on-floor backbeat to punctuate the thundering pulse of "Mako Reactor." Rather than run the Imin-IVmin harp arpeggio from "Judgment Day," we consolidated the arpeggio into a stacked extended chord in the choir and dropped a molto crescendo on it.
 

Once into the A section of "Judgment Day," clean guitar is joined by woodwinds and melodic percussion on the melody line while strings hold the harmony. HGW-inspired low brass stings and a moving bassline groove over electronic drums drive this section. Trumpets and horns soon join the party while melodic percussion quote the descending arpeggio figure from "J-E-N-O-V-A" to hint at the boss rush to come at the finale of the game, culminating in the modulation party of Judgment Day's short B section. Winds and strings quote the ascending "Shin-Ra Co." leitmotif under the melody line as the harmony cycles keys.
 

As the winds, brass, and lead guitars fade, "Mako Reactor" kicks into its A section in the low strings, mallet percussion, and a fuzzy Virus lead over chuggy guitar, bass, and drums. We tried to marry aspects of the original composition (synth and percussion melody in the upper octaves, ping-pong delay, triplet-tremolo woosh FX) with Shotaro Shima's FF7 Remake arrangement in this section, right up until the extended Cmin-Bbmin vamp.
 

Speaking of, the "J-E-N-O-V-A" quote returns underneath lead guitars (including a very "Vacuity" inspired guitar countermelody supported by brass and synth).
 

Taking one more nod to Gojira, bowed guitar swells through the fading orchestra into the finale of "Mako Reactor" in a nearly direct quote to the middle section of "The Art of Dying." Shimmering tremolo articulations match thundering double bass drums as choir and trumpets cry the baleful motif in G Minor to Bb Minor. Ending on a final C Minor chord, the music slowly dies... But for the mournful bell and heartbeat-like taiko drums marking the intro of "Those Chosen by the Planet." Jenova and Sephiroth lie in wait.

 

 

[Emunator]

This absolutely rips on every conceivable level. The heavy guitar tones, the quality of the orchestration, the amount of creativity in the arrangement, and the overall mixdown suggests that you've been honing this craft for a very long time. You don't usually come out of the gate swinging like this on your first attempt, but I can't seem to find much of anything else that you've worked on out in the world, so for a first submission, this is actually incredible.

The highlight for me has to be the final section starting at 3:20, featuring some massive orchestration and intense blastbeats that evokes Knight of the Round's "Viking Funeral for the Damned", which is one of my all time favorite remixes on the site. I have no reservations saying that this stands right beside it in nearly every regard. You wear your influences from other artists on your sleeve, but those styles are woven so well together that it ultimately feels like something totally unique that stands apart from its inspirations.

Really killer work. I'm not sure where you came from, but I'm glad you made it here.

YES

[Liontamer]

Main melody at :38 came in sounding underwhelming despite being doubled, partly because the volume felt too low, and it was being swallowed into the soundscape. Drums are too loud relative to the other stuff, but had a good sound.

Nice change in the instrumentation at 1:05; that was unexpected. Some off-key supporting writing from 1:43-1:45 that was pretty quiet but still stood out for me. Cool textures, albeit crowded/muddy. Good drop at 1:52 for some dynamic contrast, then had the guitars get more aggressive at 2:17. Things were particularly cluttered and messy from 2:29-3:20 (really picking up the most from 2:42-on). Varying the articulartions of the string lines from 3:10-3:19 would have been nice; felt cut-and-pasted from 2:51, so don't forget to humamize the performance dynamics.

Yipes, 3:33-4:26 was a mixing nightmare. I was borderline on board with this despite the mixing issues... until that section hit. "No, sir, I don't like it." [/Mr. Horse] Perhaps it's not as muddled on monitors, but it sounds poor on headphones, beyond what I'd call my mere personal taste.

The mixing's a muddy mess for too long, so I'd love to hear another pass at that. But the personalized arrangement is strong from the bros, Seph and Josh. Let's tighten up the mixing here, give these parts more room to breathe while still retaining this strong intensity.

NO (resubmit)

[XPRTNovice]

Lots of great stuff going on here. Cool take on a couple of sources that mixes some really heavy metal stuff with more melodic stuff.

Drums are overall too loud and chew up a lot of the great stuff going on. 1:45 was a big culprit here. 2:24 as well. 

