*NO* Valkyrie Profile 'The Shining Blue Armor Descends'

Remix Info

ReMixer name: CHIPP Damage, Fray

Name of source music: Behave Irrationally (main), Turn Over a New Leaf (sub)

Link to remix:

Links to originals:

Game Info

Title: Valkyrie Profile

Developer: Tri-Ace

System: Playstation

American Release date: August, 2000

Composer: Motoi Sakuraba

It's a novel of an email so I'll title each section for easy navigation.

Inspiration

This is a Viking Death Metal arrangement of Behave Irrationally and a little bit of Turn Over a New Leaf from Valkyrie Profile. Behave Irrationally played EVERY TIME someone dies and gets judged by the Valkyrie, and Turn Over a New Leaf is played EVERY TIME you meet a boss and thus, are arguably two of the most important tracks in the game. However, they weren't included in the arranged album! Since Viking Death Metal and Valkyrie Profile are both based on Norse Mythology, I figured Viking Death Metal was the perfect genre for the two "most important" themes of Valkyrie Profile. Hahaha. I worked on just the production aspect of this for more than 2 months almost EVERYDAY and got tired and asked for help in the forums. So this turned out to be a collaboration: Arrangement and performance by CHIPP Damage and production by Fray (he kicks ass).

Story (In case you can't catch it all just from the lyrics)

I saw a piece by StarSalzman get referred to as a miniature world. I thought I'd try the same thing, so I wrote a very complete story for this song which includes myself as a character, elements from the game, and real Norse Mythology. Here it is.

I am Zoltan, the legendary travelling warrior who united all the countries of the Yamato Continent. Ragnarok begins and I prepare for the war with all of my friends in Hai-lan. We start fighting and I die when an arrow hits my shield and releases a cloud of weeping lilly pollen (poisonous). No Valkyrie comes for me but the Rainbow Bridge to Valhalla appears before me. I journey across the bridge. After arriving, I walk through the hall and find nobody except for a single norn, Skuld. I ask where all of the Einherjar are. Skuld tells me that Ragnarok is a war not only for humans, but that gods and even the dead must fight(In other words, the Valkyries are busy too). He tells me that there are legends of my bravery on Midgard that have been spoken among the Einherjar and that Odin, upon hearing these tales, had decided that I would be chosen to change the outcome of Ragnarok. So Odin told two of his best Einherjar to leave great weapons for me. Those warriors are Arngrim and Lucian. From Arngrim: The Bahamut's Tear. And from Lucian: The Shining Bolt. And from Skuld I receive a swan maiden's feathered cloak. He tells me to use this to go to other worlds of the Yggdrasil to help battle. So I take them and am granted life once more and am falling from the sky. I use Bahamut's Tear and Shining Bolt to defeat all enemies in Yamato. After the battle in Yamato, my friends and I jump into our dragon ships with our entire armies and head to Asgard to defeat Surtur. We make the journey to Jotunheim by wishing upon the swan maiden's feathered cloak. At Jotunheim we help win the battle and the outcome of Ragnarok is turned in Odin's favor. In the end I end up killing Surtur and that means he can't burn the world with his fiery hands like in real Norse Mythology, but I get engulfed in flames and die shortly after and this time get carried off to Valahalla by a valkyrie to enjoy the feast of the Einherjar after the victory of Ragnarok.

Lyrics

Jun, sharpen the katanas.

Suo, bring the armor.

Shiho, sing your song of courage.

Yumei, raise the lapis high.

The war of 9 worlds has begun

and we are outnumbered 10 to 1.

Nanami takes the odds and evens them.

Tenchu raining down from heaven!

Ragnarok is unleashed across these worlds

I choose to fight in Hai-lan.

Battle screams sound faster than Heimdal's horn

when an arrow hits my shield.

A cloud of Weeping Lilly pollen is unleashed.

I fall to my knees

but there is no valkyrie.

I must journey across the rainbow bridge alone.

Skuld!

Where are the Einherjar?

This is Ragnarok.

Even the dead can't rest.

You have been chosen by Odin to turn the tide of Ragnarok.

