For the life of me I could never understand why they cut the synths from these pieces, which were so key. Then I remember how many things they screwed up, and it all makes sense! Haha. Love the majority of what you've done here, though if you're up for constructive criticism I do feel the first synths have a bit too much hair(distortion) on them, and I think the second pitch bending synths are a bit low in the mix (I feel like they were pretty prominent on PS1). Really nice work overall though, you totally get what makes this piece tick better than the guys who were paid to!
Will try to boost the pitch bending synth in a revision. That got buried when I was mastering to hit the right level for in-game use, and I got too focused on making sure the loudness was right to realize it. As far as the earlier synth, it seems like you've got the same ear for that as I do because I agree that it's too hairy to be perfectly faithful. But it's already been a long journey to arrive at what's there. Starting when I loaded up the PSX soundfont and played all up and down the range with that sound, I realized it is actually a bit crushed string section. My rendition is a 1st violin section and a violin soloist going into Native Instruments Bite, a creative bitcrusher. The balance between the section and the soloist determines the amount of hair, the more soloist, the less hair. But a higher balance of the soloist also makes it more obviously a string sound, and less like a synth, which didn't sound faithful to me. This is the best I've got for now
On the first faux synth sound, it really just sounds a bit harsh and maybe missing some modulation. I feel like MrBonk nailed it, there's some rapid pulsation on the original tone especially noticeable on the tails (though I think it's always there) that might be replicable with a bit of the right modulation which could have a side effect of taking a bit of the edge off. I would suggest you might try some judicious EQ in the high and high mids, or some tape saturation (always good for rounding a track, adding harmonics, or taking the edge off in my experience), or some light chorusing and/or tremolo and you could probably make that particular track really sing without having to dial back the distortion and expose the layers. A real light touch of all those approaches in fact might be best and most effective. Using retro styled plugins of anything you try will probably help too, as they tend to naturally take the edge off of higher frequency harshness just putting them in the chain (many Universal Audio EQ plugs are like this, though I've found Waves and other replica plugs are getting better at this with time).
Btw, props on your approach to analyzing the original PS1 sounds to try to replicate it so faithfully! I would've totally taken the easy way out and just tried to massage the closest synth patch I could find into shape, which probably would have presented it's own set of problems anyway.
Just pushed an update, all of these ideas came in handy. I used some envelopes to reduce the attack on the bitcrushed strings which allowed me to favor the soloist even more in the balance, which cleaned up the sound. I also added the shimmering modulation based on the original sound. It turns out both the envelope attack speed and modulation frequency were key-tracked in the PS1 sound, as it's a single sample being time stretched over the range of pitches. Hence the lower notes had slower attack and modulation, and the higher notes had faster. The modulation wasn't a straightforward tremolo effect; it seemed the original sample had a split high band and low band modulating volume in opposite directions. Should match a lot better now thanks to your suggestions.
Interesting discovery! Glad I could be of some help. I'm happy to have this version in the game now, I had considered doing this idea myself but just overlaying the synths on the remake version, but ultimately was too lazy for even that.
By the by, I still feel like the pitch bend synths are low in the mix, but really nice work overall and as I said I'm thankful for the massive improvement over the stock track as is.
THANK YOU for even trying to do this. It was one of the most baffling things to me that they chose to do. Removing the synths especially feels like they didn't understand the place they had in this piece representing the unnatural machinery (The synths)sucking the life out of the earth. (The natural instruments). They exist as a contrast to one another to help tell the story.
At least they didn't replace them with techno synths like it seems like they did with almost any other song that actually still used synths in the remake OST. That would've been worse.
Also some constructive marks: I feel like the pitch bend little "Ba weep, boo Weep Boh weep" bits should be a little bit louder, maybe layer them with a second synth too? And agree a little on the distortion on the main synth, perhaps modulate it with an envelope so the distortion is only there initially and tails off by the time you hit the delay. Otherwise great work.
Exactly! They totally missed the dichotomy Uematsu was hinting at with the overt synth sounds against the natural instruments in the setting of the make reactors! So glad you articulated this, some of the important depth they've stripped in the remake has really bothered me not just because it made the original pieces better, but because it also shows a lack of understanding of the general context and the why's of the decisions originally made.
the remake version was aimed at the depressive nature of a mako reactor and not what actually is. Thats why it is slower and has a violin rather than a synth. It represents death and depression.
Seemed like they wanted to play it safe and prevent the music from interfering with dialogue. There's a trend across the whole soundtrack to use lower octaves than the original score whenever there's a chance of dialogue scenes happening over the music, as well as sound that blend more easily into the background. But I had to bring the synths back, and in the original register if I could. I just pushed an update that fixes the level and improves the sound of those pitch-bending synths, along with other improvements, so that should help
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Btw, props on your approach to analyzing the original PS1 sounds to try to replicate it so faithfully! I would've totally taken the easy way out and just tried to massage the closest synth patch I could find into shape, which probably would have presented it's own set of problems anyway.
By the by, I still feel like the pitch bend synths are low in the mix, but really nice work overall and as I said I'm thankful for the massive improvement over the stock track as is.
Removing the synths especially feels like they didn't understand the place they had in this piece representing the unnatural machinery (The synths)sucking the life out of the earth. (The natural instruments).
They exist as a contrast to one another to help tell the story.
At least they didn't replace them with techno synths like it seems like they did with almost any other song that actually still used synths in the remake OST. That would've been worse.
Also some constructive marks: I feel like the pitch bend little "Ba weep, boo Weep Boh weep" bits should be a little bit louder, maybe layer them with a second synth too?
And agree a little on the distortion on the main synth, perhaps modulate it with an envelope so the distortion is only there initially and tails off by the time you hit the delay. Otherwise great work.