FF IX Assault of the White Dragons

[Barium]

I hope you'll allow me a small amount of exposition - this is my first remix. I started researching in mid October, starting working on this at the beginning of November, and almost had something presentable in early December. I was about an hour's worth of work away from "polishing" up this WIP to post here when my computer died and I lost access to all my files, but now I'm back in business!

This remix is a combination of two songs from the Final Fantasy 9 Soundtrack, The Evil Mist's Rebirth and Assault of the White Dragons. I've only gotten a bit into the latter of the two at this point, but I'll be progressing soon enough. Anyone who has played FF IX probably remembers the cutscene that accompanies Assault of the White Dragons, it's one of my personal favorite cutscenes out of any game (and also what made me want to try my hand at remixing the song.) I just wanted to see what I could do with it. I'm a big fan of epic music, so I that's what I'm going for. There's not much deviation from the sources because this isn't a situation where I like something from the source and want to do something else with it; I like the source in its entirety, and I simply want to build upon it. So maybe I might not be on the right track in regards to interpretation to make it onto the site at this point (keep in mind, this isn't done yet!) but I hope I can stay closer to the source rather than change things too much.

And while I'm on the subject of sources: the MIDI on vgmusic.com for the former of the two songs is pretty terrible (the second one is pretty bang on with a couple slight inaccuracies, but what're ya' gonna do?) I have the song files that I purchased, but I'm not sure what the policy here on hosting those is (I just haven't seen that really happen too much, I've only seen links to MIDIs on vgmusic.com). If it's cool, I can host them for comparison. If not, no problem.

So, without further ado, I present the incomplete Draco ex Machina.

Like I said, this is my first remix, the most experience I had prior to starting this was fiddling around with Noteworthy Composer 4 or so years ago, so I know there'll be a lot for me to work on. I appreciate any advice or constructive criticism that you guys can offer to me; I'd really like to make this as good as it can be.

[Inv1ctus]

First of all, nice choice of source, FF IX is one of my all time favorite games. Ive got a lot of input, and i hope you dont find it discouraging. Honestly, I'm really just going to reciprocate some remixing wisdom passed down to me from others on this site.

well im not sure what program your using to create this mix, but i might suggest balancing the percussion a little bit more with the track.

Also, EVERYTHING needs reverb. You dont need to go overkill, but definitely at least a little is called for here. It helps the instruments blend together a lot and makes everything sound more authentic to give that feel of a grand orchestra hall.

The brass samples are actually pretty good, which is ironic, because those are the ones that usually suffer the most in orchestral pieces. However, the naked clarinet and flute parts in the beginning show themselves to be pretty synthetic. Thats not necessarily something you can improve on unless you find a better sound sample library, but if you can, definitely change them out. That is something reverb will help a lot with too. Lastly, the violins in the beginning might have more punch if they were staccato. Pretty harp and cello part btw.

Although i really dont see a problem with it, some people on this site would probably critique this piece as suffering from a little bit of "medleyitis"; meaning that the song shifts gears a little bit and moves onward to another song. I'm pretty sure that happens with the middle viola/cello? solo. From there on it feels somewhat like a different piece.

Finally, i think maybe a little more could be done in the realm of dynamics. Some crescendo and decrescendo would animate this piece a lot, and give it that rushing sweeping movement that i can feel you going for.

All in all, great piece and REALLY not bad for your first mix. Make sure that it is different enough form the original before you think about submitting it, because as you said, its really similar to the source still. I hope you dont think i ripped on you, because I honestly like it a lot now just try and "own" the piece so-to-speak.

[HoboKa]

oh yeah...the instruments do need to fade out a bit more :S, but I don't think u need to put reverb on them per se, lol. And dag...very well done - this is a hard one to mix. I love the samples too, though some do feel a tad cheap. The brass is mm mm toasty...where'd u get the brass samples? lol.

I hope u get this mix posted eventually man, cuz this is pretty good.

[Skummel Maske]

Oh, this is very interesting! The Assault Of The White Dragons is one of my favourite tracks. I'll listen through it as soon as I get my sound up and running again..