Liontamer Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 (edited) I'm classifying this as FF4 due to the secondary melody finally referenced at 3:59; that's only found in the "Prelude" from FF4-on, but I included the NES version for reference. -LT Remixer Name: Keebmouse Game: Final Fantasy Arrangement: Prelude to a Dream Remix of: Prelude - Final Fantasy Private Soundcloud Link Edited October 30, 2023 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 15, 2023 Author Share Posted October 15, 2023 Opened up with some fakey piano that nonetheless had good body to it. Around :30, I thought things were overdue to move away from the build, especially because texturally, nothing new was happening. Consider some light SFX or quiet additive writing earlier than :59. Beats arrive at :59, but since this is 6:30-long, we've still got a lot of runway, thus the slow build. Admittedly, this build's boring for me, and the exposed piano sample always playing each measure exactly the same as the previous times also gets boring over time. Some warbling added to the picture at 1:59, and the fakey piano's exactly the same, the "Prelude" theme is exactly the same. Not sure where the rumbling was coming from during 2:38-2:52, maybe due to the timing of something being slightly off; hopefully a musician judge can co-sign hearing something off there and identify a possible cause. Some cheap, low-quality claps are added in at 2:59; they just sound lossy and completely not in the same soundscape, and it's a boring, plodding, vanilla, basic pattern. Poorly integrated; I would have used different claps. 3:59 finally brings in the countermelody from FF4 on organ keyboard, though it pumps (and is mixed) in a way that doesn't let it cut through as much as those beats/kicks. I knew 5:29 would just keep repeating the theme ad nauseum based on the prior build, but I was hoping for a turn of some sort and it never came. 5:59 drops everything out except the countermelody for a winddown finish, and the track unceremoniously cuts off with no ending at 6:29. There's expansiveness to the sound, Keeb, but ultimately not enough substantial writing or textural variation to justify this length. Getting a warmer, more varied & humanized piano sound and different claps would be nice too, but that's small potatoes compared to the bigger overarching issue of the writing lacking development. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 that really sounds like the default FL keys right off the bat for sure. i agree that at 0:30 it should have done something else - the next 30s were just stat padding. it's also odd that the initial arpeggio doesn't have something else happening to it - some freq shifts, a filter, some lfo - just something moving on it rather than being static. the initial beat sounds nice - i like that the kick is really tight, that fits the arp well. i think this section is also unnecessarily doubled and could have been half the time. lastly, whatever the bass is doing at 1:15 just sounds dissonant until 1:23 - it doesn't appear to match the chords and also appears to be shifting pitch during that time. 2:00 has some synth padding added, and this continues to be a very slow build. this is starting to be a negative as nothing's really changing within each section. a song's direction and energy level shouldn't be a ziggurat - there's a flow to it that's not really being handled here. the atonal elements of the bassline continue to show up here. we get drums and claps in at 3:00 and i don't really have a ton of opinions on the claps - larry is a clap connoisseur as you can see. we get some countermelodic material at 4:00, although it's a little hard to hear under the sidechaining and the offbeat hats. this is repeated for another minute at 5:00 which is excessive even for this the slow pace of this remix. at 6:00, the beat and arp drops out while everything else is still going. there's a filtro outro as well, but it never even really gets down to 0 - it just cuts out after a while. this is nowhere near the level of expansive arrangement we expect. you do have 6:30 of music here, but it's arguably closer to 2:30 total if you take out the padding. consider more than a sound upgrade and beat - look for new chords, new countermelodic content, new synths to carry elements of the track, variations in time signature or rhythms...anything that's going to make it more keep and less nobuo. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 "Default FL Keys" yep, sadly it sounds like that, super mechanical, tinny and expressionless. The intro goes on too long without adding anything else to build up to the next section. Kick sounds great when it enters, but the piano playing those blocked chords is too simplistic. The bass sounds good but it is hard to hear over the arp and piano, and it is struggling to play the lower registers clearly. This section goes on way too long. At the 2:00 point I am really hoping to hear something else besides the arp and blocked piano chords. You have entire LONG sections that, once established, do not do ANYTHING else. At 3:00 there's kick and clap, and really good sidechaining on the bass. But it's the same exact arp and piano chords. At least changing the patch playing the arp would have helped here. This is another LONG section that, once established, continues without any change, nothing new to add interest. At 4:00 there is a new element added, and long overdue. I like this pad-like element, but it sure would be nice to add another element that could play over the top of it like a proper lead, because thus far there has not been a lead of any kind. This would be an opportunity to do some soloing or even add a motif or melody from another source, optimally from the same game or franchise but could be from another game or franchise, or could be something original that you write. The ending cuts off before the final note finishes playing. This track is twice as long as it needs to be to convey the ideas, each section needs to be cut in half unless you have something super interesting happening during that section. At present there is nothing interesting happening during any of those long sections. The same arp and piano plays all the way through and both of those sounds become stale in the first minute. This is a good layout for a track but it isn't complete. It needs to have many more unique ideas to keep the listener engaged. Sometimes even with good writing ideas, it can be clear as you're working with it that a section is too long and needs to be cut in half, so you may need to do that while thinking of ways to add interest to each section. Great start, just needs more (ideas) but also less (length). NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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