Final Fantasy IX: Worlds Apart Comments from album director Cain McCormack (Fishy) and ReMixers Album freely available at http://ff9.ocremix.org Firstly, credit where it is due! This album project was originally started by Brandon Strader, who you might also know as the director of the FFI and FFII albums on OC ReMix. Please do check out those, and all of the other Final Fantasy albums! As you might have heard, this album has been a long time coming. This is partly because it is humongous, featuring 58 tracks with contributions from 57 artists. Final Fantasy IX has a huge soundtrack (over 120 tracks), and the reason for this is the great number of variations on motifs. There are so many variations that we actually had to limit the number of versions of similar themes. Twice in interviews, Mr. Uematsu has said that the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack is his favourite of the series, and you can definitely tell he got carried away given the depth on display. Even if you don't agree that it's his best, I definitely think it's the most cohesive effort in the series. One thing you might notice about this album is the amount of new faces (or new at the time) who contributed multiple tracks. This is because they actually joined OC ReMix just for this project because of how much they love FFIX. I'm personally really happy for that to be the case, as I've always thought that you can really hear when people are invested in their tracks. Spotlighting the game music you really love is what we're all about here, and I feel like that is particularly true with this album. I'd like to extend a huge thank you to all the contributors to the album including the 57 ReMixers; the awesome artists at Game-Art-HQ; José for working on the trailer; Kevin "TheGreyNinja" Merriman for the cover art; Flexstyle for a bit of mastering; and finally djp, Larry, and the other staff for helping to get everything out the door. Thanks for waiting, and I really hope you enjoy it! - Cain McCormack --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1-01. Benjamin Briggs - "Moguo's Knife Party" Source: "Over the Hill" Benjamin Briggs: It's been so long since I produced "Moguo's Knife Party" that I can scarcely remember the circumstances involved with its creation, but I do remember that I was (and still am) extremely proud of the final result. It's a downtempo, emotional track that carries more weight than my usual work, and the fact that I was able to squeeze my ska/reggae roots into the mix really made me happy. I do remember live streaming the creation process on Twitch (http://live.benbriggs.net), and that my viewers -- including OC ReMix friends -- helped immensely with everything, including choosing a title for the song! So, yeah, shoutouts to The Briggade, and shoutouts to Fishy for another successful remix album! Proud to have been involved. 1-02. M-H - "Sjá, Minn Heim" Source: "A Place to Call Home" M-H: Since FF9 has some mild Nordic mythology in it, "Sjá, Minn Heim" is Old Norse for "This, my home." The song was also a sort of love letter to Falconer, one of my favorite bands, and they're from Sweden, so... that's kind of nearby. 1-03. The Dual Dragons (Dan Johansen, Frank Johansen) - "Black Mage Master" Source: "Vivi's Theme" Dan Johansen of The Dual Dragons: Both me and my brother Frank had played Final Fantasy IX multiple times in the past and were very excited to remix a tune for this project. "Vivi's Theme" has always been one of Uematsu's most unique and playful tracks, and turning something like that into a symphonic metal track we thought was a delightful idea we had to do. We were very pleased with the result and hope that others think so as well! Rock on \m/ and may the power of evil black mages die by the hands of a little, shy, pointy-hatted, meteor-casting friend! 1-04. Fishy - "Canaries and Hurricanes" Sources: "Swords of Fury," "Behind the Door" Fishy: I think the intro play kidnapping is one of the best opening "missions" in the series, and the way they bring the play back at the end to bookmark the whole story is awesome. So, this is almost an arrangement of the overly-dramatic theatrical intro/outro. I really like this battle theme, the lead line is a lot of fun to play. Name is a nod to Muse. 1-05. AndyP, Fishy feat. Dan Bryant - "Vamo alla Django" Source: "Vamo alla Flamenco" Guitars: AndyP (Andy Pearce) and Fishy (Cain McCormack) Double Bass: Dan Bryant Recorded at the IoSR Engineer: Andy Land - http://youtube.com/andyland1349 Producer: Andy Pearce Assistant: Emma Towers-Evans Fishy: This one is all Andy's arrangement, I just played my parts and did a solo. AndyP: The remix started out as a standard acoustic guitar arrangement -- that was before I saw a group of gypsy jazz buskers in the local high street. It's upbeat, harmonically interesting, and more than anything, it's the most fun I've had playing guitar. The track combines elements of Django Reinhardt's "Minor Swing," a staple in gypsy jazz playing. We borrowed the chord progression for Fishy's guitar solo and other generic gypsy jazz components for the arrangement, such as minor 6 chords and adapting the "Minor Swing" melody to the "Vamo" chords. Gotta thank Andy Land for the recording session, all recorded at the IoSR studios at the University of Surrey, and thanks to Dan Bryant for the bass. 1-06. IanFitC - "Lunar Rebellion" Source: "Court Jesters" IanFitC: This track was a lot of fun to make! I was listening to Aryeon's Human Equation album daily at the time and wanted to try using some of Arjen Lucassen's arranging tricks myself, my favourite being excessive use of reversed piano chords. The biggest challenge for this track was getting the acoustic guitars to sound right. I tried several microphones in different positions and couldn't get what I was looking for. I wanted it to have a strong percussive element, and in the end decided that the DI was giving me the closest sound I wanted. This track also features my first foray into applying bus distortion to a drum kit, and it really shows in the section around 1'27", throwing loads of weird artifacts into the mix. It's a really cool sound, and I'm really happy with how it all came out in the end! 1-07. ch4rl33 - "Knight-wit" Source: "Steiner's Theme" ch4rl33: Steiner being the major source of comic relief in FFIX, I tried to make the remix reflect his inadvertent goofiness. He's also the strongest character and can get down to business if needed, so the song needed to be beefy yet goofy, with thick bass and funky sounds. 1-08. Calum Bowen - "Prima Variations" Sources: "Prima Vista Orchestra," "Main Theme of FINAL FANTASY VII" Calum Bowen: As the name suggests, I attempted to twist and turn the "Prima Vista Orchestra" theme through as many different styles as I could, mostly through reharmonisations and placing the main melody into different rhythmic and stylistic contexts. The piece starts with a piano intro which leads into one of my only forays into UK garage (seeing that it soundtracked my childhood, I'm not sure why that is!). Typical of the genre, I was keen to switch between those sweet lyrical sections with min7th chords on acoustic guitars & keys and the more bass-heavy parts for the B section. Accenting the off-beat with some brass gave me a smooth way to transition into the dub section next. Following this, we run through tribal, chiptune, and baroque styles before finishing in the wrong series with the Final Fantasy 7 main theme whilst fragments of the "Prima Vista Orchestra" theme stand by in the accompaniment. 1-09. Brandon Strader - "Doomed Lovers" Source: "Tragic Love" Brandon Strader: The song itself, "Mistaken Love," was enough inspiration to do this. It always brings me to tears with how over-the-top epic it is. This is my first entry into the FF9 project, which I'm hoping to do a few more of. The music is so incredible in FF9, which was the inspiration for starting the project to begin with. My rendition is somewhat of a progressive rock version. I dropped all the orchestral elements, and slapped in some heavy guitars for the first half, and acoustic for the second half. There's some B4 organ in there and 70s synth lead, pretty accurate instruments for that period. I didn't really leave my comfort zone for this remix, as prog rock is sort of my specialty, but I think it fits the source and it came out really well. It sounds a bit like something my prog band, Rainwound, would have done. 1-10. Ross Kmet - "t.r.e.e." Source: "Danger in the Forest" Ross Kmet: If the awakened forest was home to a Garden (the kind with teenage special operatives with low self-esteem), then I think it would be called "t.r.e.e." A hazy, washed out movie theme of sorts. I actually took multiple renderings of the song (as it progressed) and spliced them together to get the final product. I'm pretty sure everything has been re-sampled at least twice. Maybe more. It's crazy. Enjoy, maybe! :) 1-11. Cyril the Wolf, Fishy - "Exploda" Source: "Battle 1" Fishy: We had a totally different version of this track going for a long time, but we both felt something was missing and that we could do better. One day, I was listening to some Offspring and I put the BPM up by 30 and did a stupid