*NO* Final Fantasy Tactics "Cyberpunk Astronomy"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: Matt's Keys

This remix is inspired by synthwave and rock music styles. I tried to remain faithful to the source material while adding some new elements, including a keyboard solo and additional guitar melodies. 

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Games & Sources

Source tune: "Under the Stars" from Final Fantasy Tactics.

Original soundtrack composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.

YouTube link: 

Edited Tuesday at 07:08 PM by paradiddlesjosh

[prophetik music ⚖️]

opens with synthbass, some guitar, and a descending glidey synth. it quickly picks up and gets a beat and a stuttering backing element. the beat is pretty toothless, but the concept is a neat one. some sidechain and a beefed-up kit would help a lot. the melody line comes in at 0:34 in a detuned lead, and later is doubled by the guitar line. i like the fuzzy tone on the guitar, although it feels oddly EQed. there's something in the left ear at about 1:02 where it drops in volume for a second or two (you can see it in the waveform).

1:06 is a shift to half-time. the drums here are inaudible almost entirely. the synth elements are neat, but most are fighting for the front and so sound like they're overlapping. there's some odd chord stuff at 1:33, and we get a recap of the opening beat with the descending glidey synth. there's some guitar doing the lead. i like most of what the guitar's playing, i just think the instrument is muffled and the mix is really dense in a negative way. like, at 2:40, there's this tight lead synth playing and a super-verby synth comes in over top and just dominates it, and you can't hear anything else while that's soloing.

there's another break at 3:01 to half-time, same issues as before. the ending comes soon after - there really isn't one, it just cuts off after the second time through that half-time section after the weird chord thing. and that's that.

i think there's some really fun ideas here! i like the sound of the guitar combined with a variety of synths, and for the most part i like your synth selection a lot. i think your drums are way too quiet relative to the rest of the mix, and the overall arrangement is fairly repetitive (it's A B A B, and while there's solo elements that mix it up, each section is repeated when it comes around again). but there's definitely legs to this idea, it's just a matter of fixing up the mix a lot and then finding a way to not make the second half's structure so similar to the first. i think there's a lot of opportunity for little differences, especially in what little of the drums i could hear.

 

 

NO

[Emunator ⚖️]

Proph is right - there's a lot of great blocks laid out here - the synth selection, melodies and countermelodies, and overall arrangement are all pretty tightly executed! There is absolutely a passable remix in here, but the production is holding it back.

First and foremost, the drums are lacking presence and punch, and thus leave the soundscape feeling underwhelming and lacking dynamics. I would go back to the drawing board on the drum mix to make sure that you've left enough room for your percussion and set the proper volume levels so that everything is audible. My second suggestion is to look at the different instruments in your mix and make sure you don't have any wild frequencies creating spiky resonances, or low-end buildup muddying the soundscape. For example, at 1:40, there's a strong resonance that comes in until about 1:59, and returns throughout the track. I think this might be from the guitar, but something is very obviously peaking above the rest of the instruments and needs to be tamed with some EQ. The other lead synths occasionally have similar issues - this can eat up your space in the mix and generally make it unpleasant to listen to. If you're not already, utilize a free analyzer plugin like SPAN or a paramedtric EQ which can show you where frequencies are peaking. Also check to make sure that your instruments don't have unnecessary frequency buildup in the bass frequencies (below 200hz) since these are going to severely conflict with your kick and bass and make them less distinct.

These are the points I would start with to polish the mix, but this is by no means exhaustive. This would be a great candidate to hash out with the community in our Workshop forum or the Discord - we host weekly live WIP reviews on Discord as well that offer an opportunity to get into the weeds on mixing/mastering/production issues like the ones I'm hearing in your song.

The good news is that the fundamentals are strong - so keep at it, we'd love to hear this one back!

NO (resubmit)

[paradiddlesjosh ⚖️]

Hey there, Matt!

I'm going to co-sign with proph and Emu. The production on this track is the largest contributor to its shortcomings. The drums lack punch and are just buried under the synths and, to a lesser extent, the guitars. There's a massive buildup in the low mids (around 300 Hz) that makes the whole track sound muddy and the lead guitar and synths are competing for the mids bandwidth around 1-3 kHz. There's also that sudden drop in guitar volume in the left channel around 1:02 that proph mentioned. Sounds like a floor tom is causing clipping in the first B section (1:06-1:41), then another peak clip at 2:28 from the entrance of the reverb-heavy synth lead for the solo and more clipping at 2:58 on the fill heading into the final B section. Speaking of that synth lead, it utterly dominates the mix for the entire solo. Simply put, I'd need to hear more attention paid to volume balancing, EQ, and compression for this track to be ready to post.

It's worth pointing out that your arrangement's quite good! While the structure is conservative, I think your solos keep things interesting and let your voice shine through. To echo proph again, your sound palette works great for the style. The vibes are right, so let's fix the mix! I recommend joining the OCR Discord and looking for feedback in the #workshop channel and/or the Office Hours Weekly WIP Review on most Wednesday evenings.

NO (resubmit)