ReMix: Final Fantasy VI 'Battle on a New Continent'

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Wicked. Newcomer Christian Pacaud gets your interest right from the very beginning, with some shrieking, malicious, evil guitar that introduces and remains the centerpiece of this FF6 New Continent / The Fierce Battle / Catastrophe / Dancing Mad arrangement. This is some pretty insane stuff in terms of guitar playing - otherwordly, doubled sounds, harmonics, and soaring, maniacal, dissonant melodies coupled with faster riffing. This truly evokes some fierce conflict and unchained, pure evil mojo. Processing is, forgive the expression, off the hook, and the mix relies primarily on the very imaginative arrangement, the fantastic playing by Marc-André Gingras, and production that brings out the best in both and lends the track an ethereal, Cthulhian energy. Quoth Pacaud:

"I can't remember exactly how I came about starting to work on this. I just remember liking very much the themes from the flying continent part of FF6 and somehow I heard them recently and thought "New Continent" was screaming for a metal remix, and here it is."

Good stuff. Larry Oji Ojasms:

"Props to Christian for a very well-done arrangement, featuring some nice brief references to other FF6 tracks, as well as Marc-André for some good solo work that the rock ethusiasts will be feeling. Not to say Christian's own guitar skills are shabby, because they're certainly not; they were definitely a highlight on their own here. The constant tradeoffs between conservative and liberal arrangement, along with the quick usage of additional themes was a perfect formula..."

I particularly like the oscillation on the amount of interpretation being applied, which might throw some for a loop who are very intimately familiar with each source tune, but comes together in a very cohesive whole. zyko pointed out relatively sparse instrumentation as one drawback, and zircon had some legitimate issues with the tone/timbre being relatively static, but overall the panel dug Pacaud's mix. I love how the reverb's dialed down on the very last note, bringing the distant guitar right into the immediate listening space and then cutting with a delay. Specifically, I think this is a mix where effects are paramount - vital - and signal processing is doing more than just putting a pretty face on everything: it's integral to the entire arrangement working. And work it does - while development might not be the strongest aspect, the overall dark energy produced by the angles Gingras cuts and the swirling abyss of metal that lurks beneath his lead is powerful enough to boil in place without having to do all that much else. I'll end as I began: wicked.

― djpretzel