Your deeds on Midgard are known to us. A warrior of legend to the Einherjar.

You must fight for the All-Father or the Yggdrasil will fall to the flames of Nifleheim

So take the Bahamut's Tear.

And take the Shining Bolt.

To take your army to Valhall

use the Swan Maiden's Cloak.

And fight like you are Aesir!

I thrust my sword through Surtur,

piercing his heart of flame.

And as I am engulfed in his fire

I see the shining blue armor descend.

Special thanks (Please include in the write-up if the mix passes.)

CHIPP Damage thanks the following for help of various forms during the creation of this remix:

Moseph, Yoozer, Dannthr, Sengin, Zircon, Harmony, JJT, big giant circles, Darkesword, OA, Snappleman, Trenthian, SwordBreaker

Legion303, Sixto, anyone else I may have missed, Fray for becoming my beloved collaboration partner and kicking some

production ass, Hoboka and djpretzel for random props in my forum thread, and Tensei-san for listening to this remix about

100 times after every miniscule change to the audio that was made. "You are my embassador of coin."

Sincerely,

CHIPP Damage (Jahan Zoltan Honma)

Death Metal is definitely not my cup of tea, and I imagine that of the Viking persuasion isn't either. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to render fair judgement unto you.

Let's get one thing out of the way, right off the bat. I think the lyrics sound goofy. Not the screaming scratchy stuff. That actually sounds cool. But when you do that fake sounding deep voiced stuff, like "A cloud of Weeping Lilly pollen is unleashed," it just sounds silly. Maybe that's how viking death metal is supposd to sound? Not sure. Oh, I absolutely love when you say "rrrrrrragnarok!!" Awesome. I think though, that the voices are sitting in a weird place in the mix; it sounds like you recorded them in an empty coffee house or something. I don't know, something about the reverb makes it sound like it's on a stage in a small room.

Anyway, as for the actual arrangement of the source music, I think you did a good job. The guitars rock out pretty hard, and the percussion keeps the energy strong without getting old. Nice.

Perhaps other Js will have production qualms, so I'm going to reserve my final vote until then, but for now, call me borderline YES.

I've been letting this ruminate a while and I've decided to change my vote to NO, resub; I'm just not completely satisfied with how those vocals sit in the soundscape. Vocals like these shouldn't sound so cramped and small.

Oh, and I just want to add something as an aside here: when a piece of music is described as being a miniature world, that is what people perceive through the music on its own. When you truly create a piece of music that transports the listener someplace else, you don't need to write out a back story for it for people to read; you don't have to explain the music. Let the music speak for itself. Just my 2 cents.

I'll start by saying I'm pretty out of my element on this one too, though I did have a roommate in college that was into some death metal, so I have some exposure to it. I thought the arrangement was pretty inventive, to say the least. I love how you've taken what was a very delicate song and just completely trashed it up. There are a few parts where you can't hear any source but more than enough where you can. I like how the original melody and chords get used in a variety of different ways - different speeds and emphases. Keeps it interesting to listen to. Guitar work in general was amazing, and the attention to detail with all instruments was excellent.

Production could have been better. You can hear all the parts, and the mixing levels are good, EXCEPT when those vocals come in. It gets muddy with all the reverb effects, and they really eat into the other instruments. They could use less reverb, more EQ, and maybe even a volume decrease. The section starting at 2:03 in particular is... bizarre. I realize you're going for a crazy sound to the vocals there, but it sounds like part of it is intentional and part of it not. I can call the distortion an artistic choice, but the vocal totally overpowers the drums and guitars from 2:14 to 2:54 and sounds messy. One last thing: 0:38 - 1:20 seemed to lack energy compared to the rest of the song. There's so much going on in the low end, and so little on the high. Not a huge deal, but that's there.

All in all, I think it's very close, but not quite over the line. I know you've put a lot of effort into this already, CHIPP, and I'd hate for you guys to give up on it, but the problem areas are a little too big for me to pass this. I strongly encourage you to try to fit those vocals in a little better. If you can do that, you have my yes.

