OCR04561 - *YES* Minecraft "Meditations on a Beam of Light"

[Emunator]

Remixer: Emunator
Name: Meditations on a Beam of Light
Game: Minecraft
Sources: Minecraft

Comments: I've always wanted to create and submit a fully ambient track to OCReMix. While I have never actually played Minecraft, the hypnotizing soundtrack from C418 felt like an obvious place to start. I took inspiration from artists like Jon Hopkins, The 1975, Sigur Ros, and Olafur Arnalds, who are all masters at fusing electronic and organic textures into something otherworldly and transcendent.

With this arrangement, I decided to keep the underlying piano loop nearly intact (only broken up by a small bridge of my own original writing at 1:49) and instead let all of the personalization come from sound design and original string arrangements that build on top of that foundation. My goal was to craft something fleeting, formless, and delicate. The repetitive nature of the arrangement, which may be somewhat polarizing when measured by OCR arrangement standards, was very intentional, meant to reflect a mantra that you might repeat over and over during a meditation session.

[Liontamer]

I already checked this out on June 9th, when Wes begged and pleaded for my feedback during a crisis of confidence. He's since added some more to it, but my POV's still the same:

 

Hell NO, we can't reject this. YES

[MindWanderer]

I don't think this was repetitive at all. Sure, the piano motif was used extensively, but it's the glue that holds the piece together. The strings, chimes, pads, vox, FX, and probably more that I'm not consciously picking up on are dynamic throughout, never repeating and constantly taking turns. And even the piano changes things up enough that I don't think it would be an issue.

I don't think it needed the lo-fi effects, but otherwise this sounds great.

YES

[prophetik music]

intro swell contains the piano loop with loads of rich string pads and bells, and some really luscious writing in the winds. it really feels like the music you'd hear in a BBC documentary talking about the sun rising on a spring morning, dew dripping off the trees and birds chirping and david attenborough wheezing his way through a soliloquy about a rare parrot or something.

the suspension at 1:00 and subsequent resolution and root chord with the flutter in the flute at 1:04 is truly special. 

1:53's the one part where i can really see significant shifts in the piano's writing, and it's probably my favorite part of the entire piece. it's very subtle and measured, and better for it.

2:25's choir is really nice. a simple way to reinforce the piano melody.

the track, patient as it is, takes about a half-minute to truly end after it kind of finishes what it was going for, and we hear poor david walking away as the track fades out.

what a patient and expansive arrangement, realized flawlessly and mastered very cleanly. superior work.

 

 

YES

[Chimpazilla]

My son Tom played hours and hours of Minecraft and I always felt this song was simplistic almost to the point of silliness, but it does set a calm vibe that really works in context.  It really is a perfect source for Wes to do his luscious ambient magic on, and I daresay his version would be so much more preferable in-game in my opinion.  It's a very repetitive source motif loop but Wes has decorated it with so many beautiful and varied elements and gave it infinitely more feels.  Love it.

Fadeout.  Boo!  I'll let it slide.... THIS time.

Mixing and mastering are just right.  And no, (checks files on computer) I'm pretty sure I never mastered this one.    Wes did a beautiful job.

YES