Eminence Radical Dreamers Arrangement - Splitted Discussion

Mr. Maul is there ANY reason that you seem to have alot negative comments regarding Eminence other than an initial bad first impression on what Seraph posted monthes ago? I mean, ok, so you didn't like it, but there's no need to imply that the concert was bad quality, cause from your tone it sounds like it is. Passion was suppose to have smaller ensembles playing pieces from various games, either arranged by Eminence or the original composers etc. Mitsuda decided not to change too much from his original work, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you didn't like the original to begin with, then why did you listen to it? They re arranging it so it can be peformed live with avaliable instruments, not making a dance remix, its natural to believe that it will NOT be far off from the original.

Seraph informed you that Mitsuda san did the arrangement cause the tone of your post implied that you found it inferior, when it wasn't even their arrangement to begin with.

And why wouldn't they charge for their own concert or CD? They obvously have gotten the licence and rights to do so. If you think the arrangement is not worth your money, then its your opinion. But knocking them for charging something they have every right to do is insulting to them and the composers.You're still treating Eminence like its some Amatuer group when they have achieved beyond that.

Now please take whatever first impression bitterness you had on Eminence or Seraph and let it out elsewhere. Its one thing to have an opinion on a mix or arrangement, but that implied scoffing "Is this format what the concert featuring Shimomura, Mitsuda, and Sakimoto was like?" rhetorical question you had was very insulting. If you meant no offense at that, then I suggest you learn to rephrase how you feel better, cause I am getting bad vibes from your posts alone, I hate to see what vibes I get if this was voice chat or something.

Eminence doesn't cater to everyone's taste, neither do composers like Mitsuda. Radical Dreamers was offered for free (technically) to show what their performance was like, and they did a damn better job than concerts like Play!. Seraph played extremly well, he was even more harmonised than the original vocalist, the mixing was professional and it was overall a well performed and mixed piece. Anything negative that you said are all personal tastes and it has no say in whether or not it was professional enough to charge people to hear it.

I mean, god, have you BEEN to any movie concerts? Do you hear any major changes in say, a piece from E.T by John Williams in those concerts? No, they simply re arrange it to suit the right orchestra, (some orchestras are smaller, some bigger etc) and they rehearse to perform the way it was composed for the film. If the peformers did a great job, then its their right to charge the audience for it.

Seraph and his colleages are working very hard to make more concerts like Passion or Night in Fantasia to be the best night possible for gamers in Australia and international guests who came just to see them. If you feel that you have to critque than no ones stopping you, but that rhetorical question was uncalled for and crossed the line. Seraph was not reffering to your ignorance or the chance that telling you it was Mitsuda that arranged it might change your mind or opinion, it was your constant implication that they're not good enough for your "professional" standards that is causing all these arguments! You keep missing the point.

Many people here respect your website Mr. Maul, why can't you do the same to performers like Seraph? If he wasn't professional or was to amatuer, do you think Sakimoto san would have asked him to perform a piece for his latest soundtrack? Do you think Mitsuda san would have invited him to his studio in Japan to record Radical Dreamers? Next time give people a benefit of a doubt, courtesy and respect they deserve. People respect you, in return you should respect them. Just cause Emininece has no big coporate like Square to back them up doesn't mean they are not professional enough.

Maybe next time before you intend to critisize their proffessionalism, how about flying over here and ATTEND a concert first?

Originally Posted by Elorin

Oh, I'd have to disagree on the point about Mitose not injecting any emotion into the song. :P One winning point for Radical Dreamers, in my opinion, was the wonderfully bitter-sweet quality Mitose infused in the song. Her innocent child-like stylings also added much tot he song as well. These are qualities I feel that any instrument, aside from another human voice, would find hard to replicate. That said, the violin in the arrangement under discussion does bring out something slightly different (in a positive way) from what the vocal version did.

I will say her voice had the advantage in having the right TONE. However, tone and emote are two seperate things. A really good vocalist would give the song the right tone AND emotions. Mitose, by comparision to Hiro's playing, lacked emotion. Shes not DEVIOD of emotion cause that would make her a robot, but there wasn't enough PRESENCE of it.

And the violin is the closest instrument to the human voice. They are different of course, and different people will either love it or hate or are ok with it. But they both share a SIMILAR QUALITY, and that they both emote im similar ways. I thought however that Hiro displayed more emotion in his playing, even if the violin lacked the childlike tone. And I personally loved the violin replacing the vocals, though I still enjoy the vocalised version as well.

How ya doing, buddy?

You did kinda miss something, his rhetorical question is what fueled my previous post.

"Is this format what the concert featuring Shimomura, Mitsuda, and Sakimoto was like?" sounded very much like scoffing to me, and expresses his disbelief that this is anything resembling a professional concert or performace. Its like saying "God is this the best these guys can do?!"

His constant belitting or patronising tone in his posts is what irritates me, I mean let's just ignore what he thought of Radical Dreamers. His previous posts on this page had shown that belittling tone, and when I replied to his intial opinion, he responded with a comment that shows he STILL thinks Eminence is amaturish when they are not, and his tone still seems to regard Seraph as an amatuer who's making fan concerts instead of a pro musician who created a great pro concert series and also worked directly with the composers themselves.

I don't care that he hated or disliked this Chrono Cross arrangement, I care about how he belittles Seraph and his hard work on Eminence. I argued his opinions on the arrangment cause I thought some reasons were silly, like the fact that he probably didn't like the original in the first place, so why judge an arrangement for a live performace so seriously like he expected some RADICAL change? (No pun intended). But afterwards his comments seem to imply that he was not at all impress by what Eminence has done, like he's expecting some huge thing like the next Mozart.

Further more he critisized the arrangement by blaming it on Eminence when it was Mitsuda himself who arranged it, then he just brushed it aside when Seraph informed him. I don't expect him to change what he thought of it, but I don't like the fact he ASSUME that Hiro chose that track to show the 'best they have to offer', and then assume that they arranged it. Implying because he didn't like it, it must be arranged by Eminence and it MUST be the best they have to offer. Hiro probably chose it cause people are familiar to it as oppose to "this is the best out of the bunch". Passion included various anime and game music, and people are more familiar to Chrono Cross. You know what pros do? They make sure EVERY track is their best! Not pick the best fruit out of the bunch and parade it.

It was a track arranged by the composer, and it was performed by professionals, if you didn't like it, tough. There's no need any further comments regarding how you feel about Eminence's professionalism when A: You haven't seen any of their concerts, and B:You have no idea half of what you're talking about cause you didn't ask Hiro for more info or try to find out on their website.

Im sorry if the rant is getting old, but god, I hate people who seem to have elitist attitudes, along people who are ignorant and don't take the time to find out more. Mr. Maul, with all due respect, had shown both attitudes in this topic and previous ones regarding Eminence. Hiro is a busy guy, yet he takes time to answer my inane fan girl questions. I'm sure that Mr. Maul is capable of email, pm or MSN any questions regarding Eminence.

If he truly wants to help promote Eminence, he would have done so by now. All the game fansites I emailed to immediatly posted and link to Eminence, like kh-2.net . It takes very little time to post some info, link an image and linking people to the official site for more info on tickets etc. What makes his site so different or special that he needs to rate their professionalism before he considers helping them promote?

Their sound engineer from what Hiro told me, is volunteer rather than a hired one. Meaning he or she is probably a graduate engineer helping out, knows what he's doing but lacks experience.

Then again, mixing also has different perspectives.

There's nowhere I can't reach.