ReMix: Chrono Trigger 'Far Away Memories'

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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the most controversial mixes we've ever posted. You definitely won't hear it just from listening, but this caused a bit of a stir on our panel, moreso than probably any mix this year. Why all the ruckus? Whence this brouhaha? Well, over the last few months there've been some changes in the behind-the-scenes process that's involved with evaluating mixes. Essentially, I've made some decisions on direct posts (which bypass the panel) that they've disagreed with, so we've moved towards me doing less direct-posting in general, which has been working fairly well. The first version of this mix that Neil submitted was a piece I liked alot, that I might have posted directly, even, but which ended up going to the panel and being rejected. There was some heated debate, largely because I felt the panel's comments were unclear. We literally wrote paragraphs over the proper usage of the word "notation" - no joke. For my part, I feel that if I'm doing fewer direct posts, the panel has to be that much clearer in providing feedback to mixers whose submissions are borderline and who may resubmit based on that feedback. It didn't help that this was back when I was enduring life without air conditioning.

The end result was that the panel's decision stuck, but Neil ended up resubmitting and fixing some - but not all - of the items cited in their initial judgment. The new version is not wildly different from the version that was rejected, but with some clarifications on what specifically the panel felt was holding the mix back, I do think he's improved the overall feel a bit. Moreover, even though I'm sure the entire judges panel thought I was overreacting, I do think I emphasized that clear feedback is all the more important with our modified evaluation system. Hopefully, everyone ends up happy, no lives are lost, and we're all the better for it in the end, which is usually the case with these sorts of things.

If you're totally uninterested in the intestinal goings-on of OCR's guts and would like to hear a bit about the mix itself, I don't blame you, and will henceforth try to accomodate. Neil's taken To Far Away Times from CT, commonly abreviated as TFAT, and turned it into an acoustic guitar affair, with both lead and rhythm dominating this mix that also features solid if not varied percussion and some nice harmony on strings. The arrangement is very straightforward, not altering heavily the original melody but instead adapting it to fit the guitar setting. Examples would be numerous slides, altered rhythm here and there, etc. The backing chords on the acoustic rhythm guitar are sometimes ambiguous - they have some intervals I would refer to as "nested" and which aren't always easy to make out. What makes the piece work, overall, for me is that it feels different from the original. More pared down to the essentials; more folksy, warmer. The things that Neil kept the same are the things that work, in this context, and the things he's changed and added all make the piece better. Neil confesses to playing this on a really cheap guitar he got for a pittance, and no one's saying it's a particularly intricate guitar part that it would require great mastery of the instrument to play. But if you're gonna remake TFAT into an acoustic, nuevo-folk gig, this is a pretty good way to go about doing it. Sounds better on speakers than with the microsopic scrutiny of headphones any day, so I recommend listening to it in that fashion, as well. Still not without flaws, but Neil's piece has heart and feeling and provides an interpretation of the original that's rough around the edges but has a good deal of soul in the places that count.

― djpretzel