ReMix: Star Ocean: The Second Story 'Into Your Kamikaze'

Download MP3
6,088,576 bytes, 7:18, 111kbps

• Trade-in your Games or Anime DVDs!
• OC ReMix Shirts & Merch
• Games:
  • DS | GBA | GC | PS2 | WII | XBOX | 360
  • Imports & Pre-owned
• Anime:
  • DVDs & Merchandise

The opening of Blake's latest orchestral arrangement from Star Ocean: The Second Story reminds me of the final piece from Goldenthal's Titus score; very grand, deliberate, hopeful chord progression. Things bust out at 0'56", though, as Blake mixes up-tempo pieces with flowing legato passages rather adeptly. Mr. Perdue gives us some insight into his creative process:

"It certainly felt like the last remix I got accepted here was a major let down, and as one put it in the Chrono Symphonic thread: "Here's a tip, guys: Orchestral remixes can have power, too. They don't HAVE to be boring as hell." He may not have been directly referring to my Door to the End of Time, but if he was he was certainly correct. So I've tried to make improvements upon my technique if you wanna call it that, and make sure my fake orchestral is worth listening to. Hopefully people will not say "Ugh, ANOTHER orchestral remix." to this one, but if they listen to it and it is just another one, well, I am always trying to improve anyway. I've forever disgraced my free sample using ways by using an EDIROL clarinet sample, because the squidfont one or any other free one online is just way too damn honky, and provides no flexiblity or textural relevance. (Is textural a word?) However, the rest of the samples in this ReMix are free and mostly of the florestan and squidfont department."

I liked his last mix, personally, but I can see where this mix would perhaps be seen as a bit more exciting and powerful and what not. It's certainly a wonderful example of what can be done orchestrally with primarily free soundfonts. It's also downright epic; at over seven minutes, it packs quite a lot of compositional punch, but nothing feels superfluous or repetitive. There's enough transitions and dynamic work to fill out two shorter mixes, really, but Blake's coagulated that into a single monolithic arrangement that expands outwards and upwards from the source material. Andy sez:

"Considering you're still working with not-so-great samples you do a FANTASTIC job of orchestrating things, and your production is very good. The one section that is problematic in regards to sample quality is 2:29 to 2:43 - things just sound kinda fake there. You could have done with a little more reverb perhaps to cover that up. The middle section leading up to 3:50 was excellent. Really, the arrangement as a whole is VERY well-structured and aside from the abrupt transition towards the beginning, things flow extremely smoothly. This is probably my favorite work of yours so far. You did a fantastic job on nearly every aspect of this remix. Any complaints I have are rather minimal."

I'd agree that this is Blake's most elaborate, intricate, and mature work to date, and he started off pretty strong to begin with, so that bold claim carries some real weight. Like a good salad dressing should be, this ReMix is robust, complex yet subtle, and tastes great with romaine lettuce, chick peas and copious crutons. Except for that last bit. Excellent, large-scale orchestral maneuvers in the light from BP.

― djpretzel