OCR04624 - *YES* Chrono Trigger "Find the Frozen Flame"

[Liontamer]

Hello, I know I haven't submitted anything in a while but here I am again.

Link to the song: 

Remixer: Ivan Hakštok

Game arranged: Chrono Trigger

Name of arrangement: Find the Frozen Flame

Names of songs arranged:

- Lavos' Theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4umiefkLgk)

- World Revolution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvAsObDi2uk)

- The Final Battle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqC_3Sm7PXg)

 

This was the winning entry in July 2023 Silent Protagonist Month on Dwelling of Duels.

 

I have to be honest, I've listened to a ton of metal remixes of Chrono Trigger's final boss gauntlet, but none of them really clicked for me, either because they were straightforward medleys, had bad production, didn't add anything to the original, or because they went too metal with it.

 

I've been thinking of doing my own take on World Revolution for years now, but I didn't have a clear vision of what to do, that was until I played FF16 and heard a small part in Find the Flame which immediately reminded me of World Revolution. I got inspired and I wanted to mix that style with some hard rock/metal.

 

I think the sources are recognizable, but here's a rough breakdown:

- Intro is Lavos' Theme, background synth that enters at 00:15 plays the synth lick from Final Battle (this lick is played throughout the song on various instruments).

- After that it's pretty much just World Revolution, with some changes to the time signature after the first "chorus".

- At 2:50, it's the second half of Final Battle, but in 7/4.

- Then it transitions back into Lavos' Theme/World Revolution, with some bass soloing.

- The mellow part is just the "chorus" section from World Revolution, with the chords changed a bit when the choirs enter.

- The ending is World Revolution once again.

 

[Liontamer]

From :15-1:10, the choir felt like it was flooding the soundscape and the orchestration didn't cut through as much as it should have, IMO. That said, those are minor things for what's ultimately a tour de force rock epic. The three sources themes combined seamlessly and Ivan's definitely crafted a grandiose interpretation per his objective, rather than just a straightforward medley like he was trying to avoid.

Definitely a well-deserved trip to the top of the DoD podium this month. Just paneling this to share the love. Awesome stuff! I'm floored. The fandom will ALL be floored.

YES

[MindWanderer]

Well... maybe not all of the fandom will be floored.

Don't get me wrong, this is an absolutely epic arrangement. I absolutely love what you've done with the themes and the orchestration. This is right up my alley for stuff I get excited about.

But orchestral rock is tough to mix, and I feel like this comes up short. The whole intro is quiet, and after 0:15 when everything kicks in, too busy. There's a white noise sweep that's muddying the whole soundscape and not leaving the actual (sampled) instruments enough room to breathe.

Then the main section opens up at 0:48 with a bass that's shockingly loud, after which all the orchestration other than the choir and the orch hits are totally buried. All I'm getting are individual notes where I hear the squeak of a piccolo or a violin cut through for a moment. At 2:05 the brass finally takes the lead for a bit, but the rest of the orchestral instruments are still almost inaudible.

The rest of the piece follows this same general trend: there's one, maybe two non-rock instruments at a time that I can hear clearly. It takes turns which instruments those are, but the rest are buried in mud. From what I can hear, the orchestration is absolutely gorgeous, layered, and complex, but I can hear like 20% of it, max.

I've been accused in the past of making the job of balancing something like this sound easy. It's not remotely easy! But it is necessary.

NO (for God's sake please resubmit!)

[prophetik music]

organ and choir and taikos for the intro. 0:15 brings in a variety of instruments, and i'll agree that it's very complex and takes a second to grok what's going on in the mix. 0:49's where it really gets cooking with the rock section, and there's still a ton of orchestrated elements on top of a an aggressive and meaty guitar-driven backing. i didn't find the bass here to be anything more than normal, nor did i think that the audible elements of the orchestra that cut through the band were less than what was supposed to be there. this is guitar-driven orchestral rock, not orchestral-driven rock, if that makes sense - the orchestra isn't the main event.

3:10's a cut down and we hear some effected sweeps and lush orchestrated elements. there's some bass soloing, and then we get a half-time section at about 3:33 that's just so fun. great idea here. the orchestral rips are starting to sound a little fakey when they're more uncovered, but the rest of the orchestration sounds great.

build starts at 4:34 and i got chills quite literally at 4:45. there's one big blow through the main melodic material for about 30s and we're done.

i have no concerns about the mastering. i'm rarely significantly off from MW when it comes to voting, but i truly don't hear most of his concerns on this one. the arrangement is great, it sounds great, and the orchestral balance throughout is exactly what i would expect for the style. excellent work.

 

 

YES

[DarkSim]

Initial thoughts when listening were: "This is epic, but I can't hear half of the detail in the orchestral elements. Why is it there if I can't hear it?"

Came here to put that into a more eloquent way, and find that MW has already done it. I thought that all the rock parts sounded perfect (bass was just right on my headphones), but I'm 100% in agreement with MW that this needs another pass on the mixing. If something is barely audible, is it even necessary? The intro gets buried in mud, The flute at 1:37 sounds almost unintentional given how low it is in the mix, and a little distracting. Similarly at 2:52 the strings are seemingly trying to continue the guitar solo that went before them, but they're so low in the mix I'm straining to hear. Is that the right instrument for that part?

Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic track, but the mix is far too busy for too much of the track for me to pass it as-is. It may just be a case of being ruthless and cutting out parts that are unnecessary, but I would love to hear this with a cleaner mix so that all the detail that is in there can be fully appreciated.

NO (resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

The mastering is on the loud side, coming in at -7db RMS (and looking like a waveform sausage), but I don't hear any overcompression artifacts. 

This is a DENSE soundscape.  Lots of elements, as the other Js have pointed out.  It is tough to mix a track with this many elements.  It is way too busy for my taste, but it sounds like it is mixed as well as possible, considering how much is going on.  This mixing is not ideal, but not dealbreaker for me.

Absolutely epic mixture of these themes, arrangement is terrific.  Guitar performances are wonderful.  Choir is a bit overbearing after awhile, but fits well.

YES

[Emunator]

I'm falling in line with @Chimpazilla on this one - you bit off a LOT with this arrangement but man, is that arrangement a triumph! Easily one of your strongest to date, especially for a solo endeavor. I am not going to pore over details here, but I did find the mixing at the :15 mark until the drums kicked in to be the most problematic.

In my book, it would be a damn shame if this were not fixable and this wasn't heard by the masses. I do hope Ivan is able to make some changes to balance certain parts and clean things up a little more, but I think this is comfortably above our bar, flaws and all.

YES

 

[Emunator]

Sent these votes to Ivan to see if he's interested in making any tweaks or proceeding with the vote as-is!

EDIT: Ivan wants to let the vote proceed as-is.

Edited January 24 by Emunator

[XPRTNovice]

Chrrrrrrrrrist that intro is epic AF but it sounds like a total mess of noise between :15 and :50. That's gotta get cleaned, it sounds like white noise there's so much packed into there. It might mostly be the low brass and whatever sweep you've got going on in the background there that's messing around with it. I'll say now that this section is going to NO this track for me, and the following comments are just ways to polish, and don't necessarily need to be fixed for me to consider this a pass. 

:50 has the piccolo (?) too loud for sure. 

When we kick in at 1:05 this thing fucking SLAPS. Mixing gets much cleaner (likely because there's 50% less ingredients in the soup), it sounds full and epic and awesome and the performances are great and I would like to work out to this immediately. 

Guitar solo at 1:45 is lower in the freq spec so it does tend to get a little lost. In order to bring that out, you might need to automate a low-end EQ there if you want to get fancy so that the solo shines. It's worth doing.

I would love the bass to come out at 3:30 as well for that solo because it's so good. Again, might need to automate some EQ so you're not boosting mud. 

Same issue with the guitar solo at 4:15, I want more of it out front but if you push it too far at its current EQ it will further muddy a mix that's already difficult. 

THE CHOIR AT 4:35 YEEEEEES

MAN this arrangement is SO FUCKING GREAT but that beginning's mess drops it for me. Please god finish this, it's so so so so so so good. 

 

NO (resubmit or I will personally hunt you down)

[Rexy]

Working on orchestral metal isn't easy, but you managed to nail source recognizability down to a T, going as far as doing a lot of chopping around and overlaying the chosen sources while still making World Revolution your leading hook.  Rather than relying on two keys like the source, you kept the structure's first minute in the same C minor key as the original's beginning.  The two segments with the time signature changes (9/4 at 1:44 and 7/4 at 2:50) allowed the sources to transform themselves to fit the overall pacing, as did the sudden slow-down for your bass solo at 3:57 before going into your build and ramp-up for the ending.  Add in your trademark juicy guitar solos, well-articulated arps, and textural changes to divert it from the pure orchestration of the source material, and what we have here is classic Hakstok, just with multiple more instruments this time.

Those multiple instruments are a thinker when it comes to production, though.  Yes, the individual parts of the orchestra were bound to face overlaps when you've got the rock part of it at center stage.  But when it comes to this kind of orchestral rock setting, the orchestra should ideally face treatment as a separate instrument, so when working with the guitars simultaneously, they feel clean and add some air into the mix that would've otherwise been from backing synths.  The bad news is that until the guitars make their first appearance at 0:40, said orchestra-synth combo is all one would hear, and both of them have conflicting frequencies that make it hard to hear one over the other.  But once the rest of the instruments arrive, everything starts sitting better, with the kind of recording and VST quality I expect from you.

I bet you had your work cut out for you here, but it was worth it to fare well in the DoD, and I'm all for seeing this on the front page.  Keep doing what you do best, Ivan, and rock the heck out :-)

YES

[Flexstyle]

I'm not even gonna bother with the arrangement side, as the other Js have done that. The real question at this point is: is it mixed well enough to make the front page? Yes, yes it is. Yeah, we could hear some more of the orchestral elements more clearly, but that's not enough to stop this thing. Y'all some nitpicky geezers! The FEELING of the song never fails, and that's what need to come across. (Plus, c'mon, I've heard pro records mixed more poorly than this, and that didn't stop the songs from becoming classics.)

 

YES YES C'MON LET'S GO