Liontamer Posted February 14, 2007 Share Posted February 14, 2007 Hey OCR- This was my contribution to the Bad Dudes EP, a remix of "Fuse" from Xenogears, and probably one of my favorite Yasunori Mitsuda pieces. I've always wanted to do a mix of this, but had never gotten around to it although I've done my fair share of Mitsuda mixes. This is definitely a fun song to perform and I had a good time playing it. I found myself looking for an excuse to rewind and replay the parts, so most of this is live takes of the respective instruments. By the end of the song I was literally banging on my synths, squeezing out every last drop of velocity and expression data. I tried to have some restraint and leave out the piano comping that I love to do, but I couldn't resist - so if you listen carefully to the last half, you can hear me happily comping along. I called this mix "On a Short Fuse Lately" anyway, good times. Thanks, Dale North dale@dalenorth.com ---------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 109 "Shattering Egg of Dreams" & 114 "Fuse" Nice opening and close referencing "Shattering Egg of Dreams"; I love how it bookends the track. The thin percussion at :25 didn't mesh as well with the beefy orchestration as compared to "Fuse" and some of the swells felt too loud. The tone of the new drums settling in at 1:50 didn't sound good when it was doing its beatkeeping stuff; it meshed better with the rest of the instrumentation during the (awesome) fills. Minor criticisms in the bigger picture. The kicker for me was the arrangement being too conservative, not feeling markedly different than the original aside from more powerful instrumentation and the key change. The structure, tempo, and instrumental textures don't stand apart enough from the source tune. As a known proponent of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", I can't knock it that you like the original that much, but it needs more substantial interpretation as far as OCR goes. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 Pretty nice full orchestra sound throughout. I gotta be honest, the percussion that kicked in at :26 was pretty terrible... both thin and dry as a cracker, and therefore extremely out of place among it's more meaty counterparts. almost sounded like a metronome that was left on in the final render. Especially as the orchestrations pick up additional weight. This is a definite upgrade in overall instrument quality. I have to agree with LT that the overall deviation from "Fuse" is just a tad close-to-home. In fact, the misfit percussion previously mentioned is probably a result of trying too hard to emulate the exact part in "fuse" itself. And other than the fact that the key is different, melodically it's still pretty darn verbatim. Not that I'm opposed to repeating a riff closely; I think that's perfectly acceptable as long as you don't overdo it, or get to the point where your track relies mostly on the upgraded instrumentation. That's definitely an OCR quirk. I like your track, and I hate to make calls like this... it happens more frequently than I'd like, but on the precept of rejecting other great tracks on account of being too similar to their source tunes, I'm going to make the same judgment here. This could definitely be a pretty easy resub. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 I agree that the arrangement is fairly conservative, and the upgraded instrumentation does not make up for it. I also think that while the orchestral parts are generally pretty strong, the acoustic drums are somewhat low energy. They sound like an upgrade of a basic GM kit and to me don't quite match the quality of the other elements. I would kind of like to hear heavier/more powerful drums and perhaps some additional synths as well doubling up orchestral parts. However, this isn't really a big deal. Again my main problem is the arrangement. This needs to set itself apart from the original more via harmony/melodic variation, a more differentiated texture from the source, and/or some new original material as well to expand it. Please resub! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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