ReMix:Final Fantasy VIII "Attack on Dollet" 3:33

Newcomer Alex Moukala hits us with a Hollywood-trailer style epic hybrid/cinematic arrangement of "The Landing" from FF8, and included a full list of the libraries/plugins he used:

"VSTs/sample libraries used: Native Instruments Kontakt 5, Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark 1, Heavyocity Damage, EastWest Symhponic Orchestra, EastWest Gypsy, Cinesamples Tina Guo Acoustic Cello Legato, Impact Soundworks Juggernaut, XFER Serum, Boom Library Cinematic Trailers Designed, Audio Imperia Scenes from the Multiverse, Audio Imperia Shredders, 8Dio Hybrid Tools 2, Valhalla Room"

Damn! Although... truth be told, I have a lot of these as well, and this just reminds me that I need to use them more & make more music! Alex writes:

"Here's a modern & trailer-ish epic orchestral remix I made of "The Landing" from Final Fantasy VIII, one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. It's my first submission ever, and it was evaluated by Gario in the forums. :)

I can still remember the day when I discovered OverClocked ReMix. I downloaded a certain Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream album, which I thought was an extension of the FF VII soundtrack that I spent my entire childhood listening to. To my surprise instead, after pressing the play button, I realized it was an amazing compilation of remixes, which would soon mark my journey into the realm of music composition. I remember that sense of overwhelming inspiration I felt for days after witnessing the work of all those super young composers, thinking to myself, "If they can do it, well, maybe I stand a chance too!"

The fact is, I've always been passionate about music, but not having any musical education or former experience with instruments, I simply felt l wasn't entitled or experienced enough to attempt to write it. That is, until that fateful day I discovered OverClocked ReMix. That day, I finally found some motivation to try and tackle this artistic scratch, and set to spend some time learning to produce/compose music and become good enough to have one of my tracks featured on OCR.

It's been three years now, ever since I seriously committed to make music every single day. After many many hours spent composing, countless tutorials and articles digested, and after working for stock music libraries to hone my craft, I found myself composing music professionally for Hollywood trailer music labels such as Really Slow Motion Music & Sound Design and others.

After all that experience, I'm still very far away from my highest artistic goals, but I feel like I can finally tackle one of my first ones: so here I am, submitting a track for the first time to the OverClocked ReMix judge panel! I hope you guys will enjoy the track, but regardless of that, I want to take this chance to personally thank the whole crew & composers for having created such a huge embodiment of inspiration which OverClocked ReMix has been to me. :) Much love, and sorry for the long description!"

It's an honor & a privilege to be involved with a community & with albums that inspire others - really cool backstory, very glad that Voices spoke to Alex, so to speak ;) You could basically guess the aesthetic of this arrangement JUST from the list of sample libraries utilized, and while you wouldn't be surprised at the approach, the implementation is dramatic and effectively captures the more modern cinematic/orchestral style. MindWanderer summarizes my own thoughts:

"Oh my, this instrumentation. Epic only begins to describe it. Such a rich soundscape. Gorgeous.

Arrangement-wise, certainly it's laid out in nearly the exact same way as the source, but there are lots of small change-ups, plus of course the instrumentation is just above and beyond... Those big percussive hits really cut through the mix, and there are so many of them, it does get a bit grating after a while. In 2:15-3:05 especially, it causes some over-compression. There's also perhaps too much of a dynamic contrast between the loudest and softest sections, such that I can't hear them both comfortably without adjusting the volume.

Those are my only criticisms, though, and they're fairly minor considering the strengths of this arrangement. Overall, this sounds fantastic, and I'd love to see it posted."

So yes, yes, and yes; I *do* think the number of hard percussive hits gets excessive & strains this genre-staple component a bit, structurally, but in all other regards this is generally some badass, grand-scale bombast. Liontamer adds:

"I was just commenting on Russell Cox's Castlevania III "Prelude to Darkness" as a good example of a structurally conservative OC ReMix that expanded upon its source tune, and this was another solid example here. Agreed with the others that this effectively takes "The Landing" and gives it a nice epic cinematic sound upgrade with good additive touches... Nice work, Alex, and welcome aboard!"

It's inspiring that Alex was in turn inspired by Voices of the Lifestream, and meta-inspiration is always neat, but this is ALSO an invigorating & suspenseful epic interpretation of the source that is inspiring in its own right. Great, high-impact debut from a talented arranger/composer - hope to hear more in the future!