ReMix: Secret of Mana 'Tidal Sequence'

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OCR01250 is here, which coincides with our planned release of a new torrent for intervals of 250, so please help seed the new torrent and, especially if you're planning on downloading a lot of mixes in this range, use the torrent rather than downloading direct, as it saves us a lot of bandwidth. This isn't as major a milestone as releasing a new site design or hitting a 500 mark, etc., but it's still a good time to sit back and look at everything that's happened since OCR01000, where the new torrent picks up from - amongst other things, we've angered the populous with a fake April Fool's mix falsely attributed (thankfully) to Nobuo Uematsu, debuted the new site design (in the midst of a flood of mixes), received an excellent FF6 Terra mix from none other than Jeremy Soule, been mentioned in print and on television a couple more times, and more recently seen the debut of Kong in Concert and released OCR hoodies (and promptly sold out - more should be available... some time). And of course, as always, we've seen hundreds of excellent ReMixes from a variety of very talented folk, continued lively discussion on the forums, bandwidth consumption out the wazoo (technical term), and a steady flow of submissions. All around good stuff.

It's a demanding site to run, and finding the time to do my own mixes is always a challenge, but I managed to slip working on this Secret of Mana title theme mix in over the last couple months, on and off, in between everything else. There's more than a couple mixes of this theme in existence, but I still felt that no one had yet covered it in the specific way I had envisioned it being arranged every time I heard it - not techno, not really orchestral, but some sort of hybrid/mutt blending of electronica, new age, orchestral, and what have you, into a piece that focuses first and foremost on the strength of Kikuta's melody. I spent a lot of my time playing around with the underlying progression, figuring out how to make it sound more like a verse here, more like a chorus there, etc. There's a mixture of Stylus loops and two drum kits, one acoustic and one electronic, on the rhythm side of things, and Sampletank was used for the tempo-delayed mandolin, wah guitar, and lo-fi filtered mono synth. The mix title isn't just a play on words, as I decided that this would be one of the rare instances where I'd use nature effects, which I'm usually pretty reluctant to incorporate. Strings and brass are EWQL silver, as is the piano. At one point I envisioned the entire arrangement being dominated by piano, almost as a stage for an elaborate piano solo, but most of the manipulation I wanted to do with the melody was monophonic and required a greater variety of leads. There's portions of this that are inspired by the score to The Piano, and I think of the overall style bearing some similarity to some of what GrayLightning's done, which is hopefully taken favorably. I almost didn't include the last portion, which incorporates the latter, less familiar bits of the original in, as I wasn't sure they would jive with the more direct, active melody, but the shift to that section at 3'33" ended up being one of the parts I was happiest with. Instead of the usually gratuitous solo, there's a little duet at 2'52" between the afforementioned lo-fi Sampletank synth and a flute patch from the same. Things fade out on a recurrence of the namesake tidal ambience. Not without faults, but I ended up happy with the mix overall because I've been wanting to hear this particular melody given emphasis, particularly in terms of variations, ever since I played SoM for the first time, fired up the SNES, and witnessed the title screen. Hope you enjoy; also, we should resume posting more frequently, with some really kickin' stuff, now that the new torrent's up (thanks as always to Aubrey) and everything's taken care of. Here's to the next torrent release at OCR01500, whenever that may be.

― djpretzel