NO (resubmit)

ok, hahaha i'm a bonafide recovering metalhead and this is still some intense ass shit even for me

viking death metal is fucking ferocious

still, this is fantastic. the production is perfect. i would have preferred meatier drums but the way they are right now is a staple of the genre. the guitar work is phenomenally good. i am not a big fan of this kind of metal only because i grew up on the likes of metallica and megadeth but this sure boasts a ton of melodic and temporal overtones for being "viking metal." the lyrics are very well sung, actually. i'm usually very critical of vocals but this is very good.

i think what this will ultimately come down to is a question of genre familiarity. i can already see that some judges have commented on certain aspects of the production and vocals that irked them and led to their no's. quite the contrary, actually. i have a lot of exposure to the genre having played in death metal bands myself and i can tell you that everything you hear is actually quite indicative of the genre. the "cheesy" vocals are not that unusual for the genre and are actually quite convincing and credible giving the style. anyways, i think the bottom line is that we shouldn't shoot it down because of the genre... we encourage all styles here. it is unconventional by design.

you have a winner.

YES

This is definitely brutal. I love the production in general, but there's one aspect that sticks out, which would be the vocals. It takes a lot of confidence and courage to do something like this, and I give you credit. However, the recording at times just sounds somewhat lo-fidelity and cheap. It's not the processing, either, and I'm aware that death metal (or viking metal or whatever) vocals are supposed to sound raw and edgy. Nonetheless, I feel that the recording quality still needs a bit of work for it really to be "enveloping" and immersive. Maybe some additional EQ, compression, and reverb would help.

Additionally, while the performance is pretty good overall, the "weeping cloud of lily pollen" type voice definitely sounds cheesy, and in general I don't think your voice always lends itself well to that growling style... though you admirably pull it off for a good chunk of this.

The instrumental is quite good. I have just a few critiques. The lead guitars sound a little thin to me sometimes - they could use more power somehow. Rhythm guitars are nice, but also could be stronger.. maybe less mid and more low-mid. The overall volume could probably be increased more as well. I have a decent amount of metal on my computer and it all seems to be a bit more "full" than this. Some sort of keyboard would be a great addition too, like an organ or something like that. The texture, by the end, seemed a bit stale to me since the actual SOUND of the track really doesn't ever change. The constant rhythm guitars, which are mostly present in the midrange, sort of make this somewhat tiring. I also think the parts where there are no vocals, the lead guitar needs to come out more.

On the plus side, arrangement and structure are great. This is a really creative interpretation of the source tunes. Lots of variation, original material, and tasteful development.

In the end, this is tough for me because there's a lot to like... but at the same time, lots of little issues can add up to a track not making it, and that's the case here, in my opinion. Further polish on the vocals, maybe rethinking a few lines here and there, and tweaking the production as per our suggestions would very likely push this into YES territory. I'm looking forward to a resub.

NO, resub

ps. I listened to Sixto's version.. to be honest if you had subbed that one I probably would have YESed it, as it addresses most of my production complaints and masks the vocal issues more.

http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/ValkyrieProfile_psf.rar - 224 "Behave Irrationally" & 113 "Turn Over a New Leaf"

Well, as soon as the track opened, the sequenced guitar stuck out, but it was pretty serviceable.

HAHAHAHA, these vocals are ridiculous, in a funny way. But honestly, pretty bad in some spots. The more spoken word portions were serviceable, the growling parts cool, the yelling parts sounded awful.

When the vocals dropped off at :37, the instrumental textures were really poor, IMO. The atmosphere was super quiet despite everything hammering down. The balance was pretty bad. It was stupid that the cymbal shots were so much more audible than the snare; meanwhile the machine guns drums were annoying in their frequency and were too soft to give off the intended impact. So really you're just left with a really flimsy drumkit layered on top of the machine-gun drums and nothing sounds good as a result.

The 1:41-2:02 & 3:06-4:35 sections were stronger in the execution in terms of sounding fuller, though the balance still needed some work. Palpable was dead on though, once vocals were added into the picture, certain parts were fighting to be heard.

I'll be frank, the other NOs broke it down better than I can do, so take their advice and run with it. Keep working on it guys.

NO