Final Fantasy VI "Implements of War" 4:16

Happy International Women's Day! As the proud product of a determined single mom, lucky husband of a strong, intelligent wife, and befuddled girl dad of a cuddly, sassy sweetie, it's time to celebrate ladies, ladies, ladies as we show love and appreciation to the women in our lives. There's no better way to do that around these parts than by spotlighting female ReMixers, so let's quickly shine the light on 5!

Third up, a ReMixer earns her VGM fake book wings, as the magnificent Mel Decision combines two of the scene's tropiest source tunes, FF6's "Terra" & CT's "Schala", into a dark electronic playground! Of course, this track also pays tribute to two of gaming's most famous women, making it perfect for today's occasion:

"I wrote this song for an 8-Bit Music Theory Discord weekly challenge to "make a mash-up arrangement from at least two SNES songs". I thought it would be kind of funny to go for two of the most widely-remixed SNES songs I could think of, "Schala's Theme" from Chrono Trigger and "Terra's Theme" from FFVI.

Thinking about it, mashing up these songs felt appropriate -- both Schala and Terra were women possessing vast magical talents, both used by powerful countries as weapons -- Terra as a slave for the Gestahlian Empire, and Schala to power Zeal's Mammon Machine.

I wanted each melody to get the spotlight, while still twining together underlying parts of each song throughout the piece. I transposed the songs into the same key so it would be easier to meld them together. I was feeling synths and a trap beat for this piece (IDK why, vibes?), and I ended up experimenting with some new sounds and production techniques to fill out the arrangement. After a failed pass through the panel, I focused on making the piece my own, adding in some new parts and some vocals to break up the sameness. I also redid the drums to bring in more variety, and added some mechanical noises to the background. Finally, I sought out mixing and mastering feedback from the community to help polish the piece.

Thanks ZackParrish, Hemophiliac, and, as always, the amazing OCR Discord community for ongoing feedback and support on this mix!"

"...and the incredible judges, especially the infallible Liontamer...", I heard off in the distance. ;-D Actually, judge Chimpazilla said I'd have a problem with the distortion here, which I didn't, so nyah, at least one judge isn't infallible! (That's actually me. We'll get to that mean lady in due time!) This being a resubmission, prophetik music went to war against the prior version, then switched allegiances and hoisted the battle flag of victory for Mel with his kickoff decision:

"opens with filtered arps coming in - i like the wind sounds coming in here. the bass comes in with a martial feel around 0:12, and i think that the lead and countermelodic instrument have some nice movement on them. i can hear the schala arp behind it too which is a fun precursor. drums and other stuff that comes in at 0:36 is also neat. the hornet-adjacent lead add is a neat idea - having it have such a short sustain is a positive so it doesn't take up the entire soundscape. there's some subtle gating that starts 0:53 that i think is intentional and not limiter pumping - if so it should be a bit more obvious so that it's clear it's not unintentional. it's a cool effect.

there's a break right at the 1:00 minute mark that functions as a nice dovetail. schala theme comes in at 1:18. the beat here is nice and reminiscent of the ethnic percs that are throughout CT's soundtrack, and the constant varying of elements helps the slower tempo and schala's slower pace of the melody. there's another cool transition involving gating, and we're into some VO stuff.

[...] 3:03 brings back schala (and the iconic ascending harp scale) - initially pretty low energy still, but quickly escalating via a variety of percussive and synth elements. [...] this is a vast improvement over the last version. there's a ton of variety and added content here from when i last heard it, and the mix is a lot better too. [...] i love the feel of the first half and the overall track does a great job navigating these two monumental originals. great work."

Judge Emunator quickly summed up the revisions as a testament to Mel's musical voice further emerging here, and I couldn't agree more:

"Much improved Mel! This has a lot more of your personality cutting through in all the details and texture, I have no reservations now. Your arrangement always took two sources that were a natural fit and gave them space to bounce off of each other, but now the sound design and detail work makes it feel all the more special and cared for."

Though this was inspired by 8-Bit Music Theory, Mel certainly wasn't too shabby with her 16-Bit Music Mash-Up choice! Whether you're a Terra stan or gravitate to Schala, gather Mel Decision's "Implements of War" and head for the battle!