ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "Steeling Hearts" 3:21

We've recently had Hemophiliac join our illustrious judges panel (!) and it's been swell thus far, PLUS we've stepped up the huge void his promotion left for WIP feedback by anointing Xaleph and twin magic bros Pixels & Paradiddles as OCR's new Sages, who been diving in to share their theory and technical knowledge with the community, especially in our Discord server. It's been wonderful to welcome these changes, and a lot of the credit has to go to DarkeSword's Game Set Mash!! compo for shining a spotlight on our new staffers. Hemo's solo piano combination of FF7 & FF6 began in a different style as a GSM collab, but wound up being developed further on his own post-compo, as the ReMixer spells out:

"This track came from the second round of Game Set Mash!! compo from the forums, run by DarkeSword. On that particular week, Final Fantasy 7 was matched against Final Fantasy 6. "Tifa" vs. "Forever Rachel".

I started working on this piece very quickly after the sources were revealed and ideas really flowed fast. That was a good thing because it also happened to be the same week as I was having a major certification exam scheduled, so I was also studying a lot. My plan was to get a barebones piano sketch/structure in place so I could that off to H36T to orchestrate and shape the feeling and color of the piece. That ended up happening as well, and it came out lovely. But something in me still wanted to keep it as an expressive solo piano piece.

After that week was over, I went back in and added a lot to the arrangement to make it stand on its own compared to the compo version. I extended one of the sections out to hold its feeling for a longer period, added additional embellishment and interpretation, and even a small cameo of Terra's theme snuck its way during this time. I switched out the piano for added depth and warmth. Tweaked the reverb. Added a little warmth and reduced some of the brightness from the highs. I asked Chimpazilla for clarification on something she had said in the previous decision and she ended up helping me and asked to let her do a master.

The title "Steeling Hearts" is double meaning both with usage of stealing and steeling. Locke was a thief and therefore the "stealing" came into play. "Steeling" referring to hardening and toughening, exactly what both Tifa and Locke had to do to move on and deal with their situations after trauma.

Solo piano was quite the challenge to undertake. I hope people will enjoy this!"

As Hemophiliac noted, muscling her way into sprucing up this piece on the mastering side was none other than the panel's own Chimpazilla, who explains how she shined up its steeling heart:

"Chris reached out to me to clarify something I had said in my vote. We got to talking, and we came up with some ways to improve the sound of his piano and reverb. Doing a fully-sequenced solo piano piece is very difficult to get right, but he persevered with the humanization, which was hugely improved with the new piano patch and revised reverb. He did a great job, I think! Then I brute-forced him to let me master it. I think the result is miraculous.

The composition of this piece is glorious. I listened to it infinity times while working on it with him, and each time it brought emotional tears to my eyes. He filled the arrangement with such beauty and emotion, and his humanization work pushed it well over the top. The combination of themes is absolutely seamless. It was a joy to help him get this arrangement sounding its best and I appreciate Chris's trust so much."

I dunno what you did, Chimpa, meddler of meddlers, but whatever secret sauce was added pulled it over the bar. :-P I'm not off-base saying that NOT getting the chance to tidy this up some would have broken Chimpa's own heart, so I'm glad she helped improved the sound, all the better to show off Hemophiliac's effective, continuous theme tradeoffs. You can of course check the MP3's comments for Hemo's source usage breakdown, but you'll hopefully appreciate the back-and-forth style of his arrangement structure. Whether your heart breaks for Rachel or Tifa, you'll fortify it after listening to Hemo's latest, another piece conceptualized thanks to Game Set Mash!!