ReMix:Octopath Traveler "At Finis Gate" 4:51

Back from vacation and ready to rock! Jorito (Jorrith Schaap) hits us up with a tasty cinematic/synthwave hybrid arrangement of Octopath Traveler's "The Gate of Finis," off of the Echoes of Eight album:

• Arrangement, production, vocals, electric guitar: Jorito
• Saxophone: Bobbie Jane Desforges
• Saxophone recording engineer: Eleanor Hébert
• Cello: Chromatic Apparatus

"Wrote this track for the Pixel Mixers Octopath Traveler album, Echoes of Eight. Originally, I opted to do the main theme, but got stuck and wasn't feeling it, so I was glad that this particular track, "The Gate at Finis," became available again. Due to the arp that's one of the main motifs of the source track, I was instantly inspired to do a synthwave/chillwave style track again.

Since it was a collaboration album, I also needed a minimum of two guests (something I initially almost forgot about). I already had a saxophone part written and was originally wanted to just stick with samples for it, but due to the collaborative nature of the album, I decided to reach out to find a saxophone. Help arrived in the form of Eleanor Hébert, who handled the sax recording and recruited Bobbie Jane Desforges to perform the part. I also needed another instrument, and decided to go for the cello for this track, an unconventional choice for this genre. I think it works very well in the more cinematic middle section of the track, and it also goes hand in hand nicely with my vague notion to create an EP in this style, with some less conventional instruments, similar to the Ōkami track I created earlier.

As is usual with my electronic/synthwave-inspired tracks, there's lots of synth layering and octaves going on to create this particular sound, some effects and transitions to keep the flow and bounce in it, and, in general, a good amount of care to make the entire track flow nicely. I'm rather proud of how it all came out, especially since the past 2 years have been pretty unproductive musically, and it's good to get back into the swing of things. And of course a big thank you to Bobbie Jane, Eleanor, and Chromatic Apparatus for their performances that brought the track to the next level. Definitely plan to do a few more synthwave tracks with unconventional instruments, stay tuned. ;)"

I love the variety of instruments and also moods/tones - you've got suspense, mystery, adventure, and chill veins running throughout, with a great blend of synthetic & acoustic/performed timbres. And yes, Jorito even gets a chance to work in his signature vocoder, titular cameo though it may be ;) prophetik music had an observant & insightful play-by-play:

"what a great genre adaptation for this. the slowdown stutter synth and initial presentation of everything at 0:30 is just great. melody is immediately apparent, saxophone is well-mastered with a lush verb for the style, and the wide synths and vox sound great. i agree with gario about the lack of low-end (and despite there not being any real beef down there, it does sound like occasionally there's some collision between the sweep synth in the lower mid range, like around 1:28ish). the cello sounds great with the big glisses in there. nice rich sound - excellent instrument choice.

the break around 2:41 is a nice break for the ear, and the bass drop into the next section at 3:00 is delicious. the following section features some nice stutter synths that add some extra color to the recap. it was a bit cluttered in the drump fill at 3:41, but the distorted synths (or synth guitars?) right after that were great. i like the false ending at 4:01 - that's a fun idea that i'm going to steal sometime! the sax solo following this is pretty flat but what it's playing is fun, and the ending is fine.

this is a great track. mastering sounds excellent aside from the nits i mentioned, arrangement is great, the personalization in here is great. nice work jorrith and company"

As a personal aside, while there are several excellent plugins for enhancing bass, I'm quite partial to bx_subsynth - incredibly useful for beefing up pretty much anything on the low end. To be honest, I didn't miss the bass much here, and was impressed with the overall clarity Jorito managed, given so many rich, wide-spectrum elements. Acoustic performances on sax & cello are definitely more emotional & higher-impact than straight samples would have yielded, so kudos to Jorito's collaborators for elevating the track. Judges were unanimous, and MindWanderer closes us out:

"I started off thinking, "Huh, this is a really conservative approach from Jorito," and then that drop at the half-minute mark hit. Wow. And then the silky sax, and the cello with those almost Asian glides... I have no words. This just oozes with texture and originality. Excellent, classy work from all around."

What he said; check it out, then check out the whole album!