prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 8 Posted January 8 Distinct list of musicians involved: Zack Parrish, colorado weeks, Pixels & Paradiddles, Ridley Snipes, prophetik music, Shea's Violin, KestrelGirl, Chromatic Apparatus, Travis Kindred, TSori, JohnStacy, Xaleph, GameroftheWinds, pearlpixel, Andrew Gossett, Nicole Chang, Mel Decision, Jabo, Earth Kid, Linnea Burr, Aeroprism, Lucas Guimaraes, Cyril the Wolf, Hemophiliac, Sirenstar, Emunator Comments from colorado weeks: It was a fun challenge to arrange for SATB choir for the first time instead of noodling into a mic. so grateful for everyone's help with getting these out, especially Hemo for proofreading the sheets and proph for mixing/editing the chorus. I'm so proud of our one-winged choir for singing my meme lyrics. Sorry about that tritone, by the way, Hemo. I made sure to give it to us altos ;) ( Comments from Zack Parrish: When I first set out to work on this project I had no ambitions to make it the size and scope that it became. I originally reached out to the dynamic duo, Pixels and Paradiddles and was going to just do your typical rock opera, less the vocals, with the three of us. We were going to tick off doing OWA on our bucketlists and that was that. Over the course of about... 2 days the team for the track grew to about 10 as I maxed out the group chat limit very quickly by adding people. Why? Emunator and I decided to have a direct competition with each other(which he ended up beating me on but we were also on each other's tracks at the end so it didn't really make any difference at that point). Essentially once we challenged each other to a duel for Dwelling of Duels I tapped on every person I considered a great asset at the time. People I regularly use for cases where I need the best. There were of course a couple of new faces involved early on as well that I had never collabed with, namely Hemophiliac and Kirina. But the rest of the crew was familiar with my shenanigans and knew the assignment right out of the gate. Go big or go home. And thus it ... multiplied how many people were involved because I realized having a handful of vocalists wasn't going to cut it, and if I'm doing orchestra... why not find any entire orchestra? So I had to create an entire Discord server to dedicate to this project. I sketched out the gist of the structure of the piece and started working on a rough draft with orchestral samples, without any guitars, vocals, etc. I decided this time around I'm going to spread the responsbility of the different components to people that I feel were much stronger in these respective areas than I... so I tapped ParadiddlesJosh for all things percussion(writing, coordination, programming, performance, etc), pixelseph for all things guitar / bass related, colorado weeks for all things vocals, and then RidleySnipes was a late addition to handle the mixing / mastering of the stems for everything. With that, we set on our way over a few weeks of throwing ideas out there in a slew of channels on the server dedicated to each section. Meanwhile I kept adding more and more people, some of which were referred to me by others that had joined already... to increase not only the size of our choir but the size of our orchestra. At one point we started jesting about trying to recruit all of the judges at OCR at the time. It was a brief thought at the time but we clearly didn't go through with it. It was later revealed by prophetik that the rule doesn't actually exist and that it is more of a principle of theirs not to vote on their own tracks. Honorable to say the least. Eventually I had... I don't even know how many people anymore signed up to perform parts covering almost the entirety of the wind and string portions of the ensemble, 2 guitarists(also covering electric bass), 2 drummers(one programmed the other performed), full on chamber choir that proph took the helm on syncing up the stems and pre-mixing so Ridley didn't have as much of an undertaking, and well... that's that. I tried to have Emunator more involved but he was tied up on his own track pretty heavily so his involvement was mostly around sound design. As the parts rolled in for each respective section the track started to come alive and doing test renders of everything were more and more exciting. Was this a bad idea to try and do something so ambitious while also in the 2nd month of my new job? Absolutely. I am still recovering from it mentally but the journey to completion was a fun one. Witnessing everybody that was involved getting so excited to be a part of the project, have fun crafting the end result, and then experience the joy of hearing