double-time riff for a laugh, sent it to Cyril, and then it suddenly all came together over a period of a week. Props to Cyril for his MEGA BASS. Cyril the Wolf: First, when I saw this up for grabs when the album was first put up, I was instantly taken with it. "Battle 1" is one of the first songs I ever heard when actively listening to video game music... so it's very important to me. It's always interesting when you have an idea for an arrangement that you are woefully ill equipped to pull off. Fortunately, Fishy and I had a few years to simmer on it and sped it up!!! Now we have something that's sufficiently battle-y with me contributing the initial arrangement ideas and playing the bass on this one. 1-12. Calum Bowen - "Bossa de Victory" Source: "Fanfare" Calum Bowen: This ReMix represents pretty much my first venture into producing and, for all its flaws, I have a lot of nostalgia for this track and can see, all these years later, that the roots of everything I'm into now are present here - a kind of playful "over-produced" sound, jazz chords, Latin rhythms! "Uno, dos, tres" was from the start of "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)". Literally no relevance... I think I thought it was funny! My approach to ReMixing this theme consisted mostly of finding reharmonisations for the main melody or fragments of it and placing it in a new stylistic context. A lot of additional content was made from the distinctive rhythm of the fanfare melody which I used in a lot of the accompanying parts. I recorded a lot more live stuff than I tend to now -- the line-up included live guitars, violins, glockenspiel, and a tambourine! 1-13. Gario - "The Throes of Death(guise)" Source: "Battle 2" Gario: About a year ago, after finishing a track for another album, I decided that I needed to fill the void with something else. I decided to take a glance at the FFIX album, which was asking for a few tracks to be taken care of, including the boss theme from the game. I was... very surprised that no one had taken one of the best boss themes to grace the FF series, so I decided to take a shot at it. The result ended up being a solid electronic track with orchestral strings and some sweet, sweet synth guitar, and it's one that I'm proud to say is one of my best, to date. The source was a challenge to say the least, though -- while there are a lot of parts that are easy to create a drive behind, there are plenty more integral parts in the source that lend more to subtle, atmospheric intensity (which my track was not set up to tackle), so for a good while progress halted. One day, I got the bright idea, rather than try to change the pace of the track for the sake of subtlety and atmosphere, to instead add intense and interesting parts from other battle themes in FFIX, so I got to incorporating a lot of the final battle, as well as more subtle hints of the battle theme and "Dark Messenger" throughout. As a result, this track becomes a love letter to all of the battle music in Final Fantasy IX, and I'm not ashamed to admit my love for the battle music provided by that game. 1-14. Dr. Manhattan - "Corra!" Source: "Run!" Dr. Manhattan: I like the cool 5/4 feel this tune has, and the first thing that came into mind was the rhythm from "Beyond This Life"by Dream Theater, so, basically, this is it. Then I just went crazy on the harmony and wanted everything to sound rushy or desperate, like you're really running for your life or something. 1-15. Jean Of mArc, Solveig Giffin, Christine MacIsaac - "Memories of Dali" Source: "Village of Dali" Jean Of mArc: For whatever reason, RPGs had never caught my interest until I saw the cover of Final Fantasy IX. My local gamestore was renting it, and so I decided to give it a try and see what kind of reaction I had. From its choreographed introduction to its settling conclusion, FFIX captured my imagination in a way that very few games had done in a long time. I have a distinct memory of realizing my love for the game immediately upon my entry into Frontier Village Dali. Ever since then, that moment has stuck with me. That's very appropriate, because the entire game of FFIX is themed around the idea that memories never die, and even when time passes and people separate, our memories hold us together. "Memories of Dali" is both my own reflection of a time when I had the ability to sink 80 hours into such a great experience, and of the shared sentiment of the women who actually reside in the fictitious village. From a production standpoint, it was also a bit of a milestone for me. It was the first time I picked up and started using a DAW again in many years, choosing to go with Reaper, and the first time I tried using high-quality virtual instruments instead of using freely available ones or doing only live recording. It was the first time I wrote somewhat serious lyrics for one of my compositions, as I usually either do not write them at all, or write very silly ones. Also, it was a chance to reunite a musical trio from my university days: myself doing the composition, my amazing wife Solveig Giffin performing the piano, and our great friend Christine MacIsaac with her soothing vocals. Neither my wife nor Christine were familiar with the game at the time, but having two of my favourite people involved in performing an arranged song from one of my favourite games was a very special experience. Although it took a long time to complete, due to many learning hurdles to overcome along the way, the result is definitely worth it, and I hope you'll all enjoy this track as much as we did making it. Solveig Giffin: My husband and I have very different backgrounds when it comes to the world of gaming; games were a very central part of his growing up, whereas I hardly know how to use a game controller. However, we both share the same passion for music, so working on this project together along with our dear friend Christine MacIsaac was a great opportunity for us to collaborate musically. Working on "Memories of Dali" also helped introduce me to more of the gaming world, as I have now played Final Fantasy IX, and have become more familiar with OverClocked ReMix. It has been long-standing dream of Jean-Marc's to have an arrangement of his on an OverClocked ReMix album, so I want to thank the crew at OCR for helping him realize his dream by including his arrangement of "Memories of Dali" on this album! It was a great experience putting this together with Jean-Marc and Christine. I am so proud of Jean-Marc, and his incredible talent for composition and arrangement. This was such a fun piece to play, as it brought together both jazz and classical elements to make for a very interesting and challenging accompaniment. It was a privilege to bring life to his musical ideas. It was also a delight to once again accompany Christine with her beautiful and heartfelt voice. We hope you enjoy it! 1-16. Knight of the Round (Justin Taylor, Justin Wilbanks) - "Birth Under a Blue Light" Source: "Zidane's Theme" Fishy: Knight of the Round (who I understand have at least two guitarists called Justin) are getting really big now, and, from what I've seen, they're a proper force when performing live. I've always liked the way they arrange tracks to be heavy, but also with a lot of space to grow and develop. Definitely also check out their other track from the album which is an absolute monster! Justin Taylor of Knight of the Round: Justin Wilbanks (from Indiana metal band Betrayer) and I have been wanting to collaborate on a track for a while. So, after realizing there were still a few months left to submit a track for Fishy's FF9 project, we decided to tackle "Zidane's Theme." I've always enjoyed this track, and since it is a pretty significant track to the OST, choosing it was a no-brainer. We took the backing track to the source and tweaked it a little, and used it as the main melody/riff for the first half of the song. The second half of the song is pretty conservative to the source, but it's such a good part that we didn't dare change it much. We used an Agile 8-string guitar to record all guitars. For rhythm, we used an ENGL Fireball head, then re-amped through a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx Ultra, both going into a VHT Fat Bottom cab. We then also re-amped the guitars into Line 6 POD Farm. For lead guitars, we went straight into the Axe-Fx Ultra into the VHT cab. Drums were programmed with EZdrummer (cymbals) and Steven Slate Drums (kick, snare, toms). Mastered with iZotope Ozone 3. Random Fun Fact: 4:26-4:35 and 4:48-4:56 features a 13/16 over 4/4 polyrhythm. The guitars/bass/kick drum are playing in 13/16 and are playing the pattern of "1 and 10" while keeping the rhythm notes intact, while the snare drum and cymbals are staying in 4/4. I chose "1 and 10" to represent the I and X in the title of the game. Go polyrhythms! 