Liontamer Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 The (Funky) Spy - by Cram (that's me) (it's attached) Cover of "The Spy" by Nobuo Uematsu - featured in Final Fantasy VIII. Lately I have been back into the old PSX Final Fantasies and am endlessly inspired by the music. I am an avid listener of all of Uematsu's work (both original and a lot of stuff on ocremix). I love his work and the emotion that each track carries with it brings the story, characters, and artwork to life! I recorded this song with an electric guitar, usb keyboard, and an old yamaha drum pad that I found in my basement. I had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully you enjoy it! (if you get to it!). Thanks for your time! -Marc http://www.checkerpop.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- As much as I liked "The Spy", and I enjoy the track a lot, I've never actually had to really internalize it until now. The Spy was already a funky track, but let's see what we've got. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 301 "The Spy" Just off the intro, the production is on the low-fi side as nothing sounds clean, except for the bowed strings which IMO sound too quiet but also unrealistic in terms of the attacks. Arrangement-wise, the composition is simplistic, but damned if I'm not feeling that groove of the beat and the funky electric guitar stuff going on. Great changeup at 1:00 to focus on the electric guitar while dropping out the percussion and presenting the source melody differently. The drumbeat does get overly repetitive once it's brought back at 1:23 as the overall texture was empty enough where the pattern was too exposed and IMO felt too plain. Some of the fills were good, but the steady beat was boring. This guy is like zyko's lost-long cousin. Man, I really love what you're doing here in terms of the interpretation of the original; it's definitely got it own unique take on the source while retaining the funk at the core. But you've gotta put some meat on the bones in terms of the instrumentation. The guitar work sounds great, but the strings, piano need a bit more fullness and realism in the performance, plus you could stand to add 1 or 2 other elements to put more substance to the textures without overriding the relaxed/chill vibe you're going for. IMO, the drum pad pattern was ok in the beginning because there was more off-beat writing going on to make things interesting and keep the drums to a very supplementary role. Once you put it more in the forefront at 1:22, it clearly wasn't substantive enough that it could carry the lion's share of the activity without some sort of bassline or other complimentary backing instrument. Definitely hope you stick around the community, learn more at our ReMixing and Works forums and keep submitting material. Work on this one more if you can. Hopefully the other Js can give you some good advice. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 Haha, the intro to the source tune sounds like a B-side to "Underneath the Rotting Pizza" from FF7, and the whole thing sounds vaguely inspired by "Oppressed People". The production here is kinda off. The drums are heavily filtered/distorted to the point where they're just unpleasant. The hits definitely cause clipping-style distortion regularly, and the piano is buried; plus until 1:01 there's hardly anything melodic to speak of. The wah guitar doesn't really sound that tight, at least compared to the original. The beats at 1:21 are again too trashy and also over-reverbed. When the piano comes in again it's as quiet as it was before. This feels like the backing to a track that should have a lead over it. No instruments are really prominent at all besides the drums. The strings are also pretty bleh in terms of sample quality. Overall, production needs a lot of work, especially in the consistency of the frequency balance throughout. With regards to arrangement, the style is kind of similar to the original, though the way the melodies from the original were presented is varied somewhat. There is definitely a level of interpretation in some parts, but the weak production makes it hard to distinguish any melodic focus, and in fact I kind of felt that this strayed into liberal territory towards the second half, as I wasn't hearing a lot of source there. The structure of the piece is also kind of weak, with basically two very different sections loosely connected, and then a very abrupt ending. There's lots of room for development here. More focus on melody should be your main priority. Keep at it! NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 So, not gonna spend a whole lot of time on this. Andy and I checked this out together, and we both had the same gripes. I'm not a huge fan of the overall EQ. It's too muddy to begin with, and too then by the end. I can barely hear the melody from the source played by your strings and piano, because they are waaaaaay too far back. Drum riff isn't bad, but maybe drop the distortion and filtering down just a notch. And automate. switch up the FX once in a while to keep things interesting. Otherwise, Andy pretty well covered my other concerns. Not a bad sub, but needs some work--keep at it. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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