the final mix as we launched it into the DoD sun... had its own rewards. They all brought their A-game and despite some comments that would suggest otherwise, I truly feel like they all came together to create a great rendition of the theme. It's a theme I've wanted to tackle for over a decade and they gave me the opportunity to do it with gusto. It was an honor to work with all of them and even though I may never do something to this scale again, they are all on my radar to work with again in the future. Arrangement & Production: Zack Parrish Vocal Arrangement: colorado weeks Percussion Arrangement: paradiddlesjosh Guitar Arrangement: pixelseph Mixing & Mastering: Ridley Snipes Editing: Ridley Snipes, Zack Parrish, prophetik music(vocals) Lyrics: colorado weeks Sound Design: Emunator Orchestra Violin: Shea's Violin(Lead), KestrelGirl Viola: KestrelGirl Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Contrabass: Travis Kindred Trumpet: TSori French Horn: JohnStacy Trombone: Xaleph Flute: GameroftheWinds Oboe: pearlpixel Bassoon: Andrew Gossett Saxophones: prophetik music Harp: Nicole Chang Percussion: paradiddlesjosh(programmed), Mel Decision(performed) Band Lead Guitar: pixelseph Rhythm Guitar: pixelseph, Jabo Bass: Jabo Drums: paradiddlesjosh(programmed) Choir Soprano: colorado weeks, Earth Kid, Kestrel Girl, Linnea Burr, Nicole Chang Alto: colorado weeks, Earth Kid, Kestrel Girl, Sirenstar Tenor: Aeroprism, Andrew Gossett, Lucas Guimaraes, paradiddlesjosh, pixelseph, Xaleph Bass: Andrew Gossett, Cyril the Wolf, Hemophiliac, Lucas Guimaraes, paradiddlesjosh, prophetik music Lyrics(Latin): sortes qui facit, vexa et inveni sortes qui facit, vexa et inveni sephiroth sephiroth nemo, nemo me impune lacessit nemo, nemo me impune lacessit sephiroth sephiroth plus musici, plus victoriae plus musici, plus victoriae sortes qui facit, vexa et inveni sortes qui facit, vexa et inveni sephiroth sephiroth nemo, nemo me impune lacessit nemo, nemo me impune lacessit sephiroth sephiroth veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus (non plus aeris, non argentum) veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus (si vis pacem, para bellum) veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus (non plus aeris, non argentum) veni, veni, venias veni facere iocus (si vis pacem, para bellum) sephiroth sephiroth sephiroth Lyrics (very loose translation): you have sealed your fate, mess around and find out. you have sealed your fate, mess around and find out. sephiroth sephiroth nobody, nobody provokes me with impunity. nobody, nobody provokes me with impunity. sephiroth sephiroth more musicians, more victories more musicians, more victories you have sealed your fate, mess around and find out. you have sealed your fate, mess around and find out. sephiroth sephiroth nobody, nobody provokes me with impunity nobody, nobody provokes me with impunity sephiroth sephiroth come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" (no more bronze, no silver) come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" (if you want peace, prepare for war) come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" (no more bronze, no silver) come, come, oh come, come make "the joke" (if you want peace, prepare for war) sephiroth sephiroth sephiroth
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 8 Author Posted January 8 hemo, emu, and myself were involved with this. i was specifically only involved with the lining up and processing of the vocal parts and one fifteen-second section on sax, so it's not like i was doing a lot of arranging or mastering myself. i'm comfortable approaching this from a critic's perspective and not as a contributor given that i came into the project as late as i did. i'll note that almost every element was performed live. opens with a very cinematic pop, then we get some beautifully performed harp. the choir parts are imo too quiet and don't come through the mix well (this is partially on the performers not having developed formants and partially due to mix imo). 0:50 gives us the 'impending doom' section from the original, and the build into 1:25 is super exciting and intense. the horn riff right after is really great too, but is a bit overused in several other areas of the song immediately following that rhythmic pattern. 