2-01. XPRTNovice - "Craic in the Castle Walls" Source: "Cid's Theme" XPRTNovice: This arrangement happened so long ago that I've kind of forgotten how it started, but Fishy and I had just finished collaborating on Final Fantasy 6 "Bad Octopus" and he said he had a gap in his FFIX album. I grabbed two tracks, "Esto Gaza" and "Cid's Theme." Fishy always has great comments on my stuff, but he was almost enraged at the live tin whistle playing in the first version of the tune. Of course, this means I added more tin whistle in the final version. It probably contains the least amount of live instruments in any track I've done for OCR, those being only the guitar and the tin whistle, because I didn't own any bagpipes yet. Now I own bagpipes, but I can't play them. Life is hard. 2-02. Mattias Häggström Gerdt - "Late Night Lindblum" Source: "Lindblum" Fishy: Mattias is a groove machine -- he put this together in no time at all. He really funked things up from the comparatively straight original. It's got some huge keys and a great style twist towards the end. Classic Swede. Mattias Häggström Gerdt: I remember playing FFIX and coming to Lindblum for the first time... There was so much to do! So many NPCs to talk to, so many games of Quad Mist to play, so many exclamation marks in corners and mashing the X button. This remix started off with me wondering what a wicked night club in Lindblum would sound like. Strobe lights, dancefloor and giant subwoofers! All powered by mist, of course. Then I did what I always do and left the remix alone for too long. When I came back to it, I had an entirely different idea! Slick jazz in a smoke-filled night club, plenty of oglop cocktails and drinks spiced with Ether. So, for the low low price of one remix, I give you two takes on "Lindblum by Night." 2-03. Archangel, Claire Yaxley - "As Long As We Remember" Source: "Garnet's Theme" Archangel: I didn't claim this track by myself. It was actually an assignment given to me by Cain (Fishy), and I was very happy to get a chance to collaborate with a singer as fantastic as Claire. Her voice is nothing short of angelic. She came up with the vocal harmonies herself and recorded everything with no problems whatsoever. Claire, thanks again for this collaboration. We have to do another one, because I've learned a lot since we've made this one! Claire Yaxley: As an avid Final Fantasy fan, I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the project and lending my vocals to the wistful, melodic tune that Archangel created and I will most certainly do it again if the opportunity ever arises! 2-04. Sixto Sounds - "Zaghnol Comes" Source: "Festival of the Hunt" Sixto Sounds: Lots of guitars, lots of synths, sort of proggy, but only a little bit. 2-05. Mattias Häggström Gerdt - "Yummy-yummies" Sources: "Quina's Theme," "Qu's Marsh" Mattias Häggström Gerdt: Quina Quen is one of the best characters in any game ever. Period. S/he is lovably weird. And, luckily, the music for "Qu's Marsh" is just as lovably weird as everyones favorite androgynous frog-eater. Strange, minimalistic and atmospheric. In this remix, I tried to respect the weirdness, but also make you tap your feet. Hopefully, that was accomplished! 2-06. Abadoss, AndyP, Fishy - "The Knight of Woeful Sorrow" Source: "Freya's Theme" Fishy: I just played the rhythm guitar and helped with the recording. All credit to Andy for the shredding and Abadoss for the arrangement. Abadoss: "Freya's Theme" is a hauntingly beautiful piece of music. At the beginning of the source, the tonalities and chord structures are more akin to a lullaby, yet it uses a harpsichord and polyrhythm to unsettle the listener. The strings and the organ that enter later further remind the listener that Freya is a tragic character. Prior to and throughout the course of the game, she loses just about everything she cares for. And yet she fights on. In that respect, she is much like Don Quixote who partly inspires the title and the flamenco style of this arrangement. Credit to my brother, Troy Keyn, for years of listening to him play Latin jazz guitar. AndyP: As you can tell from the performance, I'm by no means a classical guitarist. Plus, the lack of a cutaway on a classical guitar means that the high passages were incredibly hard to hit. I love the tone of the guitar and think it works really well for this piece. Gotta thank the IoSR for use of their studios! 2-07. katethegreat19 - "You Don't Know Me" Source: "Unforgettable Silhouette" katethegreat19: Freya's signature words are: "To be forgotten is worse than death." This, of course, references her devastation over finally finding her long lost love, Fratley, only to discover that he remembers nothing of his past, nor his love for Freya. I wanted to create a song from Freya's point of view that captures her and Fratley's sad tale. The original theme from the game was difficult for me to work into song-form, so, being the rebel I am, I took the chord progression, sped it up, and wrote a new melody on top of that. In the end, it is more original song than Freya's theme -- *sigh* -- but it carries the story well, as well as the feeling I wanted to convey. For the arrangement, I used my harp, piano, and glockenspiel. 2-08. Brandon Strader - "Spirits of Gaia" Source: "Faerie Battle" Brandon Strader: I am so happy to have been able to finish this last-minute remix, several months late. I wrote, mixed, and mastered it over nearly 11 hours on 6/22/2013. I did it in a similar style to "She's a Squirter" and "Mogstradamus," which is fully electronic performance with the MIDI keyboard and then digitally editing/glitching stuff afterwards. With the mouse. I mentioned in one of the other FF9 write-ups that I was happy with the three songs I was able to make for the album. Oops, make it four! I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. 2-09. Gario - "Terraforming Gaia" Source: "Kuja's Theme" Gario: Ah, this was an interesting choice that I made -- once finishing my boss remix for this album, rather than walking away free, I decided to tackle another track straight up. Honestly, this one was just a lot of fun to make. Playing around with synths and such to get all the odd sounds working together, as well as creating a lovely piano line, it all just worked, and working on a track like that always feels good. Such a short source, though, and trying to expand it was certainly a challenge. I think it worked out well, though, and I hope everyone who listens gets a kick out of it, too! 2-10. Bluelighter - "March of Robbers in Treno City" Source: "Dark City Treno" Bluelighter: Treno's theme is really my favourite of the game; so that I could play this in loop in piano. :) For long time, I wanted to know what it would look like with an orchestral dimension. FF9 album project was the opportunity to make mine! In this mix, I wanted to insist on a cheerful rhythm of marching band, with also some more exotic parts by using of woodwinds and pizz. Thanks to Fishy who really helped to finish this mix and get a version presentable to OCR! I hope you'll like this arrangement. :) 2-11. Verdegrand - "In the Hall of the Gangster King" Source: "Tantalus' Theme" Verdegrand: When listening to this track, I immediately felt reminded of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. So I had the idea to make an arrangement that makes a reference to that piece. I was amazed at how well that theme fits in to the overall mood that the original creates, especially since the result is a mixture of a classical theme and a rather jazzy structure. I quote it at a part where the arrangement harmonically deviates from the original and goes to another key, and not only does the reference bring the arrangement "back on track" into its original key in this regard, but it entails a bunch of changes and brings about a sense of escalation. So it serves as a musical idea that appears out of nowhere at just the right time, acts as a surprise and enables changes to take place which then promptly follow and which allow for a new intensified perspective on the material that was played before. 2-12. Archangel - "Ambitious Whispers, Immoral Chants" Sources: "Wicked Melody," "Devil's Ambition" Archangel: This track is actually my project debut. It may not be the first one to get published, but it's the first one I claimed all by myself. I'd been recruited for the Seiken Densetsu 3 project album before that, but that doesn't count. I still remember being really nervous sending that humble request to Fishy (a PRIMARCH, no less!), trying to claim a really important and iconic track despite being a newbie with no posted remixes. Strangely enough, the claim was accepted, so I decided to really get to business and do Kuja justice. I've always thought that "Immoral Melody" was better than Kuja's actual main theme. It's also my humble opinion that he's a pretty good villain. I don't want to start another stupid discussion on which Final Fantasy villain is the best, because it's as pointless as submitting a straight cover to OC ReMix. However, I do think people should give Kuja a little more credit. He manipulated a powerful kingdom into attacking and obliterating entire cities. He betrayed his "allies," destroyed a world with little effort, summoned a giant horde of white dragons to kill his opponents, and traveled to the center of all existence to erase absolutely everything and everyone. And he did it all with style. With this multi-faceted approach to Kuja's theme, I wanted to highlight all the nuances of Kuja's character: his violent nature, his ruthlessness and ambition, his frightening ability to manipulate and push an entire world to the brink of war, and -- let's face it -- his elegance. I did my best to represent Kuja's elegantly malevolent and, at times, brutally violent nature in this track. He may be a somewhat effeminate character, but I'm not sure why that has to imply that he's weak. He's far from harmless! I hope this track gets that message across well enough. Whether you like Kuja's character or not, I hope you enjoy this eerie rendition of his little ditty. I'd characterize it as majestic, "Imperial March"-like, dramatic-entrance music with just a dash of a scheme-brewing, minion-briefing kind of soundtrack. 