*NO* Final Fantasy 6 'Ballade of 12 Warriors (Part 2)'

[Liontamer]

Gave permission for the submitting artist to sub both parts now, since this was broken up into two parts - LT

Link to song:

ReMixer name: Shakespeare

real name: Justin E. Grant

remixer's email: jgrant@jegarts.com

website: www.jegarts.com

Featuring Guitarist: Mike Letourneau, engineer at Soundtrack Boston (axeman5403@yahoo.com)

Game arranged: Final Fantasy VI

Song arranged: Ending

Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

System: Super Famicom

Comments: This is part two of a two-part arrangement. Some might recognize this from my all-sampled beta version posted about 2 years ago on VGmix. This new arrangement was recorded and re-mixed for a finished touch. I came to Mike, knowing he was a talented guitarist, with my original song and told him that it needed a serious overhaul. After playing him the old mix, I asked him if he would be willing to record all the guitar tracks and replace the existing ones. He did not even hesitate. Months later, he was done with all the tracks and I started working on the final mix. I hope this long effort of ours provides some enjoyment for the ears of others.

[DarkeSword]

Since this is essentially part two of a larger work, I'm going to copy and paste my vote from part one, as all my issues with this part are pretty much the same.

I realize that 'Ending' is basically a medly of the songs from Final Fantasy 6, but that doesn't excuse you basically sending us a medly-mix. This piece doesn't have any real structure; it just goes through all of the different themes from FF6 with some quick and dirty transitions in between.

The guitar is great, but everything else, no so much. The drums are pretty repetitive throughout the piece, though there are some nice fills. The cymbal crash and swells are too loud though, and sound jarring when they come in. Thin synth strings don't add much except a general sense of the chord progression.

I don't really know what to tell you; I think that your medly approach is just incongruous with what we're looking for here at OCR and coupled with an arrangement that basically relies far too much on the guitar to do the heavy lifting, it comes off as unsuccessful. :\

I will say however, there was more of an attempt in this part to have a stronger presence in the bassline, but I still think it wasn't enough.

NO

[CHz]

Like DS, copying my vote because everything applies to this too:

The FF6 ending theme is a great piece in game. Fits the ending sequence absolutely wonderfully, recapping a whole bunch of themes as the characters <<spoiler>>. Outside of the game? Absolutely terrible case of medleyitis. Song one, song two, song three, song four, etc. And, unfortunately, your mix hasn't particularly improved upon that at all.

Arrangement of the pieces is really coverish as well. There's some melodic interpretation in a few places, but most of the writing is directly from the original.

I didn't think your drum writing was really that bad at all, but they did feel a little weak. Guitar's pretty good. Beyond that, there's really not much else to speak of in the track. Most of everything else is just backing up the guitar. But really, the problem is the minimal arrangement and medleyitis.

I'm not sure if it would be possible at all to arrange the ending theme and get it onto OCR. It seems like tackling the whole thing could only lead to awful medleyitis as it does in this mix. A better approach would probably just be picking a few individual sources and putting them together into a medley instead of taking on the whole thing.

NO, but I'm keeping this, because it is a nice guitar cover.

This half felt a little more cohesive than the first, but it's still nowhere near enough.

NO

[Liontamer]

Same vote as the first here as well.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Ending Theme (part 1)" [ff6-315a.spc] & "Ending Theme (part 2)" [ff6-315b.spc]

Indeed, the guitar performance from Mike was pretty good. The drum writing was only half-decent. Terribly weak-sounding and didn't drive the piece along at all most of the time. Beyond some of the cooler fills, the kit basically just kept time and felt flimsy during the most straightforward sections. Definitely a major dealbreaker to me, unfortunately.

The bowed string sequencing in the background was OK, mostly covered up by the guitar being so much louder, though they could have sounded richer and more realistic. I would have layered them up some more to achieve a bigger sound. Agreed with DarkeSword on some of the cymbal flourishes being way too loud and jarring as well.

Summarizing that, you need to step it up on creating interesting, sophisticated drumwork that fits more cohesively into the big picture (especially the snare patterns), and also tone down the volume on the cymbal crashes. These issues substantially hamper any kind of rock arrangement.

Yeah, Justin, arrangement-wise, the structure was too close to the original. I actually would take an arrangement of the Ending Theme if the individual pieces were more interpretive and flowed together from section to section more smoothly, but they don't here. It's also highly unlikely anyone else could do so, but let me elaborate:

2. Submissions incorporating more than one source are allowed, but are not given special consideration or leniency with regard to the submission standards.

* Your submission must have a strong focus and direction. Medleys must sound like a single song, not multiple songs pasted together.

Explaining how it applies to this case: even though the source tune is a medley, in order to passably arrange it for here, you would have to do it in such a way that the structure seems like one continuous, evolving idea and not just several themes strung together.

I'd hazard to say that in order to actually create a passable arrangement of this theme and use every source tune, you'd need around 2 minutes per theme and nearly every theme would have to transition smoothly into the next one, building off of the previous theme. In other words, nothing that would ever fit under 6MB. That's why the others are suggesting you tackle fewer themes, with more time and development given to each theme.

NO