1:49's recap of the chorus section is nice and intense, but i felt this section didn't have enough beef in the bass to really feel as powerful as it could have. there's a transition to the bridge section at 2:19, and this is nice and light as a contrast. it gets a little messy from an auditory standpoint at about 2:47 (i think the guitars aren't quite as light on their feet as they could be here, and the distortion hangs a bit). there's an even lighter section with some oboe at 3:03 - the vibrato on the oboe isn't super clear and would have been great if it could have been wider and have some more body to it. some rising action at 3:18 that eventually includes some voices. this section was a little earth kid-heavy and that's actually probably my fault for not reining in her power notes a bit. i really liked the section at 4:02 - both the voices and in the very charismatic background elements throughout. we get some guitars at 4:33 - this entrance sounds super dope. i wish that the choir behind this was fuller as well, especially in the lower voices, to support it more. there's some insanity right after this in the backing parts, and the choir here sounds really full so that's great. we also finally get the big sephiroth chant that we've all wanted! aeroprism's voice really pops here imo and sounds fantastic. there's some really nice flute flourishes in this section too. this is, like, 90 seconds solid of just incredible stuff. easily my favorite section. there's a big build starting at 6:45. most of the men's voices here are hard to hear (this is again a formant thing), which is a bummer as that section took a while to line up. i believe aeroprism's voice here relative to the other men is too loud (or maybe they're all too quiet?), but again that's on me as the guy that handled the vox blend. there's a huge orchestral build through here and that feels great. we get one last big chord and it's done, outside of some sfx at the very end. this is outrageous and enormous and a wild undertaking. i get that some people are fatigued with the theme being The Video Game Orchestra Track, but the execution here is tremendous. for the most part, each section in this track is represented in a similar way that other arrangements of this original have used, but the technical proficiency, performance scope, and the way everything fits together isn't like any other representation of this theme i've ever heard. it's truly impressive. easily the best arrangement of this track i've heard since the FF7 project and Black Wing Metamorphosis (17.5 years ago!!!). i have nitpicks but nothing of substance. excellent work. YES pixelseph and paradiddlesjosh 2
Chimpazilla ⚖️ Posted April 7 Posted April 7 (edited) Wow, this is insane indeed, and it is giving me Trans Siberian Orchestra vibes in the best possible way. What an impressive list of artists contributing to this, and the mix sounds so professional. *How did this submission get all the way to the bottom of the queue....* This is a long arrangement, and so is the source tune. It sounds like enough source, as I try to quickly grok the situation. This is absolutely astounding. YES Edited April 11 by Chimpazilla
Rexy ⚖️ Posted April 8 Posted April 8 Am I expected to write a serious vote? The answer is probably not, but I'm going to try anyway. So, first of all, it's got a very dramatic structure. We got a dark sweep into a pretty rendition of Aerith's theme, and then, symbolic of her role in this part of the game, the track morphs into the final segment of the source with an orchestral and guitar buildup. So, after hearing all the performers get into position for a vocal-free rendition of the main loop's second half and showcase their main capabilities, you know that something will hit the fan big time. With a similar load of the source's descending arpeggios before letting the vocals conclude their entrance with the drum rolls, the arrangement rightfully becomes more meat-and-potatoes - but it needed to be to allow the meme vocals and genre direction to completely anchor and finalize this part of the vision with a grand finish, give or take the comedic cough. Everything checks out arrangement-wise, with no single seam broken on the production front either. Understanding that the mix consists entirely of live performers, all recordings are clean, with all the panning, mixing, and synergizing together in all the right places to fit this grand vision. The only thing I would've liked is to hear more of that tenor section, as it sounded like that carried more of the core melody - but this is the mixing vision you did, and I still have absolutely nothing but respect for how it all got together. It's no secret now that OCR doesn't do direct posts anymore, but if it still did, this would've been one! You've given the rest of us non-performer judges one heck of a track to vibe to, and let's share that onto the site for everyone else. Nice work! YES pixelseph and paradiddlesjosh 2
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