There's something going on on the hihat in the L sound of the space at 1:00 that crackles in a strange way - I actually thought someone was stirring something in the kitchen for a while, but I think it was the hi-hat sample getting a little wonky. 

Listening a second time - I feel like maybe bringing the guitars up, instead of the drums down, might fix some of this. I feel like the guitar chonk-a-chonks are the thing that should be driving the piece, but instead we get kind of a stale, repetitive drumbeat instead. 

3:20 I kind of lost a lot of the piece entirely due to everything being slammed together. 

Have to agree with Liontamer abotu 3:33-4:26. This mix needs work; drums are overwhelming, the parts are blending together in not a great way, the melody is somewhat lost in there. Ears were extremely tired by the time the section finished because of wall-of-sound. 

The ending has such a great vibe, but I think the transition to it was a little abrupt. I would likely change my mind if I hadn't just been soured by the mix from 3:33-4:26

NO (resubmit)

[MindWanderer]

Ooh, nice rich soundscape to open this up with. Great tone. Gets a little muddy and buzzy at about 0:39.  The muddiness clears up when the melody starts, but it still sounds scratchy. Quite a slow burn to get there, too. And then the accompaniment gradually gets louder while the lead gets quieter, and becomes muddy again. A few harmonies here sound wrong to me, too.

2:43-3:19 is seriously busy. Lots of parts all doing their own thing, steeped in reverb. It's really hard to even listen to, much less make out. Then 3:33, wow, this is loud. And yet it took me a second to even hear the melody; it's way, way in the back. Everything is drums and rhythm guitar.

I knew this remix has a split vote already, so I avoided reading the other votes until I got this far. I was surprised there were any YESes at all, because it's so muddy. Emunator citing Viking Funeral for the Damned was smart, because I definitely hear the similarities, and that one was a direct post. And I had a hard time seeing why that one passed, too! So then I followed the trail of influences to Emperor and Dimmu Borgir, as well as the name-checked Vacuity by Gojira. Emperor is clearly the closest comparison. And the thing is, not only is the mix of instruments a little better by them, especially for the orchestral instruments, they're also vocal, and the vocals are clearly mixed in the front. (Dimmu Borgir and Gojira are mixed much, much more cleanly on every level; they're closer to what I expect from black metal.)

So this does get more credit than I was originally going to give it. Orchestral black metal is a tough sell. For my own personal preferences, I wasn't keen on the mixing for nearly the whole piece. But with some context and consideration for genre, it really is only 3:33-4:26 that's below tolerance for the genre, IMHO. The funny thing is, if that section had something else to it (screaming/growling vocals, choir, orchestration) and the lead was still that quiet, I'd easily forgive it.

I'm actually more borderline on this than I expected to be. I think there's a lot of room for improvement in the mixing and use of samples, but it's those 53 seconds of near-inaudible lead that are the make-or-break issue here, and I'm coming down on the majority opinion.

NO (please resubmit) 

Edit 7/24/23: I listened to Shade Empire, as Emunator shared below. They certainly do mix the lead guitar below the rhythm guitar and especially the drums. They are, again, primarily vocal songs, but there are lengthy sections with no vocals.  And I didn't mean to imply that mixing orchestral black metal, or any orchestral metal, is by any means easy; I've frequently commented that it's extremely difficult, combining all the sonically-greedy instruments of two genres that are already nontrivial to mix.

There are clearly passionate fans of this style of music, including people who actively enjoy mixing which would be considered "bad" in a vacuum. And we don't want to have standards as high or higher than those on display in professional albums (a distinction which somewhat loses its meaning in this Spotify age; I frequently hear music on there which is definitely below our bar). In that light, I'll defer to the fans and flip my vote.

YES

Edited July 24, 2023 by MindWanderer

[Chimpazilla]

Mix opens strong with lovely deep bass presence.  Grunge guitars sound great when they start.  As one by one more elements are introduced, the soundscape becomes oppressive.  By 3:33 I am getting a migraine.  

