*NO* Final Fantasy 7 'Highwind Throwdown'

Not enough FF7 usage? - LT

Ahoy Dave and Judges!

Arrr this be another remix submission from Siamey.

My forum # would be 971

My song is called Highwind Throwdown and its a remix of Cid's theme from ff7 (but also contains elements of "sending a dream into the universe")

Yes, because it is trance, it "could very well be any melody", but rest assured that I toiled relentlessly on this song for months, knowing it was a cid remix, from start to finish.

Thanks for your time,

Hope you enjoy my song.

-Heath

------------------------------------------------

http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 307 "Cid's Theme" & 409 "Sending a Dream Into the Universe"

The transition from 1:38-1:52 was based on the intro of "Sending a Dream Into the Universe". As far as I could tell though, Cid's Theme wasn't touched until 1:52. After that though, things were recognizable on the arrangement side.

The melodic treatment at 2:20 with the gated rhythms was cool at first. It's a good idea, but after a while, that was all the work put into altering the melody. I liked the countermelodic stuff (starting at 2:48) going on just behind the melody though, which was very well integrated with the melody. Melody was doubled by a more straightforward synth line at 3:16. I liked the bassline and beat programming, but again, after a while the ideas just felt repetitive and undeveloped.

I don't mean to ignore all the work put into the different layers of the arrangement, as there were a lot of good supporting instrumentation ideas. Beyond the genre adaptation, the arrangement of the melody though was really by-the-numbers and could use a more creative, interpretive approach. 3:43 went back into the idea of the intro (again, seemingly all original material), gradually subtracting elements until the finish.

Production here was impeccable, IMO. Pretty loud, but the whole track was clean, well-balanced and bringing the power. Everything was clicking on all cylinders there.

As far as I'm aware though, the intro and outro were all original material not directly arranging's "Cid's Theme", leaving only 2:05's worth of arrangement material in a 5:17-long mix. My hard and fast rule is requiring over 50.00% of the arrangement being overtly tied to the original, which I'm not picking up here.

I'll follow up with y'all to be sure, and could use additional input. If no other meaningful information results, I'll be going NO (resubmit).

Trance.

NO OVERRIDE

ok, I like it. The intro is fuck-long as usual. But at least this time the parts of the mix that are actually to do with the source pay close attention to the arrangement. I'd hope for a little more rearrangement when it comes down to it.

I think Siamey needs to stop wasting his time trying to remix stuff for OCR. I dunno what it's like elsewhere in the world, but in Perth, from about 10PM-6AM, all night radio stations are dedicated to playing this kind of music without any breaks in between. Siamey could dedicate his life to generating this sort of music for that scene. Could you imagine a 3 hour long trance sessions consisting of just Final Fantasy themes one after the other? It sounds like a nightmare to me, but you could totally see that being played on the radio and just having people chill out to it. The important thing is that I think it could work.

With this track. I would've liked to have seen a lot more rearrangement. But for once, I'm going to uber-kind and I'm going to give Siamey the benefit of the doubt here. I think there's just enough to pass this. But I'm also strongly recommending that Siamey stops submitting these kinds of mixes to OCR. It's not fair on him that we keep interfering with his style of mixing, and it's not fair on us to have to reject good material like this due to our standards.

YES

Given the timestamps I cited, TO, you'd be ok passing a mix that's potentially not even 40% VGM arrangement? Or are you hearing more connections to the FF7 soundtracks/sources that I'm missing? Otherwise, I don't see why this should pass.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in that the intro to the piece serves to build up to the source usage. ie: I'm not voting on whether the remix uses the source in XX% of the mix, but rather how it's used when it makes an appearance. I think Siamey's done a decent enough job of utilising the source from the points that he used it. Unlike some of his past mixes where even when the source made an appearance, it was either liberally used, or it was sampled directly.

My vote stands. Others can reject it if they feel it's not enough to warrant a pass.

Lemme do a bit of arrangement analysis first.

The intro (up until 1:39) is just playing notes from a minor chord that could be from either source. It sounds perfectly good as a lead-in but since there is no chord progression, I would say it can't be construed as direct arrangement of the source. It's original material derived from the source to lead into it.

1:38 to 1:52 as Larry pointed out is right from the (409) source. Directly after this, the pads are playing the chords from Cid's theme. 2:20 brings in the melody from it clearly, and we hear a gated version of it at 2:48 much like his MGS mix he subbed awhile back. A nice rhythmic variation. All the chords are there in the background to solidify the connection - 3:17 brings in an octaved synth on top. 3:47 is just like the intro, then it's over.

