ReMix:Final Fantasy X "How Much Longer" 3:34

By Pot Hocket

Arranging the music of 2 songs from 2 games ( view all )...

"On That Day, Five Years Ago...", "Suteki da ne"

Primary Game: Final Fantasy X (Square , 2001, PS2), music by Junya Nakano, Masashi Hamauzu, Nobuo Uematsu

Posted 2006-10-22, evaluated by the judges panel


I'll often suggest for a given mix that it would make good driving music, or tunage for surfin' the web or chillin' out, which usually equates to genres like rock, trance, or ambient, respectively. In this instance, newcomer Michael Lee, alias tekcoh_top, has penned a very mellow nylon acoustic guitar duet that I honestly see being quite perfect for a candlelight dinner. I'm not speaking from an overabundance of empirical evidence, but what I've got says that paired up with some wine, fine dining, and ambiance, this FFX/FF7 arrangement would serve admirably for wooing the prospect of your preference, yet again indicating the flexibility and malleability of game music. For the win. Ms. Tricks effused:

"Oh, my Lord... Who are you, and where did you learn to play so beautifully? I am stunned. The tone, the phrasing, the musicality... This performance is easily on par with the classical guitarists I've heard at Peabody. The section starting at 2:39 is so moving, I could cry. This arrangement may be a little on the conservative side, but it's certainly no cover. You've clearly put in a great deal of personality and feeling into your performance, and it shows. I have not a single criticism. It's a gem. YES, YES, YES!!!"

The triune capitalized "yes" mantra can only mean one thing: good times. Of a musical variety, of course. The only nit a couple judges flirted with picking was recording quality and a general lack of sharpness, i.e. more upper midrange and high frequencies, but this was (correctly, imo) chalked up to the timbre of the instrument itself. 2'02" is an interesting twanged blue note in an otherwise classical arrangement; it sounded like a flub to Larry, which it may very well be, but if not, it's certainly a conspicuous and abnormal arranging decision. It'd be interesting to get the skinny on that from Michael. Towards the end of the mix, things get faster, with repeated articulations that are simply gorgeous. Sting recently released an album of Elizabethan songs with himself and Edin Karamazov on lute, and I think there's tangency between the appeal there and the appeal of what Lee's done with this ReMix; solo string instruments are obviously beautiful, but a duet between two of the same can be breathtaking. This isn't a toe-tapping mix or anything that will get your adrenaline pumping, per se, but it's intimate and musical and warm , and I can personally loop it almost indefinitely without issue. Lovely.

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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colorado weeks
on 2023-10-14 20:28:35

this remix was my intro to OCRemix. i'm listening to it again for the first time in over 15 years and it's still one of my favorites on the site

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Crulex
on 2014-01-13 10:10:08

Pot Hocket always seems to bring something more out of even the most beautiful sources, and this is a great example of that. If this kind of music and arrangement style is your thing, it's easy to love. Wonderful ReMix right here.

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Emunator
on 2009-12-22 03:50:58

Such an amazing take, I'm a sucker for all acoustic guitar solos but this guitar tone is my absolute favorite :-) I agree that it feels really heavy on the lower end of things and some higher notes would have been nice to balance that out, but I guess the kind of mood you've got going lends itself better to lower notes :?

No real complaints here, though I can tell that your recording and production has gotten better based on your FFIV remix! The performance talent has always been there, though :-)

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HyruleanTubist
on 2009-11-19 20:39:26

Jill's totally right, if I heard this walking around Peabody I wouldn't have even questioned it. A fantastic track, keep playing that guitar.

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OA
on 2009-04-01 16:01:31

I love Pot Hocket's approach to just about every track he takes on, and this one is no exception. I do think a little more high end and volume would be nice, but the playing and interpretation in this is excellent, and that's all I really need from a track this well performed..

Highly recommended.

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Lucentas
on 2008-12-06 22:37:17

I love this piece. It's quiet, emotional, and human. I just completely relax when I hear it.

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Alexis
on 2007-05-03 00:20:29

Wow, excellent arrangement and guitar playing...

Absolutely beautiful.

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Trivun (crispymongoose)
on 2007-04-30 11:34:18

I've always thought highly of OCRemix.com, and the quality of the songs on here, ever since I first listened to a selection kindly provided by a friend who sent me the downloaded tunes over MSN; I soon began to look regularly to see if there were any new Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts remixes on the site. I must say, this is one of the best I've heard so far.

