OCR04804 - *YES* Chrono Cross "A Synonym for Death"

[Liontamer]

Track credits

* p4p3r - synth solo
* minusworld - guitars, bass, vocals, programming, production, lyrics

This was my entry for Dwelling of Duels' Mitsuda Month in July of 2022. Chrono Cross is one of my top 5 favorite games. The music is phenomenal and emotional, the number of party characters boggled my mind, and the plot twist mid-game was one of the few times I've ever been surprised by a story. So, when the theme was announced I knew right away I wanted to cover Cross. Up until this point I had been fairly conservative with my DoD arrangements, focusing just on figuring out tracking, editing, mixing basics, etc. With the feedback I'd received from DoD over the months and a game I really wanted to cover well, I decided to push myself for this arrangement. Despite its flaws, this track managed to clinch my first DoD medal at third place much to my surprise.

I've revisited this mix since then, but some of my original, uh, choices are still present. I'm not terribly interested in mixing this from the ground up again since I have a long backlog already, so I hope this will do. 😅

Sometimes, for DoD, I'll have a style in mind before the theme is announced and I'll look for a track that fits. I was initially considering shoegaze, thought Chronopolis would fit, and then realized I could fit some djenty guitars underneath the source tune's synths and piano for a TesseracT-inspired song. I recall agonizing over the structure of this track quite a bit, wanting to make sure ideas and sections sounded good and flowed together. Looking back, I realize I accidentally settled into what I now call the "generic prog song" structure: long intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2 which has some significant variation on verse 1, chorus, prog breakdown, chorus revisited or alternative chorus, outro. Don't tell anyone about this, though. It's my best kept arranging secret. 😉

The source for Chronopolis has roughly three sections: A, the synthy build with the blips or bells or whatever they are, B, with the floaty repeating piano line, and C with the drums and piano fourths. A and B are similar musically, so I used ideas from both to make the long intro and verses. To make the funny percussive blips, I used NI's Kinetic Metal. The piano line from B was shifted to a clean, delayed guitar. TesseracT's polyrhythms are often spread across a lot of measures, but I'm too lazy for that, so the one I wrote for this is across 4 measures, 16 beats. The C section is adapted to the chorus with some rhythmic changes because prog. 😄

I'm quite happy with the arrangement structure, but one thing I wish I'd considered 2 years ago was finding another source from the Cross OST to use for the alternative chorus. In this arrangement, the prog breakdown (at 4:34) and alternative chorus (at 5:41) are original bits. Since these bits occupy approximately 1m50s of a 6+ minute track, I hope it's acceptable for OCR. 😅

I've only given TesseracT's newer albums post-Altered State a few spins, but I don't think I've ever heard a guitar solo in one, so I wanted a synth solo instead. My friend p4p3r steps in for a blazing synth solo at 5:20 which sounds amazing.

On the lyrics: I have an inner nihilist that I keep locked away most of the time that I let out to write these lyrics. 😅 They are, quite simply, meditations on death. The lyrics gave way to the title: time (and the chrono- prefix) is a synonym for death. Fun fact: I recorded the vocals in the backseat of a car late at night so I didn't disturb my household. 😆

Anyway, enough rambling. Hope you enjoy!

Lyrics:

Verse 1
Sometimes, I watch the clock go round
And I know, it’s really counting down
Terrified, shivers down my spine
Someday I'll run out of time

Chorus
Why seize the day if I cannot make it last?
What’s the point of it all, when the die has been cast?
Every tick, every tock, pounds in my head
Imagining that morbid scene when I’m finally dead

Verse 2
Is it dark on the other side?
Or will my soul be left behind?
Reborn, with another try
Fate unknown, running out of time

Alt Chorus
Will I remember? Will I forget?
Will I be alone? Will there be - anyone? Anything?
They won’t remember, they will forget
Memories fading. Someday I’ll - just be gone
Fade to black
Time is up!

---

Games & Sources

Chrono Cross - Chronopolis - https://youtu.be/BIma45whqjc&t=7975

[prophetik music]

i've always found this original to be interesting.

opening section is adjacent to the original initially, but at around 0:28 we start to get the ascending synth line that makes this section feel like the A theme from the original. the metals sound works surprisingly well to map to the rhythmic element. there's a hard transition at 1:10 to just guitars for the keys element of the B theme. there's a heavily rhythmic bass line added under this to give it more structure, and eventually some really heavy guitars in a polyrhythmic package to give it some harmonic elements.