2-13. jnWake, Argle - "Into the Sandstorm" Source: "Cleyra's Trunk" jnWake: This mix is a progressive metal or something like that version of the "Cleyra's Trunk" theme. The original is a mysterious, slow-paced song, while mine is a heavier and faster (but not fast) version of it. I tried to keep the eerie harmonies from the original, but the mix may feel a bit liberal. Argle provides a violin section in the middle of the song. Anyway, I'll make a breakdown here. First, for the original: Section 1 - 0:00-0:28: This is the "main melody" of the song to me. I use the initial ascension (A-A-B-G) a lot in my mix. Also, the first part has A and F as low notes, which is also an element present in the mix. Section 2 - 0:29-0:58: My mix has a version of the diminished arpeggios here. Section 3 - 1:49-1:56: Weird descending chords! Section 4 - 1:57-2:24: Some sort of arpeggios here too. And now, my mix: 0:00-0:58: "Eerie" intro. E. piano plays the Section 1 notes. 0:59-1:25: Heavy section based on Section 4 (E. piano again). 1:26-2:09: E. piano based on Section 1 (here I use the A-F thing I mentioned there). I like the piano effect at 1:47. 2:10-2:34: The Argle part! The guitar part is based on Section 2. I like how the violin keeps playing when this section ends. Next section is a repeat. 2:56-3:17: Yet another part based on section 2 (the E. piano plays the arpeggios). 3:18-3:40: Here the mix gets a bit liberal. The E. piano is using the same motive from Section 1. 3:41-3:54: Finally, Section 3! Not the same chords, but same idea. 3:55-4:38: Synth solo. The chord progression follows the idea from Section 3. Outro is a repeat. So, here I am, giving this song a second go! When I initially submitted, I honestly wasn't convinced on its chances. It wasn't the mixing as my main worry though (even if I knew it wasn't stellar), but I wasn't sure about how the judges were going to react to the arrangement. Luckily for me, the song was rejected because of the mixing and the arrangement actually received some compliments! Anyway, I then noticed that Argle was offering free mixing, and considering that he already was a collaber in this remix, it seemed like a great idea to have him mix the song, since he's much better at that than me! Main changes from the original song are (obviously) a much better mix, better samples for the drum kit, better amps for the guitar tracks and a pad in the violin section. Argle also added a much better use of reverb than my original submission, giving the mix more of an eerie feeling. Hope you like it! 2-14. katethegreat19 - "Tribe of the Sandy Treehouse" Source: "Cleyra Settlement" katethegreat19: My arrangement of Final Fantasy IX's lovely Cleyra theme! Getting out of the scary sandy bowels of the Cleyra tree and up to the little town was always refreshing and joyful for me. The music was adorable and happy to boot. I wanted to create an arrangement for this track full of joy and also create the feeling of being up very, very high. Hopefully, it creates a vision of all the townsfolk raising their voices together to keep the protective tornado spinning happily. :) The arrangement uses harp, soprano recorder, and hand drums. 2-15. IanFitC - "Save the Queen" Source: "The Wavering Blade" IanFitC: This is the first piece of music I created for OCR, starting it as long ago as 2010. As a character, I always thought Beatrix was the most interesting NPC in Final Fantasy IX. Her internal conflict between her duty and feelings were explored far better than Steiner's, and I felt that the themes Nobuo composed for her always represented that conflict well. To continue the theme of uncertainty in the piece, I knew I wanted to have plenty of distant, reverb-doused parts everywhere. Little guitar parts that were being played in different time signatures, some reversed, lots of delay, plenty of percussion -- all of it to make this bed of noise for the main theme to be played over in the opening and closing sections. This is in contrast to the less ambient middle section where I used the "Rose of May" theme from the source to explore Beatrix's sense of duty. The theme is perfect for displaying all the aspects which makes Beatrix a great character. As YouTuber night2night3 rightly says: "This song speaks elegance, class, power, and humility. All attributes a great woman should have." Couldn't have said it better. When combined with the obviously distressed tones in "The Wavering Blade/Sword of Doubt," the "Rose of May" theme takes on an additional dimension -- wrestling with itself, reluctantly following orders -- and it was this feeling I really wanted to capture. The variation of the theme at 3'13", where the harmonised guitars wrap around each other in 11/8, is probably the best example of this. Interesting side note: all the guitars in the middle section were recorded at about 4am while my partner slept in the bed no more than 5 ft. away! 2-16. Fishy, Chris | Amaterasu - "To Be Forgotten" Source: "Eternal Harvest" Fishy: Freya has probably the saddest storyline of any Final Fantasy character I can think of. This dance in Cleyra is supposed to signify the hope and togetherness of the Cleyrans strengthening the protective storm, but it completely fails and leads to more disaster. I wrote the outro first as a violin quartet isolated idea, and then decided to just reimagine the entire track working in Freya's theme motifs and just generally taking all the optimism and hope out of the original. The name comes from the quote on Freya's splash scene; "Despair - To be forgotten is worth than death." Everything is live played except the drums, including some tasty fretless bass. Big thanks to Chris for bringing the violin parts to life, I probably didn't make it easy! 3-01. Natalya Zarraga feat. Seth Tallman - "A Rose in the Storm" Source: "Roses of May" Natalya Zarraga: "Rose of May" was the first video game song I ever learned to play on the piano, and I fondly recall the days when I would let this music loop endlessly during the select few times it would play in the game. I made this remix when I was new to the world of recording, production, and remixing, but I greatly enjoyed the process. My instrumental arrangement featured harp, glockenspiel, recorder, and percussion contributions from my husband (djembe and tambourine). Final Fantasy IX is my favorite of the series and has captured my heart since the first day I gazed upon the box art. I have always identified with this track and Beatrix's character, so I wanted to pay homage to those things when I remixed her theme. 3-02. Mazedude - "Dig This Fossil" Source: "Fossil Roo" Mazedude: "Dig This Fossil" is a stylistic homage to the work of DJ Krush, the first artist who comes to my mind when someone says "trip hop." He's often able to smoothly blend the sounds of lounge, acid jazz, and hip hop, and all with a subtle Japanese feel that I find very interesting. This remix is my crack at the genre while honoring FF9, so hopefully you'll find it interesting as well. 3-03. Moomba feat. Fishy - "Rally-ho!" Source: "Conde Petit" Moomba: Writing about this remix, almost four years on from its completion, has sent me back on an exploration of my musical development. As a composer and remixer, my style of composition tends to change and evolve quite frequently. I tend to be somewhat fickle like that -- I always want to try writing things in styles that sit outside my comfort zone before ultimately falling back into my natural genre. "Rally-ho!" comes from a time in my life when I was (perhaps excessively) fascinated by tracks that begin with a slow or moderate tempo and quickly evolve into something much faster and often more chaotic. I blame Touhou remixes. This type of music, while not completely outside my forte, meshes a few genres I was not entirely confident in at the time. But with some prodding (and fantastic guitar parts) from Cain (Fishy), I feel like I managed to mould it into something presentable. 