I'm really sorry if I've broken copyright, but I took it upon myself (just last night, in fact) to create a music video, a tribute to The Eternal Calm, which I named 'Peace' - the music in the video was 'How Much Longer', and I feel that this is a brilliant way to make sure great songs like this get out into the world where people who wouldn't normally have done so actually have the chance to listen to this totally awsome song.

If anybody is interested in watching the video, it's on Youtube (search 'crispymongoose') and Myspace (search 'Trivun'). However, I don't see the video as ever being able to compare with the sheer intensity of feeling of listening to this beautiful tune for the first time.

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Less Ashamed Of Self
on 2006-11-02 03:38:38
Lots of stuff.
Get a load of moody upstairs :?.

Yeah; no kidding. If you want the mp3 to be louder you know what you can do? You can open the mp3 in Audacity or any other free piece of editting software, turn up the volume, and save/overwrite it. Problem (for you) solved.

I'll agree it's perhaps a little quieter than it needs to be, but have you ever owned an album of classical guitar music? It's par for the course. Certain styles of tracks are softer than others... similarly, if you ever buy a gabber or hardcore album you'll likely have to turn the music down to keep it from peaking/distorting on your laptop speakers. It's for this reason that I accept that leaving my 'Everything' playlist on random will have require a very flexible volume setting.

But perhaps the most disturbing line you said was that you 'can't really recommend this to anyone,' because of these issues. I feel this is especially harsh considering both how high it is in quality and atypical it is in genre.

Anyway, you're entitled to your opinion as I am mine. No more words need be said about it.

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DarkCecil13
on 2006-11-02 02:02:30

Amazingly soothing, warm, heartful guitar playing here. Greatly recommended for periods of deep introspection. The arrangement is very well crafted. In terms of the mastering, even normalizing the final result would have worked wonders. Oh well, listeners, just turn up your volume knob if its too quiet for you [duh] :)

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Broken
on 2006-11-01 00:56:10

Excellent mix! The sound is very warm and rich even if it's very soft. I personally didn't have much trouble hearing andything, but it is a realtively quiet piece.

Guitar sounds professional (maybe Michael is? What secrets are you hiding from me?)

For someone who honestly hasn't listened to any remixes in a while, this mix was a superb place to start again.

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RoeTaKa
on 2006-10-25 10:26:23

Get a load of moody upstairs :?.

This is lovely, the arrangement is splendid, very gripping in terms of the constant fluency of the piece.

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Pink
on 2006-10-25 08:48:39

Not precisely what I was expecting right here... especially from the title. Oh well... guess it's true what they say, "You can't judge a book by its cover."

Now then... I think some of my words are going to come from personal preferences, but I do find that there's plenty of things to note on about this remix. Although it's true that the guitar work was quite nice... there was one glaring error that was driving me nuts... the remix was FAR too quiet. I had to literally turn my laptop speakers up to max in order to hear it clearly... and there was no other noise around me either. This makes the song effectively useless in any of my playlists because of the severe volume mis-balance. That was probably my biggest beef with the song.

Another thing was, now this is probably more personal preference than anything, that I found the song very boring after awhile. It didn't seem like anything particularly new was being done after the first minute or two to the point where I was thinking "how much longer" was it going to go on? This mixed, once again, with the low volume level made the piece sound incredibly empty.

I can't help but be critical on this remix because it just did not sit well with me. The arrangement is good, but I think it could've been far better with maybe one more instrument and a severe volume boost. I can't really recommend this to anyone, it just feels like it needs a lot more work on finishing touches.

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Blake
on 2006-10-24 22:32:50

Wow good job. :D

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DragonAvenger
on 2006-10-24 10:27:41

It was beautiful on Thasauce...it's still beautiful here.

Sources Arranged (2 Songs, 2 Games)


Primary Game:
Final Fantasy X (Square , 2001, PS2)
Music by Junya Nakano,Masashi Hamauzu,Nobuo Uematsu
Songs:
"Suteki da ne"
Additional Game:
Final Fantasy VII (Sony , 1997, PS1)
Music by Nobuo Uematsu
Songs:
"On That Day, Five Years Ago..."

Tags (3)


Genre:
Mood:
Mellow
Instrumentation:
Acoustic Guitar
Additional:
Arrangement > Solo

File Information


Name:
Final_Fantasy_10_How_Much_Longer_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
3,505,975 bytes
MD5:
6bcf1d19494d15a82749d0630f1a1f13
Bitrate:
128Kbps
Duration:
3:34

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