voice comes in at 2:13. i love how non-rhythmic the vocals are compared to the backing elements, what a fun contrast. the verse is so fitting to the words as well. the chorus is a lot rougher - from what i can hear, the verse is adding some notes to the bassline but roughly following that shape. i can hear the piano elements there and that's not a problem. the second verse is handled a lot lighter than the first, and then we have a section that's kind of transitional with the opening wide synth under it.

the 'prog breakdown' felt pretty disconnected from the rest of the song. what's more, i didn't feel that this part (up to the solo at 5:22) really added a ton to the song. i haven't listened to TesseracT, so this might be an inspiration thing, but it really didn't make much sense in context to the rest of the song.

after the solos we get the alt chorus, which is a fun soaring melodic line. i'm wondering if you could have adapted one of the other CC themes here, but i understand why you wanted to bring in original material to help finish it up. immediately following this section is an outro that has some of the metals and the intro synth tones, but nothing else from the original that i can hear.

i find recognizable source from 0:05-1:51, 2:13-3:59 (the chorus is quite tentative, it's hard mapping that to anything), and 4:02-4:25. the track is 6:47 (407 seconds), so i need 204s to have enough. the above timestamps are 240s, which does put us over 50% - as long as you count the chorus, which not everyone will. i found that connection to be tenuous.

in terms of realization, this track sounds great and executes on a fun concept. the vocals work well with the backing elements, the guitars sound great, the drums and bass consistently speak through the mix well, and the added synth and percussive elements work within the mix well. i found the arrangement on the verse sections to be more effective than the chorus, and like i said before i didn't care for the prog break at all. i think more could have been done on the melodic line in the remix as well to cleave closer to the original's melodic motifs throughout, which would have helped make the connections more obvious. ultimately though i think this is above the bar and an enjoyable take on one of the tbh weirder themes in the original.

 

 

YES

[Liontamer]

What a ride! Fun (read: miserable & nihilistic, just the way I like it) lyrics that take me back to being depressed as a college student. :-D The only thing I'd say could have been tweaked was not having the source melody on guitar so quiet relative to the lead vocals during the verses, because the source melody felt too obscured. Aside from that, this was extremely creative; love the transformation and expansion of the theme via the lyrics. minusworld's got a mainstream songwriting career in the hopper if he wants it bad enough. :-)

YES

[Flexstyle]

As a drummer, these drums bug me. Mechanical and machinegun / sequenced-sounding. Freaking guitarists, always murdering my favorite instrument  it's not really something I can ding TOO badly as they do serve the purpose effectively enough, but I've got a soapbox sitting right here and I'm gonna use it, dagnabbit. 

Here's what I do like: the song has purpose and goes places. The arrangement is really enjoyable. Guitar performances are great, and the synth solo is appropriately shreddy. Mix and master are solid*...

*except, one really big oversight: the sibilance on the vocals is distractingly loud. Like, I'm gonna-vote-against-this-track loud. If that's fixed, this is an easy YES for me. 

NO (plz fix the vocal sibilance and resub?)

[Chimpazilla]

What an interesting prog-rock interpretation of this source tune.  All the instruments sound great to me, performances are great, elements are well balanced, mix and master sound very good to me too.  I love the synth solo!  I would never have noticed any problem with the drums, they sound solid and punchy to me.  If they are mechanical, there is certainly enough variation in the drum writing so I don't hear anything wrong with them.

I love all the time signature and rhythmic tomfoolery.  I love the lyrics, they are creative, real, dark and relatable.  I have no problems with these vocals.  If there is sibilance, I don't hear it, and/or it is covered over by the high end of everything else.   This is a wonderful, moody, well-performed arrangement.  I love it, let's go.

YES

[Rexy]

Brad already did the source breakdown, so there was no need to re-tread that. This one has the tropes of prog that I have come to expect - the structure, the creative drum writing, the guitar riffs, all of the rhythmic variations, especially the shift through all of those time signatures in the instrumental break from 4:24 onwards - there's a lot to love for me. Given how you've opened the track and presented the vocals with those introspective lyrics, I can see why you initially started in a different direction. Writing-wise, there's hardly a seam out of place for me to look through, so I am all for the ride here. Kudos.

The overall technical presentation was clear, though I got some elephants in the room to address. Yes, the drums do feel like they're all at a very similar velocity, but that doesn't matter to me since they're there to provide as much energy as the rest of the instrumentation, especially those djent guitars. And while I did sense the sibilance issue that Flexstyle pointed out, this, to me, is no dealbreaker as the vocals themselves are clear enough as they are - and I can also play devil's advocate and see it as an after-effect of the initial shoegaze idea. Even then, the hi-hats have a dim quality to them (in a good way), so there are no major frequency conflicts either.

Very passionate and thoughtful work all around - let's see this get posted!

YES