prophetik music Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 Hi OCR! Here is a piano arrangement of « Batallia Down » and « Rabao » from FFXI and one extension. I’m a big fan of Mizuta’s work on this universe. After some tests on Batallia’s theme, I’ve thought I could get sthg interesting. Rabao well marry with Batallia, by similar harmony and rhythm. So, I’ve integrated some elements of this theme. Overall, the arrangement came naturally. The main difficulty was to find the good tempo. Indeed, first half with Batallia was thought much slower; and Rabao faster. I’ve reduced the difference to the minimum, but I’ve kept a minor variation of tempo at the transition. I’m not accustomed to play in this style; this arrangement was fun to make :) Enjoy! Guillaume BREAKDOWN Part 1 0’00 : intro Batallia 0 -> 0’34 Part 2 0’20 : Batallia 0’34 -> 2’00 a) 0’20 soft b) 0’50 more rhythm Part 3 1’23 : Batallia 2’00 -> 2’30 Part 4 1’49 : Rabao 0->1’00 & 1’00 -> 1’50 A little faster Transition 2’34 : Batallia 0 -> 0’34 Part 5 2’45 : Batallia 2’30 -> 3’40 More distant to the original, rhythm and harmony variation. And an “improvisation” at 3’10 on these harmonies. Part 6 3’23 : Batallia 2’00 -> 2’30 Arpeggios, harmony variation First tempo Part 7 3’52 outro : Batallia 0 -> 0’34 Similar as intro, but with chord more developed Games & Sources Remixer name: Bluelighter Real Name: Guillaume SAUMANDE Mail: guillaume.saumande@hotmail.com ID forum: 21840 Game & Songs: Final Fantasy XI & Batallia Downs Final Fantasy XI Rise of the Zilart & Rabao Composer: Naoshi Mizuta
prophetik music Posted October 24, 2024 Author Posted October 24, 2024 fun, light, shuffle to start. really nice use of dynamics to focus the ear on the 'different' instruments. the melody of both of these tracks has a lot of sustains, and you do a nice job translating a sustained element to a decaying one in the piano. there's a little time fuzziness around 1:00. 1:15's little sparkling descending line is really nice. 1:23's a nice contrast to the opening voicings of the chords, richer and fuller as you get farther down the keys. rabao's quicker approach has more life to it - stronger left hand, and the melody line is jauntier as well. i think it's a nice play off the difference of the two originals and how they approached similar ideas. 2:35's a nice transition back into battalia at 2:45. i loved the harmonized melody here too - again, a great job translating a more sustained melody to that of a hammered instrument. lovely arpeggiated chord at 3:20. 3:23's lush instrumentation is a great contrast to the earlier section, just beautiful work there. back to the opening shuffle as an outro, with a quirky little final chord to finish it. slam dunk as expected. exceptional use of the different themes to make a unified whole. YES
Liontamer Posted November 12, 2024 Posted November 12, 2024 You can pretty much take a Bluelighter arrangement timestamp to the bank, not that this was a complex source tune or melodically liberal piano arrangement. The piano sound was in the uncanny valley, a common issue with Bluelighter's solo piano pieces, but an issue that stands out more due to this performance style. The piano sample sounds noticeably stiff here. If the sound were more humanized instead of very much in the uncanny valley, this would land better. A drawback of the particular keyboard being used? If someone knows what to call this piano playing style and can link an example of one on a real piano, maybe it could help uncover ways to produce somthing like this -- for example, adding effects to mitigate the realism issues. The run from 3:24-3:51 with some flowing notes in the background sounds comparatively much better. This performance style and the dynamics of the arrangement aren't benefitted by the sample/articulation limitations. The bar doesn't need to be so high as to disqualify this, but the sample's very exposed, and the end result just doesn't hit the way it should or could. It sounds like I'm saying I hated this, when really I'm lamenting for what it *could* have been, richer-sounding and more humanized, to better do justice to Guillame's solid arrangement. YES (borderline)
Flexstyle Posted November 21, 2024 Posted November 21, 2024 I suspect what Larry is looking for is more natural tempo variation (the pushing and dragging of tempo that often occurs during a piano performance) and slightly better differentiation between soft and loud samples. This is all kinda the same volume of piano, no matter the "hardness" of the sample. Regardless, the arrangement is thoroughly enjoyable, moving forward with purpose, yet never losing sight of the original source. No objections here. YES
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