ReMix: Dragon Warrior IV 'The Grief of Aktemto'

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Ryan8bit writes:

"I don't know if I meet the standards of this site anymore, so I thought I would test this one out to see. It was inspired by my feeling sad about the death of my grandmother and I couldn't really express it in any other way than just by arranging this song."

The judges had mixed feelings on this one. All felt it had high points - the arrangement and overall concept were complimented - but several felt that some performance flubs, the recording quality on the guitar, and the orchestral section's abrupt appearance and disappearance were, combined, enough to hold it back. However, the attitude prevailed that even with these (debatable) issues, the whole outweighed the sum of its parts. Gray articulated the majority opinion here well:

"Still, I really like the arrangement here overall, and I think the performance is passable enough where I don't feel it's necessary to force a resubmission. I also feel that clinically correct performances sometimes take away from the live and spontenous feel. I thought it added a sense of charm to some degree here. I also really like the pacing here."

To me the orchestral section is actually more problematic than any guitar concerns, because it more significantly impacts the tone of the piece. The issue is that, from 1'12" to 1'38", the slow-rock motif is invaded by an orchestra that also happens to be mixed pretty low. Doesn't really click, and is never referenced again to make it more cohesive. However, the rest of the mix, from the very melancholy strumming of the acoustic-dominant portions to the electrified refrain at 2'04" does click in a way that makes natural sense and is expressive enough. Like Gray says, some of the "unbridled" nature of the performance lends charm and impact. I think of this as a mostly successful concept piece that does a great job of arranging the original in a hybrid acoustic/electric rock format but has some issues in terms of execution and the afforementioned orchestral injection. Having an acoustic guitar overpower a symphony orchestra in terms of mixing is usually not an effect that sounds particularly good. But this is one small part of an otherwise excellent effort that some on the panel didn't object as strongly to or at all, so form your own opinions. If you're looking for some emotive, slow rock with acoustic and electric guitars flavors, you'll dig it. Quoth the zyko:

"it's a very emotional and inspired performance and although this needs some refinement i enjoyed it for its raw edge and power..."

Good to see Ryan back on OCR, and wish the best to him given the circumstances in which the mix was produced.

― djpretzel