3-04. RiverSound - "Fixations" Source: "Before the Altar" RiverSound: This song was never supposed to be my first submission to OCR, but is due to my joining in the FFIX remix project so late. I focused on this one to get finished in time. I chose this source song because of the moment it plays in the game: the fakey wedding ceremony. I thought of a fun little scenario in which the song would be an actual wedding anthem in Conde Petie, played during all weddings by some band in the background. Then old bachelor dwarves, who never got that far in their relationships, would've made a sad remix of the wedding anthem themselves that they could play in the evenings inside Conde Petie's inn. So that remix, made by those dwarves, was what I tried to imitate. The original name of the song was a vague description of the situation; "little old" meaning the dwarves themselves and the rest is about the lost fixations that they maybe once had for their partners, but lost long ago. Yea, I like peculiar song names. I love melodica and decided to build the whole song around it and good ol' nylon guitar, which is a hugely underused instrument in music nowadays IMO, backed up by hand percussion and acoustic bass. I wanted to keep it simple and traditional so it could be played in an inn. Originally, I thought of doing an imitation of a live session of the dwarves with tavern noises and such, but I ended up overproducing everything and scratched that idea, although a fireplace sound effect was left to start and end the song. Who knows what that's about -- hope it's enjoyable or something. The only problem was that the original song is very simple and short and I wanted to make a full, cohesive song out of it. I took the route of making the original melody the chorus of the song and adding original material into intro and verse. Of course, a melodica solo had to be in there too. They're pretty much just noodling on the appropriate scale. Percussion is somewhat similar to the original throughout the whole song. I tried to draw inspiration from the "bang here, clang there" kind of percussion. (What does that even mean?) So I used a lot of panning and different sounds to imitate the original. Of course, I'm concerned about whether or not this passes the source use standards. I thought about cutting out some original part, e.g. second "verse" played by melodica, but that started to feel stupid to cut something out just so the original melody has a bigger percentage in the song. So I'm maybe taking a risk here, but I'll leave it as it is. I feel like I used everything there is to use in the source song and expanded it further. Hope you enjoy. 3-05. Brandon Strader, Jeff Ball - "Blakk Majik" Source: "Black Mage Village" Brandon Strader: The song was originally meant to have live saxophone, but some writing issues on my end prevented that from happening. I then asked the talented Jeff Ball to play violin for the song. He performed the lines I had written as well as performing some additional harmonized tracks, and a couple flashy bits of his own making. His violins for "Blakk Majik" are so great that they could possibly stand on their own -- I would enjoy listening to them on their own. The song took around a week to write, I think, and then several months of tweaking. The different genres fade into each other, and elements from each are mixed into the others. It was confusing trying to mix the metal, dubstep, and chiptune elements together production-wise, but it was refined over and over for months until it came out right. The amount of automation in the song makes me shudder just to think about it. This is easily my most zany mix for the FF9 album. I feel very confident that I will not be able to make something like this again. A huge thanks goes out to Jeff Ball for helping me bring the mix to life with his violin performances! 3-06. Brandon Strader - "I Am Gonna Stop Eventually" Source: "Unforgettable Sorrow" Fishy: Brandon actually started the project way back when, and contributed a fair few tracks. I think he might be a fan? Brandon shows his range here with an emotional solo piano arrangement, and I'd just like to thank him. Brandon Strader: I made this solo piano piece of "Passing Sorrow" for the FF9 project, though I'm not sure you'd call it solo since it is technically a 3-hand piece. Not constantly, but there's a part or two in there, like the culminating melodic part at 2:13 and the very soft and delicately played bit at 0:33. Then again, it depends on whose hands you are talking about, I'm sure any other pro could play this with 2 hands, but solo piano is fresh territory for me and I tried to perform it as beautifully as I could to do justice to the original song. So, yes, this wasn't sequenced, it was played with a Keystation though there was some very minor quantize and note moving at the request of Fishy, project director, to make it less "loose." For a soft song like this, I used a soft piano library, Alicia's Keys, which I seem to have been using for all my piano bits in various mixes lately. Before that, I used Art Vista Virtual Grand Piano, but I find that even with the softer tone of Alicia's Keys, it has a more realistic and warm sound, even sounds that trigger when you let off a key or the sustain pedal. I think that's called aftertouch, not sure. It's nice to have though. Some people may listen to this and say oh, that's a cop out, I bet he made that in 10 minutes... but no, I put a couple months into being anxious about STARTING on this song, because I knew it would be such a big challenge. Solo piano is something I've only touched on a couple times; I made a song for my sister's wedding, a song called "Maxine" (on my second acoustic album, Always Remember) for my dear great-grandmother who passed away, and "Lapse of Grace" from my first acoustic album, Life. (You can download them freely at http://brandonstrader.bandcamp.com.) So, needless to say, I've only ever really done this on a big, life-changing occasion. I had a WIP that sat on the project subforums for a very long time, and katethegreat said to go forward with it, so I was always inspired by that push. Anyway, FF9 is a beautiful game with a beautiful soundtrack and the project is being beautifully handled by a beautiful Fishy filled with many beautiful songs by beautiful people. It's great to be a part of another song for it and the album in general. Here's the context for the title: Vivi: "A-Am I gonna stop pretty soon, too?" Zidane: "!" Black Mage No. 288: "I don't know... Kuja said the prototype built before us would last longer." Vivi: "But... I am gonna stop eventually." Black Mage No. 288: "......" In my opinion, FF9 is all about Vivi. 3-07. Flexstyle - "I'll Always Be There" Source: "Eiko's Theme" Flexstyle: I haven't played Final Fantasy 9. That said, I felt like I understood Eiko just by reading a bit about her backstory. Now, this started off rather unassumingly. I picked this song up on a whim for the FF9 remix album, just because I liked the tune. However, after reading a bit about Eiko on Wikipedia and a couple other sites, I felt something resonate inside me. See, I'm the oldest of nine kids in my family, and at the time of creating this, I had three younger sisters under the age of ten years old. I really, really love my little sisters; they mean so much to me. What's the point of all that? Eiko is described as being desperately lonely, and someone who has lost a lot of family at a very young age. I made this song to dedicate to my little sisters, because I never want them to feel alone. Although it's not going to be possible at all times in this life, I still want them to know that I will always be there for them. Hopefully, some of the love and tenderness that I feel for my "baby" sisters has seeped through in this remix. 3-08. ch4rl33 - "Iifa, the Super Tree of Death" Source: "Iifa, the Ancient Tree of Life" ch4rl33: I wanted to capture the darkness and adrenaline of traversing the twisted Iifa Tree, replete with its undead armies and speedy elevator. The uplifting bridge of the song was meant to capture the (somewhat horrendous) beauty of the tree's insides, a momentary calm before returning to the grim surroundings. 3-09. ch4rl33 - "Assassimander" Source: "Amarant's Theme" ch4rl33: Salamander is a badass and his song needed to reflect that. 'Nuff said. 3-10. djpretzel - "Four Score and Six-Eight" Source: "Tetra Master" djpretzel: I didn't seek this source out, it was suggested to me, and, at the TIME, I thought I could put something together rather quickly. Oops? I actually had several ideas that I ran into brick walls with -- a Beatlesque vocal arrangement, a disco arrangement, something *vaguely* in the style of Steely Dan, and even an EDM approach... Years later, having been through MANY works-in-progress, I finally settled on a 6/8 conversion & jazz sextet preparation -- brush kit, upright, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vibes & Rhodes. That's it. I felt comfortable doing this largely due to the playability of the guitars (acoustic is Ilya Efimov, electric is Archtop by ISW), as there's some improvisational noodling involved. It's got a kind of old-timey jazz feel to it that I ended up liking; hope some others dig it, too. The source is playful but lacks a strong melody, so there's substantive original writing that darts about or layers on top; a liberal arrangement, but I think you still get the soul of the progression & some of the whimsicality of the original piece. Couldn't work that güiro in, though! 