I love the idea of all these different elements together, and I actually think it is mixed fairly well considering how many instruments are playing, but with so many elements in the same frequency range all playing top volume, it is a wall of sound.  There is no easy way to mix this many elements together without making it exhausting.  This may be one of the hardest genres to mix well, with such a dense soundscape. During the busiest section, I hear a wall of guitars, machine-gun kick and percussion, strings, choir, and a bell.  That is a LOT of sounds at once all fighting for the same frequency range.  Honestly I love the idea of this, but I can't quite make the execution feel ok in my ears or brain.

Listening again, my feeling is that the primary factor causing the mix to sound this overwhelming is distortion used on every element.  All that fuzz is compounding into a wall of audio assault.  If the instruments were mixed more cleanly, distortion used more sparingly (less of it, and on fewer elements), and if surgical EQ was used so that the fundamental of each element was emphasized during the busy parts (for less frequency overlap), it might work (or at least work a little better). 

I think my feelings match that of MW the best.  I'm very borderline on this vote, because the arrangement is excellent.  It is full of creativity and varied sounds used.  I can't bring myself to put a NO on it, though.  I can't quite articulate what to suggest to the artists to make this work, other than what I said above.  

The mastering is also way too hot, and that surely does not help things, as it accentuates the super-crispy high end as well as removing overall track dynamics, all of which adds to the sonic fatigue.

All that said, and I hope it was helpful on some level, we are a hobbyist community at the end of the day.  This arrangement is truly excellent and epic, and while the mixing pushes the boundaries of what is sonically comfortable, it is adequate for the genre.  I agree with Wes's praise of this arrangement, it comes in strong and feels competently crafted.  I'd hate to not have this arrangement on OCR because we are asking for mixing changes that may not help enough, or that might change the artists' vision of what this track is meant to be.  Ultimately, gotta go with it.

YES

[Emunator]

Sharing some additional comments/arguments that I think may help contextualize my vote, as someone who listens to this genre a lot:

I would encourage everyone to use Viking Funeral For the Damned as a reference track - that was direct posted and in my opinion, is OCR's best example of orchestral black metal currently. I feel like this track actually exceeds that quality of production in a lot of respects.

I think if the entire track was mixed like we hear at 3:20, I would have NO'd it on the grounds of lack of overall dynamics. However, I would argue that sections that are intentionally walls-of-sound, nested in context of a more dynamic arrangement, is a valid approach and an important component of the extreme metal formula. The remainder of the track demonstrates a great deal of technical competency, maintaining good frequency separation and balance between instruments and is much more than a smushed wall of sound.

With regards to the argument that the lead melody in that section is being buried, I'd also make the case that that's a feature, not a defect - melody lines are often, for a lack of a better word, implied during these blastbeat sections, and aren't intended to be audible in the traditional way that you would expect from a guitar lead. It's meant to sound like a cascading wash of sound that alludes to melodies but is more grounded in riffs and an overall feeling of intensity.

Is there room for the clarity of the 3:20 section to be improved? For sure. I don't disagree with the critiques given by any of the other judges here on an objective level. Particularly, I do agree that the drums are mixed too loudly and the bassiness in the kick is probably contributing more mud than necessary.

But, considering that we are a hobbyist community, without a presupposition of access to professional mixing engineers and recording studios, I would argue that this is, at the very least, good enough for our hobbyist community. I feel that expecting anything more cleanly mixed here is essentially requiring professional quality from our artists, because I don't know how much more could be squeezed out of this one without bringing in an expensive mixing/mastering engineer, or effectively compromising the intensity of the mix and no longer adhering to genre norms. I still stand by my YES vote here.

 

One more reference track/album that might help - Shade Empire features a heavy slew of orchestral instruments along with guitars, and employs a wall-of-sound blastbeat approach to some parts of this song. The lead guitar is definitely sidelined during those sections as a stylistic choice, and the orchestral instruments aren't always super crisp, but it demonstrates a similar level of dynamics when the arrangement is viewed as a whole, even if some individual sections are lacking dynamics and clarity on a micro scale.

Even if this ends up being rejected, maybe these reference tracks will prove helpful in adjusting the mix to clean it up further. Or, at the very least, hopefully someone reading this enjoys these songs

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Emunator

[prophetik music]

what a writeup. excellent breakdown and a clear voice. thank you for that.

oh, that initial swell of guitar is badass. the heavy, dark soundscape is very fitting for the theme and setting here. 1:06 is a huge shift, and really surprising, but fits really well. i like the brass in the right ear a lot there. the lead guitar tone is great too, without being too wild next to the orchestral elements.

the heavy, dark lead-in to 2:30 and subsequently to 2:43 is just *chef's kiss*. the triplet kicks are great. there's a lot going on at 2:43, but the lead stays clear. there's a hard drop at 3:20, and...

