ReMix: Phantasy Star II 'Boss Uniform'

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Quinn, my brother in arms when it comes to Phantasy Star homage, gives us a chill Phantasy Star 2 jam that intros with lonely effected electric piano and reverbed acoustic, as pads introduce bass, a chord progression, and eventually a nice drum pattern that's layered at times with mixed verbs itself. The ReMixer writes:

"I've been listening to tons of modern jazz lately, and this song is certainly inspired by it; most of my music HAS been since 'Smooth Alexander.' But I've tried even harder this time to get that smoooooth, head-bobbing, foot-tapping sound going, yet keeping enough planetary squeaks and pads to give it that distant, starry Phantasy Star feeling, as if on another planet... I'm rather proud of this, as it's the best product to come from my new music software, and it represents my favorite gaming series rather well, I believe. Please enjoy!"

Production is cleaner than some of Quinn's previous efforts, with no audible hiss and a very clean, spacious expanse of smooth jazz with a trip-hop/synth bent. Though not particularly minimalist in terms of instrumentation, the arrangement itself leaves a lot of what in the graphic design world would be called 'white space', primarily due to the absence of dominant pads or a running counter melody or harmony. The tone gets a bit more dramatic at 1'42" with a synth bass coming in on top the upright acoustic and the pads getting layered up as well, however, which creates more of a contrast to the spartan surrounding sections. The overall vibe is cool, calm, and collected, but this section does serve as sort of a 'climax', insofar as an on-tracks, groove-based jazz tip like this can have one. It adds some linearity, in a good way. There's two main problems that I think the judges panel collectively honed in on - the less problematic issue is that things are mixed a little low, and could have used a bit of post-production/normalization to up the volume levels. The other unanimous and probably more serious criticism was towards the drum pattern, which is a Reason default with some manipulation, but not an overwhelming amount. In other words, a very identifiable usage of a preset pattern. Now, preset usage is always a gray area for mix evaluation - using preset SOUNDS isn't really a problem in and of itself, unless they are ill-chosen, but when a preset pattern (i.e. sounds as well as notes) is used, it means that a more signifcant portion of the overall mix is prefabricated. In this instance, Quinn's arrangement is very interpretive, nothing else is similarly questionable, and the drum pattern itself has at least been augmented and layered, but on the whole I think the panel would have preferred the mixer rolled his own, instead of relying on Propellerheads' beats. Contextually not a showstopper at all, just worth noting. A good, very relaxed groove from Quinn, illustrating slicker production skills, and evoking the interplanetary scope of PS2 quite effectively.

― djpretzel