3-11. XPRTNovice - "Miles and Miles Away" Source: "Esto Gaza" Fishy: "Esto Gaza" is just calling out for some classy jazz with a soft "j," and XPRTNovice is one classy guy. It's got it all: chill vibes, tickled ivory, and a seriously smooth sax solo. Joe is a very multi-talented guy instrumentally and this really shows it. XPRTNovice: Probably the greatest compliment I've ever received as an artist was when I showed this WIP to Fishy and he said "This is jazz as fuck." It happened so long ago that I have no idea how I got involved in this album. It was before FF6 came out, so I'm pretty sure nobody knew who I was yet. I don't know. What I do know is that he was missing "Esto Gaza," and when I listened to it, it was snowy outside (actually, I don't remember, but poetic license, right) and I just felt this really jazzy vibe coming from somewhere. Anyway, I threw a bunch of stuff together and Fishy liked it, but I didn't give him a final WAV until a year later, after I had gotten some better drum VSTs and, what the hell, bought a baritone saxophone, which you can hear debut (nobody has heard me play one before this) in here. Live flute and trumpet and saxes! And don't give me shit about there not being enough trumpet. The title was just too cool to pass up. 3-12. Bluelighter - "When Love Must Be Saved" Source: "Broken Spell, Healed Hearts" Bluelighter: The original piece was really interesting to work on. I really love the simplicity and the harmonic richness N. Uematsu managed to put in. In this orchestral mix, I wanted to combine different atmospheres: joyful and peaceful at the beginning, when characters Cid and Hilda can live fully their love. Darker in a 2nd part, where we can imagine some evil forces they have to fight together. But we have some reassuring notes in the conclusion. All's well that ends well. :D Here it is for the inspiration. I've made adjustments of volume on quiet parts. I've also apply some minor retouches: solo strings louder on 1st quiet section and rhythm a little reviewed at outro. Hoping you'll like this version. :) 3-13. Jovette Rivera feat. ISAO - "The Final Melody" Source: "Melodies of Life" Jovette Rivera: Final Fantasy 9 kindles fond memories for me. It was one of the first Japanese games I actually imported from Japan just to play ahead of time. I remember the music in the game standing out, especially the ending theme song "Melodies of Life." I created this arrangement in 2009, and I wanted to approach it with an acoustic touch of pianos and orchestra, but then slowly get drawn back into the more heavy and emotional parts of the song during the last half. ISAO's wonderful guitar work in the final stretch helped seal the arrangement and pull everything together. Thanks to the FF9 project directors and all the OC ReMix staff for the continued hard work. Until my next remix, take care! 3-14. Archangel - "Through Sun-Drenched Skies" Source: "Aboard the Hilda Garde" Archangel: A playful orchestral arrangement of Final Fantasy IX's airship theme. Its adventurous and, at times, almost goofy sound paints a picture of heroes sailing through vast skies to unknown lands, and the percussive elements mimic the sound of the airship's whirring engines. I added a cameo of Final Fantasy IX's main theme to break things down a bit and make room for a more pensive moment, but ultimately, this track is about sheer adventure. Enjoy! 3-15. katethegreat19, Chaeley - "Bibliotheca ~ Dreamer in the Library" Source: "Daguerreo, the Hermit's Library" Music Arrangement, Vocals, Lyrics: katethegreat19 Lyric Translation, Lyric Arrangement: Chaeley Fishy: Kate is one of those people whose love for the games and original music really comes through in her arrangements. All of her tracks on the album are no different. Her collaborator, Chaeley, provides some Latin lyrics that are right at home in Daguerro. It's awesome to have her on the album! katethegreat19: The Daguerreo library is a bit of a treat for those far enough into the game. It's a sleepy, watery place of learning, very far from civilization and perfect for eccentric hermits. I created a lyric from a reader's point of view, about the magic and permanence of the written word. I then asked Latin aficionado, Chaeley, to take my lyrics and rewrite them in Latin. She suggested Classical Latin would sound the most beautiful, and carefully rewrote everything to fit exactly with the rhythm of the melody. For the arrangement, I used my lute, harp, and alto recorders for a renaissance sound. 4-01. Mikeaudio - "Inritus Bellum (The War to Nothingness)" Source: "Guardians" Mikeaudio: As I recall, this was the only source material left for me to remix. At the time, I just wanted to work on any OCR projects possible, and FF9 being such a great game all around, I just couldn't pass it up. Was great fun, and am glad to be a part of this project. :) 4-02. LuIzA, Level 99 - "Ghosts" Source: "Terra" LuIzA: This song first started as a practice recording I did back in 2004 (with a PC mic, no less). When the FFIX project started, I was stoked to have an excuse to make it into a real song, as this is certainly my favorite track in the OST. I approached Stevo to help out -- not only is he awesome at acoustic guitar stuff and lyrics, collabs with him are always fun times and creativity gets to flow. Collabing is probably one of the coolest things about the community, but more so when you meet people that "click" with you in music. Level 99: Lu approached me to contribute and I was roped into doing some guitar and lyrics. The collab progressed pretty organically, though it wasn't until the very end when we decided who would be doing what vocals for the track. Obviously, the vocals are a point of contention with a lot of people, and standing up against the likes of Erutan being on the same album is a tall order, but I think our take is original, emotive, and tragic. It's a story of discovering the self that isn't beneath the facade that is. Every time I get to work with Miss Carvalho, it reminds me one of the principle reasons I enjoy making music at all: creating something with others that is more than just the sum of the parts. 4-03. halc - "Ground Zero" Source: "Bran Bal, the Soulless Village" Fishy: halc with some of his signature 9-bit beats. "Bran Bal" is a pensive and mysterious source and it suits this style amazingly well. halc: FF9 has a great soundtrack, but most of it is in weird styles I have trouble arranging. Luckily, I was able to settle in with the Bran Bal theme, which is probably one of the most accessible tracks on the OST for me, remix-wise. I would have liked to have had that world map tune, but some other fgt beat me to it. >:D This mix was somewhat inspired by AeroZ's "Lore of the Ancients" from the first FF5 album, which I'm sorta referencing with the opening line that carries through the track. I didn't want to mess up Nobuo's beautiful melody, so most of the details are in the harmonies and backing track. Enjoy! 4-04. Darangen - "The Fallen Savior" Source: "Pandemonium" Darangen: I've enjoyed this theme since its original incarnation in Final Fantasy 2. I was glad to see it come back in Final Fantasy 9, and I enjoyed how Nobuo made it from a somewhat militant marchy sounding theme to an ominous feel. Final Fantasy 9 is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, and when I saw Fishy had a project going for it AND the Pandemonium theme was still unclaimed, I had to jump on it. I always felt that Garland had an interesting role, in that he wasn't necessarily a villian, but an anti-hero. He was the savior of his people and, while his methods were destroying Gaia, he was only doing what it took to make sure his people survived. When he died, so did the hope of his people living on, even if Kuja hadn't of destroyed Terra, there would be no one to finish the work Garland had started. Thus the name for this submission, "The Fallen Savior." As always, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it! 4-05. Poolside (Josh Whelchel, Melinda Hershey) feat. Amanda Appiarius - "You and I (We're Not Alone)" Source: "Not Alone" Arrangement, Lyrics: Josh Whelchel Vocals: Melinda Hershey, Amanda Appiarius Josh Whelchel of Poolside: I think it may speak for itself. :) 4-06. Knight of the Round (Justin Taylor), Adam Higgins - "Viking Funeral for the Damned" Source: "Silver Dragon" Justin Taylor of Knight of the Round: I joined Fishy's FFIX project pretty late, with only a handful of songs to choose from. One of the first songs I checked out was "Assault of the White Dragons." After about 30 seconds in, I decided that this was the track I would remix, and that I was going to be making an epic symphonic black metal remix! I got a hold of my old bandmate, Adam Higgins (ex-Iscariot), and we decided to collaborate on this track, marking the first time we have worked on a song together in almost 4 years. We wanted to utilize as much of the source as possible while creating some original bits here and there, as well as taking the listener on what I like to refer to as a "sonic roller coaster." Using influences from bands like Emperor and Dimmu Borgir, as well as composers such as Clint Mansell and John Williams, we were able to create a fairly distinctive remix while using 100% of the source material. We worked extremely hard on this mix and we hope you all enjoy it! I used Sony Acid Pro 7 to track/mix everything. Izotope Ozone was used to master the track (also done in Acid 7). All of the orchestra bits were added through MIDI via Symphonic Orchestra Gold, Symphonic Choirs, and Stormdrum. Guitars were recorded with an Agile Intrepid 8 string w/EMG 808 pickups through an ENGL Fireball head, then re-amped through Line 6 POD Farm. Bass was recorded direct in, then re-amped through POD Farm. Drums were programmed through Superior Drummer 2.0, then the snare and kick were sound replaced with the Steven Slate Trigger. 