ReMix:Final Fantasy X "Laguna Tides" 3:35

Emunator relaxes & embraces the island lifestyle with this watery, chillout/d'n'b FFX arrangement that employs chromatic percussion, bubbling synths, and shifting beats that transition nicely to double-time as the mix progresses:

"Despite some tonal weirdness with the percussion/industrial elements, I always thought that "Besaid Island" had some really gorgeous melodies and chord progressions behind it. When remixing it, I wanted to place a greater focus on sound design while leaving the original melodies primarily intact, and essentially amplify the beauty of the source while still adding in some fun changeups and surprises to the structure.

This also marks my first submission that was completed entirely by me, without any direct assistance from other artists. Normally, when I'm writing a track, I find my skills deficient in some area or another and require some help getting the last 1% of the track up to par, and I was tempted to do the same with the synth solo at the end... it literally took months of trying before I was able to find an approach to that section that worked, but I'm happy I stuck with it, because I learned a lot about synthesis and automation in the process.

I was influenced by artists like Tycho in the beats and synth design for much of this track. I had a lot of fun breaking away from my usual ethnic-house style and trying my hand at a more traditional chillout sound. Hope you enjoy!"

Congrats on the solo effort; I really dug the overall vibe here, and the doubling tempo kept things interesting and somewhat unpredictable relative to the generally mellow aesthetic. Liontamer writes:

"Nice air of mystery here in the beginning. The chromatic percussion's timing was a bit rigid IMO, but the overall texture and mood of the piece is on point. Very smooth beat-driven take on this. The synth at 2:28 for the final flourish was an unexpected direction as well that I enjoyed. Loving the creativity of this approach, Wes!"

Flexstyle adds:

"Oh man, I really love what you've done with this track. Unlike Chimp, I really enjoyed the source tune, but I like this even more than that. That solo at the end was so good, my only crit is that I wish the song had continued longer than that. Beautiful, expansive soundscape, and a fantastic treatment of the source material."

Regarding that synth solo - in my opinion the single run @ 2'41" really makes it; love that it's staccato/separated like that. A legato run just wouldn't have been the same, and while it may seem like a small detail to some, it made me smile & justified the whole solo in one brief, fleeting moment; very good decision. This is the type of mix that would still have been good & enjoyable without all the little details, but ends up being elevated by them in aggregate and using a relatively short duration to develop quite nicely. Great stuff from Wes!