Your only real sin in this undertaking is the horrible, horrible job you did of titling the songs! Man, we’re talking cliché city! =P
As for the music itself, you need to be more assertive with the percussion. What you’ve been doing is leaving all these various drums in the soundtrack, mostly untouched from the original, and this limits your ability to change the character of whatever piece. It also steps over the feet of the reinstrumentations you do make, sometimes. I’m an anti-percussionist in the world of music theory, and I love it when people Just Say No to excessive drumbeats, so you might try reinstrumenting or even completely muting some of the percussion channels and see what you get. And I agree with Geiger: Silence is an instrument too, not just literally (“Silence” is what it’s called in the TF editor) but artistically as well. And that holds true for all elements of a composition, not just the percussion.
Moving on, you make too much use of the Schala Bells, Zeal Bells, pizzicato strings, and other specialty instruments. This is a common mistake among fan remixers, who take the characteristic sounds out of their favorite songs and promulgate them elsewhere. The problem here is that exotic instruments stand out very distinctly in otherwise traditional arrangements, and can contribute a feeling of homogeneity to the soundtrack as a whole. It doesn’t necessarily impact any one song adversely, but the soundtrack as a whole suffers from a lack of dimension. A good piano sample will run circles around a tonally intractable Schala Bell any day. The trumpet and trombone samples in CT are also very good in their sheer litheness. So is the flute.
But speaking of the flute, I notice that many of your flute placements are actually in poor taste. For instance, the flute in “Steadfast and Faithful” is completely overpowered by the accompaniment. The theory is just plain bad. You can’t replace a brass section lead with a single flute. You’ve got to remember that there’s more to reinstrumentation than just a change in timbre. Relative volumes also have to be taken into account. This also applies to some of your other instrument choices in various tracks.
I couldn’t find any of your remixes that I preferred to the original. However, do keep in mind that you’re competing against one of the best video game soundtracks ever composed. Mr. Mitsuda specifically engineered the instruments to do exactly what he wanted of them, whereas .spc reinstrumenters must content themselves with using only what he has already made available. Most of the time there simply is no better alternative than the intended sound. Surpassing the original becomes a matter of serendipity.
“Delight of a War God” was probably the most interesting of your reinstrumentations. If only you could get in there and flesh it out in the areas to where you’ve drawn the attention. But alas! We work within the limits we’ve got.
Anyhow, don’t take my criticism as a personal insult. I probably wouldn’t do any better if I were to reinstrument these myself.