4-07. sephfire - "Filtering Through the Memories" Source: "Memoria" sephfire: Wow, I haven't done this in a while. It bums me out that I don't really have time to remix anymore. Working and making Extra Credits tends to soak up every spare minute I can find. I was actually pretty resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be remixing again for a long time, but when I heard someone was starting a project for Final Fantasy IX - one of my favorite game soundtracks - I couldn't resist the urge to go back and do just one more. Hopefully, I haven't gotten too rusty since last time. :) I don't know when I'll have time to come back to remixing, but I'll always be around. OCR is the first internet community I ever joined, and I've met too many awesome people to ever leave. This is home. So thanks for everything you guys do to keep this going! 4-08. Archangel - "Crystalline Tempest" Source: "Crystal World" Fishy: Archangel contributed several orchestral arrangements but I particularly enjoyed this one. It sits just before the two rock epics of the final battles and really gets the sense of dread and impending doom going. It's a really sinister re-imagining of the "Prelude." Archangel: The twin track of "Prelude to Fantasy," another of my arrangements on this album. While "Prelude to Fantasy" conveys balance, order, and purity, "Crystalline Tempest" is the soundtrack to distortion, deception, and chaos. The arrangement follows the heroes' journey through the Crystal World as they gaze in wonder at the twisted crystal passageways, battle Kuja's minions, and finally come to the end of the road, where Kuja greets them in front of the Crystal of Memory: "Nice of you to come." 4-09. SnappleMan, finbeard, norg - "Arxidopita" Source: "The Darkness of Eternity" SnappleMan: This song was basically just an excuse to work together with norg and finbeard. I had norg write a little bit of arrangement as a test to get us all going, and what he wrote turned into the intro. I love how his mind works with things like that, always knows which dissonances to throw in there to make something really jump out in your mind. He also wrote the piano/organ interlude that comes in later on in the track (before the tempo jump). I wrote the "meat" of the arrangement, and I recorded all of the bass and guitars, most of the keys and the drum parts. Chuck's contribution is the incredible Vangelis section in the middle of the song. I basically went to him and asked "Hey, do you want to work with me and nor~" "YES!" and then had to find a place to put him, since I already had most of the arrangement written, and it just occured to me to stick a completely random 4 minute Vangelis-style interlude right in the middle of the song. The keyboard solos at the end also feature George and Chuck. My goal with this track was to prog it out, and I ended up having to trim a good bit for length, but, looking back now, I could have probably trimmed a little more. Either way, it was very fun to work on and I hope people enjoy listening to it! 4-10. Fishy feat. Ludiotic - "Zero World" Sources: "The Final Battle," "Battle 2," "Kuja's Theme," "Wicked Melody" Fishy: Man, I just don't know what to say at this point. I'm just so glad the album is finally out for everyone to enjoy. To celebrate, this is easily the most obnoxious and unrepentant prog nonsense I've released so far. I'll not lie - it's fairly gratuitously self-indulgent in size, content, concept, style... in more or less every way it is possible to be gratuitous. I want something really epic to go out with bang on, and this is what I came up with. There is very obviously a Dream Theater influence going on here. The voiceover contains choice extracts from Necron's script. Big thank you to The Choir of a Thousand Burning Souls (Larry, Deia, Jill, zirc, OA, Hemo, Cyril, and Stevo), and to sir Douglas Pennant (Ludiotic) as the voice of Necron. Big thank you to Andy P. for letting me borrow his 7 string JP guitar for authentic Dream Theater ripoff-age. Just wanted to give a final shoutout to all the ReMixers, Brandon as founder, the artists from GA-HQ, Kevin (TheGreyNinja) for the cover, José for the trailer, and Dave/Larry for helping push it out the door. My mixes are never particularly source lite, but I've taken the liberty of breaking this down properly for you anyway, as I know most of you will look at the length and hate me. Source Breakdown Source Sections Used: "Final Battle:" 0:00-0:16 - A 1:20-1:42 - B 1:53-2:36 - C 2:36-2:56 - D dooooooo dooooooo 2:56-3:06 - E do do do do do 3:06-3:16 - F ner ner ner ner 3:16-3:27 - G Boss Theme: 0:15-0:40 "Kuja's Theme:" Melody at very start "Immoral Melody:" 0:27-1:04 Whole intro is basically DEF chords, and some of the melody 0:12-0:42 - D 0:42-0:52 - E chords 0:52-1:07 - F chords + original melody Heavy part of intro is variations on those sections 1:17-1:42 - D 1:42-1:47 - E chords again 1:47-2:03 - F in 12/8 2:03-2:17 - G 2:17-2:38 - variation on riff from B This section is the "main" theme section, I guess, closer to original 2:38-3:03 - B more or less verbatim 3:03-3:58 - C more or less verbatim 3:58-4:17 - E 4:17-4:26 - F 4:26-5:06 - G with timesig fun 5:06-5:16 - B riff transposed This is the random shit and breakdown section - more loosely based 5:17-5:37 - B riff with Boss theme melody, totally clever 5:42-6:02 - Melody from "Kuja's Theme" used as riff adjusted for 4/4, "Immoral Melody" as melody 6:02-6:15 - B riff in Major and Dorian, totally clever 6:15-6:32 - B riff with soloing and keychanges 7:03-8:25 - A section in 6/8 with solos later on 8:25-8:40 - F section in 12/8 again (...kind of, drums are 4/4 for some of it) Then there's a main theme repeat into ending 8:40-8:53 - G 8:53-9:49 - C verbatim-ish 9:49-10:12 - D So, total times added up: Pad intro: 45s Heavy intro: 81s Main theme: 158s Random: 70s Breaksolo: 111s Main/end: 80s 535/664s total around 80.5% Non-VG sources/Blatant Ripoffs Any modern Dream Theater fan will spot the hilarious obvious nods made, but here they are anyway: "A Nightmare to Remember:" 2:17-2:38 of my remix is quiet blatantly ripped off from 1:41-2:17 of that song. I mean, it's more a general arrangement idea, the notes I use are clearly the final battle riff, but it's definitely heavily "inspired by." "Octavarium:" The sound of the intro has been clearly purloined, but no harmonic or melodic content has been used. As always, thank you for listening. :3 4-11. Archangel - "Prelude to Fantasy" Source: "Prelude" Archangel: This track is now a part of the Final Fantasy IX project album, since Fishy was kind enough to accept it after I'd modified it to a less conservative state. This was my first real ReMix, and it led to me joining the ranks of OC ReMixers. I don't know where it will end up on the album, but I envisioned it as the very last track -- a hymn fitting the end of a wonderful story, when order and balance have been restored and all is well with the world again. "Prelude to Fantasy" is actually one of two mirror tracks (with a shared concept) I contributed to this project. The other is "Crystalline Tempest." I got the idea for this remix while on a bus driving home. It's basically my first real remix (I usually just altered the instrumentation of MIDI files and made a better-sounding version of the song). "The Prelude" from Final Fantasy has always been one of my favourite songs, so I simply had to make my own rendition of it. The structure is still the same. I didn't want to tamper with it, because I think the Final Fantasy "Prelude" is perfect the way it is. I just couldn't force myself to change the chord progression. Nothing sounds as pure as the original. However, I've added more percussion and more instruments and tried to make the song sound fresh and crisp. I also tried to keep the judges' feedback on the first version in mind -- i.e. make sure the song ramps up more, adjust the choir volume, etc. I made the remix in FL Studio using various sound libraries (EWQL Symphonic Orchestra, EWQL Symphonic Choirs, EWQL RA, EWQL Stormdrum) and some soundfonts and VST plugins. I think the result is a pretty cool soundtrack-ish version of the "Prelude." I hope people will enjoy listening to it at least half as much as I did remixing it. All in all, I'm pretty proud of this track, and it's still my favorite among my arrangements. Thank you very much for running such a wonderful site! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments from cover artist Kevin Merriman (TheGreyNinja), Game-Art-HQ art director Reinhold Hoffmann, and visual artists To talk about this album cover, we're gonna have to time hop a little bit. So, FFIX came out in 2000. Playing this game was like diving into a deep river of nostalgia, and having it take you somewhere new. I laughed, I cried (seriously...), and when I finally hit the end, I smiled. I thought the story was done... but four years later, a roommate introduced me to OC ReMix and I started consuming EVERYTHING there for the next 5 years, nonstop. I started to feel bad that I had all this RAD music, but gave nothing back in return... so, I finally created an account to at least comment on some stuff I really dug, which is how halc found/hit me up about doing some art for The Speed of Sound album. I didn't see the PM for like 4 months and missed out on the opportunity to contribute by being too slow (no pun intended...). I never thought of directly messaging any of these guys before because, to me, they're all rock stars. But still looking for a way to give back or contribute, getting that PM totally flipped the right switch in my head. I lurked around until the right project was getting started (it was FFIX, I HAD TO jump on it) and, so, I sent a message to Fishy that I wanted in, and the rest is history. Sort of. A lot has happened between then and now... and the story still isn't done yet. I'm excited for all the plot twists, character progression, and EXP that life has in-store for all of us, but I'm especially excited right now to dive into the nostalgia of this album and visit all the new places where the music will take me. :] -Kevin Merriman How this collaboration started was pretty funny since David (djpretzel) first tried to contact me via the OCR forums, but I was not active there for a couple of months. It was in November 2014 when I got eventually contacted via email about the idea to create an art contest with the target to get FFIX illustrations for the album together. I, however, was sure that there were Game-Art-HQ members who loved the game and would love to be a part of a collaboration between our different communities to tribute the masterpiece that is Final Fantasy IX and its rich cast of interesting characters. So, I suggested that to David and he liked the idea as well. A few days later, after some talking about what kind of artworks would be interesting (character illustrations, maybe also those of the vehicles like the Lindblum aircraft), I did what I always do when I start an art collaboration and asked the community about the idea. A small problem was that we got a relatively short deadline since the album was once scheduled to be finished and published a lot earlier, and because of it, only around 15 artists had both the motivation and also the time to work on the artworks. They are all big fans of the game like myself, but most of us also have a real job, and drawing is just a hobby that can take a lot of time. Figuring out an idea how to illustrate a character and the whole scenery, picking the right colors, erasing all kinds of mistakes during the process, that all can take weeks, even if we work on one single image. I bet it's pretty similar to how long it can take to create a video game remix that is up to the standards on OCR! We also had a couple of other art collaborations ongoing at the time and were happy that we could provide 19 artworks that are mostly about the main protagonists, but also some of the bad guys like Kuja, Queen Brahne and, of course, also the Black Waltz. This was our first collaboration with OCR and we look forward to future collaborations to create beautiful tributes to our favourite video games that combine both music and visual art! - Reinhold Hoffmann --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • blackorb00 - "Amano Amarant" blackorb00: Yoshitaka Amano's Amarant from Final Fantasy IX, fanart. I went for the Amano's version, because I think it's way better than the game one. This was made for the Game-Art-HQ FF "Those Who Fight Further" tribute project. Painted in Photoshop. • Arlmuffin - "Black Mage Cemetery" Arlmuffin: Vivi at the cemetery. I really like the Black Mage Village from Final Fantasy 9. Never get tired of the theme song. • LukeTheRipper - "Blackest Magic" LukeTheRipper: "I exist only to kill!" ~ Black Waltz No. 3, FFIX Drawn for the collaboration project between Game-Art-HQ and OverClocked ReMix. Well, with some luck my piece just might get in... or no, it's not about luck, either my skill was sufficent for my piece to be part of it or it plainly wasn't enough, there is no luck factor here... And whichever the case may be, I am personally very pleased with this piece. ^^ Black Waltz No.3 was a secondary villain in FFIX and only lasted through the first disc. A shame really, since he had so much potential to be more than just yet another boss that you beat and move on. His design was awesome, his cutscenes were awesome, his music theme was awesome (such a dark and ominous track), and basically everything about this guy was awesome... well, except for how he ended after his defeat... a mere shadow of his former self serving pretty much as a practise boss for your new, limited team. Damn you, Square, why do you have to trash the coolest villains like that!! So, yeah, it was a bit of a challenge to draw this guy, with his inhuman "anatomy." Lotsa cloth layers (was tricky not to get 'em too messy) and those badass wings, which I just had to include. >D But still, I really love how it came out, and I hope you guys will like it as well. ^^ • chitobeinp - "Diamond Dust" Princess Garnet and Shiva from Final Fantasy IX. • Skence - "Eiko and Her Moogles" Skence: Eiko and her moogles cooking dinner for Zidane and friends. Time lapse of the drawing can found here: http://youtu.be/mpHI2-9tnQs • Lilith the 5th - "Freya" Been thinking of picking Garnet for some time, then changed my mind to get a little out of my comfort zone. Glad I did, because I'm really happy with how this picture came out. <3 Made with Photoshop in about 4-5 hours, I guess. ^_^ • Kurama-chan - "Kuja" This art is for the Game-Art-HQ villains list! I've chosen Kuja, since he is fabulous and my favorite FF villain! Background by pixiv artist, allowed to use for free usage. • Angelus-Tenebrae - "Nebelüberfall" Angelus-Tenebrae: Did this for the OC ReMix FF9 album because FF9 needs more love and because I like Steiner and Beatrix. About halfway through, I just realized Steiner normally holds his sword with both hands in battle, but they never designed the swords to look like you could hold them with both hands... I think they made up for that by having him hold the pommel with his bottom hand. Made with Krita. • mizueyes777 - "Paper" mizueyes777: finally done. all made out of paper. always wanted to do a piece of my favorite video game since i was a kid. • sarrus - "Party of Nine" sarrus: So, I've finally given my favourite game a proper tribute, and here it is, something I've been using all my art time to create. The composition was quite difficult to begin with. The character placements were completely different to how they've turned out here and that was one of the main problems, figuring out where everything goes. I tried to go for a more stylised look with that characters and just letting the sketches flow to what my mind was thinking at the time. You can see it in some places, mainly Vivi's slight bump in his face where a nose should go, giving him some character to the black void that black mages have for faces. So happy with how this turned out. I hope other fans enjoy what I've done! Done in Photoshop CS6 in about 12 hours (spread over 3 weeks). • ephemeralvision - "Princess" ephemeralvision: The Garnet singing scene is definitely my childhood favorite -- I hope I'm doing this justice! Done with Paint Tool SAI. Featuring Garnet Til Alexandros XVII. • blackorb00 - "Queen Brahne and Co." blackorb00: Queen Brahne and company. Painted in Photoshop. • SuperEdco - "Quina Quen" SuperEdco: FFIX is such a great game. It was the perfect "Hope you had the time of your life" tribute to classic FF games as Square took the series into brave new directions. • fedde - "Remembering Final Fantasy IX" Painted in Photoshop for lots and lots of hours. (More hours than ever before!) • karniz - "Salamander/Amarant" karniz: Media/Program: Pencil & Paint Tool Sai I haven't been able to draw very much lately, but I was able to churn this out! Done traditionally in pencil first, then digitally colored. [Method used is shown in this tutorial o' mine! http://karniz.deviantart.com/art/How-I-Color-My-Illustrations-Part-02-316382673] • Fenrir the 2nd - "Steiner" Fenrir the 2nd: My tribute to FF 9. • Grieverjoe - "The Skies over Alexandria" Grieverjoe: Enjoy! • Serene7th - "Vivi" Serene7th: Vivi on an aircab. ^^ • dragonariaes - "Wings of Alexander" dragonariaes: Alexandria in flames, protected by the wings of Alexander. This was a huge challenge for me. I don't draw buildings or backgrounds hardly ever. This was a major mixed media project with digital finishing. The background sky, moon, and overlay are done in watercolor and scanned in. The mountains were made out of a photo I took of frost on a backlit window. The waterfall, smoke, fire, and wings were painted in Photoshop. The castle and city were made out of a collage of a dozen different buildings that I overpainted, manipulated, and layered together. All lighting effects were painted in Photoshop afterward. After several attempts, I accidentally blurred the heck out of what I was working on and liked how it looked.