3:33 is huge and crazy as expected based on other votes. it absolutely slays and is everything i've ever wanted with this theme, it's brutal and mind-shredding and literally made me sweat listening to it and it's exactly what thirteen-year-old me would have wanted to her as a remix of this music and it's insanity and it isn't perfect and that's ok. the point of it isn't the lead part (although the lead is the only melodic element you can really make out), it's the intensity of what's going on. the melodic elements being quieter than the kick doing paraddidles with my subwoofer isn't a negative there, it's a feature.

emu said it best so ima quote him (emphasis mine) and feel better. i've run into this issue both as a judge and as a composer repeatedly and never really settled onto a side.

Quote

But, considering that we are a hobbyist community, without a presupposition of access to professional mixing engineers and recording studios, I would argue that this is, at the very least, good enough for our hobbyist community.

this is good enough. the truth is that there's maybe ten people active right now on the site who could make that sound better. several of them are judges. 

YES

[Liontamer]

prophetik mentioned in #judges that, as a non-musician, my suggestion of adjusting the mixing could be viewed as "making light of a very difficult thing" and that I'm pushing this toward either professional mixing standards or mixing that's inauthentic for the genre. This will sound like I'm doubling down and not taking the YES votes and other POVs into account. I can't make a decision based on how easy or difficult addressing an issue would be. If others feel it's a non-issue, I don't mind anyone saying this is strong enough.

I still disagree, but I've listened to Emunator's example tracks of pro-level mixing for the genre, essentially as "don't ask for this for OCR's bar, but this is something to reference if revisiting the mixing", which is fair enough.

I also fired up Final Fantasy IX "Viking Funeral for the Damned" as our hobbyist-level reference, and don't feel these are comparable enough re: mixing. In the FF9 track, there aren't extended sections where everything is too muddy to make out any details whatsoever, which is my dealbreaker for this piece due to the mixing of 3:33-4:26, intentional or not.

I heard areas in the FF9 piece where the drumming pushed down other stuff (e.g. 4:15-4:37), areas which were more limited in length, but I could still parse out some distinct instruments; from 4:37-5:43, when the focus was trading off with the guitar chugs, drums, and strings, if one part was obscured, something else was more upfront and obviously stood out as the foreground element that the listener was supposed to gravitate to and pay the most attention to, despite the mixing not being clean (which is fine and allowed).

In 3:33-4:26 here, the guitar work is performed well but mixed like mud and the melodic stuff is so quiet that it's gets lost in that mud, so there's no part-writing that's distinct except 1) the organ-like stabs first used from 3:33-3:35 and 2) the core snare hits. There's even bass drops used at 3:36/3:48/4:01/etc. that are so quiet, they might as well not be there. I also loved the drum writing, but it's buried. There's also a light crackling artifact around 4:47.

I can live with 2:29-3:20's mixing. I still enjoy the other 4+ minutes; that may be enough to most to say it's golden. If 3:33-4:26 can't be adjusted, the track's too indistinct for too long, IMO. If making things not as muddy is verboten, then I would hope there's some way to make the "Mako Reactor" theme there more audible for that section; it wouldn't have to be in the foreground, but it's too pushed down as is, which leads to this crammed & slammed section feeling mainly like chugs and snare thumps, with the source tune very quietly sounding out here and there. Or take out the "Mako Reactor" melody parts entirely and let the chugs drive it, since there's more than enough source tune usage elsewhere.

Intention and context is always important, so (as I'd say to anyone else) if anything I criticize or suggest is taken by a musician as compromising their artistic vision, they shouldn't compromise it. I appreciate being asked to take another look. This is borderline to me, and I certainly want to keep the bar attainable and permissive with production, but I'm alright with my vote staying the same.

[DarkeSword]

I think this sounds great. Good arrangement, nice combo of both sources. I hear what Js are discussing when talking about 3:20 but I think in the context of the genre it sounds fine. Only issue I had was the strings sounded a bit fakey in that section, but it's nowhere near a dealbreaker. Killer stuff.

YES