*NO* Final Fantasy 7 & 4 "Psycho Giant"

[Liontamer]

ReMixer Name: Pixels & Paradiddles, Hemophiliac

Real Name(s): Seph and Josh Brown

Email Address: 

 

Game Arranged: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IV

Name of Arrangement: Psycho Giant

Names of Individual Songs Arranged: Crazy Motorcycle Chase, Within the Giant
 

Link to Submission:
(.mp3)
(.wav)

 

Comments: Submitted for Round 1 of DarkeSword's Game-Set-Mash!! Final Fantasy arrangement competition, pitting Team SNES vs Team PSX to mash together a source from the SNES era Final Fantasy titles and a source from the PSX era titles. This week paired "Within the Giant" from FFIV with "Crazy Motorcycle Chase" from FFVII.

 

Seph and I leaned hard on our symphonic metal approach for this one, taking inspiration from ...And Justice for All era Metallica (sans the inaudible bass) and contemporary Mastodon. Hemophiliac contributed an organ riff transitioning the A section of "Within the Giant" into the A section of "Crazy Motorcycle Chase."

 

Conceptually, we married a scene BGM from one game with a cutscene/minigame BGM from the other and turned them into an epic battle sequence.

 

May the best mix win for the compo, but in the meantime, thanks again for checking out our work!

~Paradiddles (Josh)

[Liontamer]

Opened with some very fake-sounding orchestration. Strings entered in at :26 and to me it doesn't make sense that the beats are so much louder, or that the guitar chugs are so soft. Bowed strings at :57 sound super rigid, and the brass accents sounded flat. Man, everything about the first 90 minutes feels very work-in-progress, as in needing some sort of production touch ups to flesh out and humanize the sounds. The "Within the Giant" chorus on guitars at 1:42 sounds expressive and strong, even though the drumkit felt too subdued; I liked the subtle glassy/metallic accents in the background.

2:06 had a cameo of the FF7 battle theme before going back to "Within the Giant". Guitars from 2:52-3:13 were too loud and crowding out other instruments. Brass from 3:14-3:38 was a great concept, just a very exposed sample.

It's a great arrangement, and the two sources piece together well; the writing & structure don't need to be touched. This doesn't need live players, but the sampled instrumentation's too exposed throughout, and this could benefit from some mixing tweaks. Perhaps other Js feel this is on the right side of the line, feel the samples are servicable enough, and/or would say YES when questioning what if the source files were gone. I think this sounds like a tremendous sketch where all the compositional components are in place but the final production refinements have yet to be put into place. If this doesn't make it as is, it's a very strong resubmission candidate.

NO (resubmit)

[prophetik music]

intro winds sounded fine, but the supporting strings were pretty quiet. guitar and drums enter at 0:26, and the snare's really loud (the bass is also fairly quiet given that you commented on it specifically?). orchestral parts are written in a fun and aggressive manner, which is great, but literally everything after 0:26 has no bass other than what comes in from the chugs after they hit their tone. it honestly feels like something's getting trimmed out with how it keeps peeking back in occasionally.

1:28 or so the organ lead takes over, and the orchestration shows that it's not particularly real. the solo section at 1:42 is nice, and the subsequent crazy motorcycle elements are great. the less dynamic/fast writing for the orchestral parts cover the things that your sample set isn't great at which is a positive. 3:15's brass are rough, super fake, but i like what they're doing. 3:38's ending section was very sudden. some more build to it would have been really nice.

i'm not passing this specifically because the bass is inaudible for most of the track. there's no guts to anything, the distorted guitar chugs at 2:15 have more bass content than the actual bass and kick throughout. that said, there are other issues here, including the very loud snare, the orchestral sample usage being pretty consistently fake sounding, and the overly quick ending. i think however that the concept is really neat and would love to see another take on it.

 

 

NO

[Chimpazilla]

The intro sounds fine to me, the samples are used well enough.  After the intro, I can't really comment on the orchestral elements because I can barely hear them over the rest of the soundscape which is super dense.

The kick is quiet and the snare is way too loud by comparison.  The kick is so quiet partially because it has no lows. There is such a lack of lows in this mix and that causes the higher-frequency elements to stick out in a piercy way.  There is distortion on top of distortion, on more than one element here.  The chug guitars sound like they have a phaser on them or something?  It sounds like a robotic/metallic burbling sound and it is very distracting, especially since so many elements are playing in the same frequency range.  This is exhausting to listen to.  The highest-frequency elements like the high percussion and even the top end of the snare sound very crunchy/sizzly.  

I'm not sure what could have happened with the mastering, but the peak is hitting 2.4db.  The master will need limiting to 0db at the least; I prefer -0.5db or even -1db.

The arrangement is great as my fellows have pointed out.  The sampled instruments are working well enough, in my opinion.  But the mixing will need to be fixed.  The low end of the mix will need to be audible and the highest highs toned down.  The snare is too loud compared to the kick and everything else.  The guitar distortion will need to be brought under control and if there's a phaser on them please remove that.  I also recommend doing some strategic EQ work to make room for each of these elements in the mix.

NO (fix mixing and mastering and resubmit)