*NO* Final Fantasy 9 'Another Journey'

[Liontamer]

Hello, submitting a track.

Remixer: Zoned

Game: Final Fantasy (IX)

Song: Prelude

User number on forums: 22150 (Themaister). Zoned is my artist name.

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http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 423 "Prelude"

Nothing awful production-wise, but still poor IMO. The synth design was generic and the sound quality was too lossy. You need to do a VBR encoding for something this long in order to mitigate lossiness. I felt some of the core patterns within the track were very bland as well, and dragged the piece down somewhat.

While there were some decent supportive writing ideas interpreted from the original, the source melody (and countermelody from 5:06-5:48) was basically just used from "The Prelude" with little-to-no interpretation, which was boring. Could have been more interesting integrating the original section at 6:07 that ended the piece within other areas of the arrangement.

I didn't feel any of the original ideas here compensated for the shortcomings of the arrangement, and what we ended up with was a relatively paint-by-numbers genre piece. Solid beginner-level sub though. Hopefully you'll tap into more creativity with other ideas you'll have as you gain more experience.

NO

[zircon]

Up to :41 I thought the sounds were pretty nice, good chill groove. But one of the piano instruments at :41 seems to be kind of out of tune, and really at that point everything is just a little too washed out and reverb-heavy. The synths at 1:20 weren't bad, contributed to the chill groove. Once the prelude melody comes in, at this point, I'm feeling like this really needs to be a little more built up. 2:23 is what I'm talking about, better layering here, with some nice variations on the prelude melody on the piano in the background. Still, the pad + piano feel mushed together and not appropriately separated.

At 3:03 the change into uptempo dance/trance was rather surprising. It took awhile for any percussion to come back in, and when it did, it didn't quite match the feel of the rest of the instruments. I would have changed the drum samples to punch through a little more.

All in all, the level of interpretation was good, and I liked your ideas. However, the arrangement does seem to be drawn out, with a lacking sense of pacing and dynamics. It doesn't quite flow like it should; I feel like if this were more like 4 minutes or so, it would have been stronger. Production could use some tuning up at times, mainly the mixing and excessive reverb, and the percussion in the brighter prelude section.

You're on the right track. An excellent early sub, keep working at it.

NO

[DarkeSword]

I really dig the groove in the beginning; there's a wicked vibe going on. I agree though, that it sort of gets killed with messiness when we get the detuned piano. I can kind of see what you're going for with that in the minor section at the start, but here are some suggestions, mostly fror the right hand part: I think you'd be better served with a drier sound in the piano, so less reverb for one; keep the detuned sound, but bring it up an octave or two and add a delay effect; and for a little fun, put a high-pass filter on it along with a little distortion. You'll get a nice eerie high piano sound.

The synth strings playing the prelude melody lack definition and end up bleeding together a bit on the moving lines; be careful of that. As for the arpeggiating line, it gets old fast, so try to change that up a little by automating the duration of the individual notes to change over time (i.e. legato to staccato and back again). Might get some interesting results with a chance to fill things in with some more beatwork.

So yeah, less reverb would be good all around I think; go for a cleaner sound and tighten up the percussion. Not a bad sub, but a long ways to go. Good luck.

NO