So looking at it this way, 1:38 to 3:47 is arranged material - a total of 129 seconds. The mix itself is 317 seconds, making the arranged material constitute about 40% of the total mix length - exactly what Larry said, but I just wanted to break it down here

While I liked Ghosts, I don't think this mix is passable. The production is fine - the sounds are polished and the mastering is hot. What arrangement you DID have was OK; rhythmic gating of the melody is an acceptable way of personalizing it. However, from both an OCR guidelines standpoint AND a general musical standpoint, having a mix where 60% of the tune is just intro and outtro is really not good. I know trance songs, even club mixes, run pretty long but typically you hear SOME melody or chord progression towards the end of the intro and at the beginning of the outtro. Even if all you did was work more of the chords here and little snippets of the melody here and there, that would still help immensely.

Thus I am inclined to give this a NO. I do not believe this mix should be YESed by anyone given our 50/50 guideline. Even though I know some of us are trying to give mixer(s) the benefit of the doubt when possible, an octave riff with the occasional minor third cannot constitute actual arrangement unless that riff (or something) is VERY similar. Otherwise, someone could just submit a mix of ANY song in a minor key, do 4 minutes of octave or tonic note riffs with percussive and textural variations, 30 seconds of game music, and then call it a day. Such a pattern is too basic and could be connected to virtually any song, game or otherwise.

NO

Even though I was 99% sure of my call, Andy's running the FF7 project and perhaps could have picked up on other source material I simply wasn't familiar with that Siamey may have neglected to state in the sub letter.

Any submission involving greater than 50% VGM arrangement is imperative to honoring the source material moreso than doing your own thing. I want to make it clear that while Heath's current track is not dishonoring anything, it also fails to explicitly involve the source material enough to be considered a substantive enough tribute as far as OCR's standards. The focus at this site must be on video game music first, wholly original material second.

As Andy and I said, the production is all sorts of excellent, and what is directly interpreted is good. But the overall usage of the source material is lacking. If this is how you'd envisioned it, and you don't want to revise anything, more power to you, and that's cool. I definitely enjoyed the track. But if you'd like to integrate some more FF7 material directly into the arrangement and resubmit this, Heath, it would be a very welcome addition.

My vote stands as a NO (resubmit).

loooooong stretches of material that are unconnected to the source. that's always going to be a problem.

this sounds hawt, but there's not enough ff7.

NO

what's up with that snare? is it reversed? Hot intro.

first hint of ff7 is at 2:00. The body of the song is clearly ff7, and the outro is not. okay. so we are saying the count is 40%.

I take strong issue with zircon saying that noone should vote yes on this because it's less than 50% ff7. I happen to be reading the submission standards right now and it says

-The arrangement must be substatial and original

Nowhere in there do I see anything about 50%. 40% of a song is substantial, especially when that 40% is the body, the main section of the song. If the 40% remixed material was the intro, I can see it being a problem, but we need to consider context. Painting ourselves into a black and white corner is ridiculous. And who are you to be saying how everyone else should be voting? Christ.

That said, I'm voting NO because i feel like the original is not incoprorated ina particularly meaningful way..the melody is pasted onto what otherwise could be an original trance song. The track is very well-done, but I think the original needs to be more relevent, not necessesarily to the intro/outro, but the body of the song too. There needs to be a little more thematic relevance, considering how the track could stand on its own without that particular melody.

That said, It's important to note that i'm NOT voting no just because I sat with a stopwatch counting seconds to compare against some arbitrary rule that doesn't seem to actually exist in our guidelines.

Jesse's correct in that there's no explicit 50% rule, nor do I think we want to add one that would actually have judges resorting to stopwatches and basic addition to determine whether a mix complies.

That Heath spent a good deal of time on this mix shows; production is perhaps his strongest yet, and I was definitely groovin'. I know he already despises us for our anti-trance ways, and this rejection won't help, but I don't think any genre should be given special treatment, and I can assure him and others that if someone sent in an orchestral, jazz, rock, etc. arrangement with 2 minutes of original intro and a pretty long original outro as well, it probably wouldn't be passed.

I'm not sure if our current standards make this clear.

At all.

And for that, to Heath and others, I apologize. We're wasting your time when we're not as clear as possible on what we're looking for, and everyone gets frustrated, and I get bummed because I can't post songs like this which I enjoy and would much rather see on the site than not.

I hope that the new standards will address this. They are being revised by the panel but will also be posted for public comment before being implemented.