*NO* Final Fantasy 7 "Cosmodeus Carnival"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: Davtronics

This track was an accidental inspiration for me a few months back. While playing around with sounds I was distracted by the bass sound I was utilizing and it reminded me of the full sound produced by the Cosmo Canyon theme from FF7.

I was lucky enough through my music education to be exposed to a diverse set of instruments, percussion, and musical styles. I have always had a soft spot for Brazilian music including the parade style sounds that accompany festivals like Carnival.

Once I laid down the percussion parts, the feel of the song started coming together. I thought the additional flare and layering of percussion parts to mimic the drums used in Samba style beats with the toms providing a marching beat similar to that produced by surdo drums. The ostinato rhythm of the underlying snare drum is meant to keep the pulse locked in and grooving. I opted to utilize a drumkit for the rest of the tracks percussion to make it more accessible than using all of the different sounds. 

Once the kit part was added, the bass line needed some support in the melodic and chord departments. Since I chose a kit, adding guitars to the mix seemed to make sense in terms of instrumentation. I went with one lower octave guitar to keep a rhythm and layered a more lead sounding guitar on top to give it that soaring melody feeling of the original. Additionally, I wanted a choppy pulse underneath to keep a syncopated and danceable feel to the song as sambas are meant for getting down to and moving one's body. The underlying synth inspired the middle section.

Building up to the middle portion I wanted to add something unique to the arrangement that clashed in an interesting way. The synth sound gave me feelings of a rock opera style backing sound. So once I finalized the build up to the release after the main melody, largely built on percussive elements, it felt natural to have a drum fill lead into a half time feeling pulse that would open the space up. The bass line with the slower pulse behind it opened up in a way that reminded me of songs like Chewbacca by Dream Theater and thus, the guitar solo to add that heavy rock feel to the track came fluid and for me, created a fun experience as a listener once it was completed. Then the song rounds out again to reprise the main melodic section with a fade out that teases the middle section. 

This is my first time submitting to OC Remix, as I have been a long time fan that didn't follow my love for music for far too many years. I am hoping the judges can enjoy this track and that we can all be dancing and grooving together in the near future.

Thank you for your time and the consideration.

Have a great day,

~Davtronics

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Games & Sources

The source for this inspiration was Nobuo Uematsu's Cosmo Canyon theme as featured in Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy tunes have been remixed since they came out and I recently got into sound production and this track made sense to based on it's arrangement by Nobuo Uematsu which left space for adding and manipulating the genre.

Link Source: 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Hemophiliac
closed vote

[prophetik music ⚖️]

original is one of my favorites from FF7.

opens right away with stutter synths and some recognizable samba-adjacent rhythms in the percussion. the cosmo canyon bassline is there as well but not particularly present. the melody line comes in at 0:19 in what i think is an electric guitar, and there isn't a lot of personalization. guitar doesn't have a lot of body to the tone or verb/delay/chorus to fill it out - part of this might be how it's being recorded. the chorus section of the melody line has a lot more going on, mostly in the drums (there's some really sick stuff happening here in the drums). 1:36's got a solo section which is pretty fun. there's a comp section for a bit and then the melodic line comes back in for a recap. there's a fadeout after this repetition of the entire verse/chorus structure, and it's done.

the whole mix sounds like it's been recorded on a smartphone - there's a big hole around 2khz across the board, and each instrument sounds like it's missing something. i think the main issue is just the actual mics being used for the recording, or the recording technique. this is a shame because this is a badass version of the theme! there's so much fun stuff going on, especially in the performance. the original plods in a pleasing, old-world way that makes the build at the end of the chorus exciting, but your version has so much more vibrancy to it throughout thanks to the clave rhythms.

i'd love to have heard more variety in the stutter synth - it keeps hammering a lot throughout without much change, and there's definitely room to mix up the backing elements the second time through the melody. a real ending would be great. i also would love to hear more personalization of the melody line, as what's here doesn't take advantage of, for example, the long sustains at the end of each line in the verses. and i'd love an ending, although a fadeout is not a huge problem.

but ultimately what's keeping this one back right now is the sound quality. the individual instruments simply aren't recorded at a level that would be acceptable for this site. finding a better way to record - or instead sequencing instruments - would be needed. another option is to use this as a template and get some other folks who have the ability to record or sequence elements to replace what you can't do yourself at a high level.

what a fun track! i'd love to hear it with better sound quality and a few tweaks to the soundscape.

 

 

NO

[paradiddlesjosh ⚖️]

Howdy Dav! Love me some "Cosmo Canyon!"

You're probably going to think I hated your submission. proph's right that there's a big hole around 2kHz in the overall mix. On top of that, the lows and upper mids (50-120Hz and a wide bell around 5kHz) are boosted smiley face-style over the low mids, it looks and sounds like the mids have been artificially widened in the stereo field, and the track has several peak clips. The result is a muddy smear of a mixdown; none of the parts feel like they have a defined space in the soundscape, and they're all competing with each other for a slice of clarity in the upper mids bump. The production quality is too far below the bar for this to pass, even with the best possible interpretive arrangement.

Which is a shame, because there are some highlights in the arrangement worth shouting out, namely the samba rhythms in the drums and the solo section at 1:36 that's a stylistic breath of fresh air. I'll echo proph's suggestion of more personalization on the melody line and a more definitive ending (the fadeout is fine, but a real outro would really take this to the next level).

I can't say for sure that the recording quality of the parts is responsible for the mixdown, though -- it's hard for me to tell if the parts were recorded poorly or if the EQ and stereo widening are the culprit. In any case, this one needs a production overhaul before it's ready for OCR. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend asking around in the #workshop channel on the OC ReMix Discord server or the (less active) Post Your Game ReMixes! forum for feedback. There's an arrangement with legs here, Dav; it needs some help getting those legs moving.

NO (resubmit)

[Hemophiliac ⚖️]

Arrangement aspects of this are in a good place. I applaud the changes made to the original to make this your own, there's a lot of really interesting things going on. With that in mind I would like to see some more development of the melody some as well as variation in the percussion within any given section. The fade out ending isn't great, but not a deal breaker by itself. The improvised soloing in the 1:36 is nice, I'm not 100% sold on a few of the phrases here but it gets the job done.

The guys already laid this out pretty well. So I'm not going to rehash a ton of it. The major downfall of this is the production. From sound/sample choices and mixing are low quality. I don't even know why there's a dip in the 2kHz range either. There's a ton of mud in the low end and overall a general lack of clarity. Establish clarity between the parts and a more fullness of sound.

Neat ideas, but very much lacking on the production side.

NO