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Mio/Homura (澪/炎) EXTEND Ver.

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UPDATE: Now with its own music video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us06RUYC5O8

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For context behind this piece:
http://troisnyx.newgrounds.com/news/post/986305

The original, to your left, is what originally resulted from having that idea and being ambitious enough to try. This, here, is the culmination of that idea. No one could ever take that away from me back in 2012 with their reviews. And now, no one can ever take that away from me in any other form. I mean, in my current ability, notwithstanding years of breaks because my mind wrestling with heavy psychological damage, Mio took two days, and Homura took nine. Then, of course, there was the updated section in between the two phases, which took me much longer because that was one thing which wasn't even in the original vision of the song, and yet, I feel it needs a grandiose buildup into the second phase.

This song is me. It reconciles the two sides of my musical ability that I am strongest at -- electronic, dreamy ambiences, and frenetic dance-like tunes accompanied by "stupidly traditional" drums, as Jeroen Tel affectionately puts it, heheheh. It doubles as a prayer, by virtue of its lyrics. It also shows the kind of influence I've had over the past five, six years -- Enya and Akiko Shikata, to be precise.

The title, Mio / Homura, was a poetic translation of synonyms of Water / Flame from Japanese, a direct pun on Waterflame's username and my two compositional phases, as Waterflame was my opponent for the semifinal of the 2012 Audio Deathmatch, to which this song was originally submitted. Bear in mind that Mio and Homura are almost exclusively used as given names in Japanese today.

I sequenced everything but most percussion -- a headless tambourine and a medieval long drum, which I recorded. Also recorded probably 70 vocal tracks on this thing, the most I've ever done to date.

With the completion of this piece, the circle is now complete.

------

Enough waffle now. For those who are curious about the lyrics, here they are.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/3a1350b11b1636361c30e91f083beb6f

Used in this project:
Akai-Steinway III soundfont, by Denis.
https://www.polyphone-soundfonts.com/en/files/10-pianos/303-akai-steinway-iii

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I'm speechless... this floored me. Absolutely stunning piece of music. This humbles me.

Troisnyx responds:

That is high praise O_O Thank you. I... I do feel like my song has been a lot more passionate of late; hearing this now I realise just how reticent I've been with using the more screaming tones of my voice.

So here's my overdue review for this piece. I decided to look at the original to compare the changes you made to the 2012 original. And while I won't leave a review on it, I will drop a rating. I plan to review this piece almost as if this were a remix of the original. Let's start with the instrument choice.

I'll begin with the vocals. While the original's vocals sounded pretty good in the original, there were moments when they sounded a little 'fumbled', so to speak. That being said, the vocals here blow the original out of the water. They're cleaner and crisper than the original. In the original, around the 0:30 mark, there was this sequence that began and I immediately loved it. I was glad to see it in the original and I'm glad to see it here. It sounds really pleasing. The 'chimes' if you will, near the beginning, were a great touch to bring some more ambiance to the piece. Your medieval long drum sounds great. Personally, I enjoy when artists use unique instruments or define part of their style with unique instruments - I personally have been doing it myself. Everything else sounds nice too. No real complaints.

As for sound levels and mixing, your little sequence I mentioned earlier could benefit from a little sound boost. Just a touch. Maybe it's because I enjoyed it in the original and it was easier to hear there. Everything else is easy to hear and nothing gets too drowned out by anything else.

For composition, Mio seems slower paced than the original and that benefits the section greatly. Having a transitional phrase from Mio to Homura was a well needed addition. I enjoy how your piece pays tribute to your opponent you had. It's a nice touch. Optionally, you could have tried to 'mimic' Waterflame's style in Homura as so to contrast your tranquil composition in Mio to a recreation of Waterflame's style in Homura. While I think an idea like that would've given the song more symbolism, it's just a stylistic observation, not something that's a detriment to the piece. What's here works amazingly well. Homura maybe could've benefited from being slightly more intense to highlight the difference between Mio and Homura. All in all though, I'm enjoying what the piece is trying to do.

This is further reinforced by the song's theme. And while a song without an in depth theme isn't detrimental to the song, a song WITH a theme is ALWAYS a beneficial thing. I enjoy when a song takes its listener on a journey. It develops an emotional bond to the listener, allowing them to get more invested in the piece as a whole. I was emotionally invested in this piece because of the way it gently handles the listener and walks them through the piece. However, I think a final recap of the song's themes near the end would have been the perfect way to close the song. My personal interpretation of the song and its themes is a journey through life itself - complete with its ups and downs. Mio representing the tranquil moments (the 'good parts of life' so to speak) and Homura representing the more intense moments (the 'bad parts of life'). Under all of that, lays a deterministic drive to see everything through to the end, no matter how harsh.

This brings me to my final thoughts. Ambition is the fuel for innovation and innovation is the fire for success. Nothing is too ambitious of a project (Coming from a guy who wants to write and publish novels, compose music, get straight A's in university and still balance the rest of life) and nothing is 'impossible'. The original was hampered by some time constraints but this one utterly flourishes as a great piece. I have come to understand that you have gone through quite the large handful of hardships in your time but to press on and continue in spite of all that is commendable and this song is a testament of this. This 7 minute journey may have few flaws here and there, as all pieces do, but since it speaks to me on a deeper level than 95% of the audio on Newgrounds, I can't find a good enough reason to rate this below a 5/5. I commend your visions imbued into this piece. It's a drastic improvement on the original on all fronts and the definitive version of the Mio/Homura. If I have anything left to say it's the following: don't discredit and ignore your dreams. Even if others disagree, sometimes you must take your own path. And sometimes that path is a long, solo journey you must take by yourself. And something - something in this piece, reflects all of that. I wish you the best of luck on future endeavors.

Cheers,
-Yeelp

Wow this sure is a journey!

This song is pretty flawless, it really did come a long way from the original version. Really tbh this song is too good for Newgrounds. I'm shocked it never got front paged. The name really fits with this piece.(First half being calm like water, while the second half was wild like fire!) I personally think this would fit well in a cinematic.

Final thoughts?

I really don't see how you could make this better the quality is really good. I can tell you put your heart and soul into this piece. Thank you for sharing! This will be going into my favs! :)

ET16

Thank you for the words and nice song btw :)

Troisnyx responds:

Glad you enjoyed it; thank you!

Absolutely gorgeous. Well fleshed out, I enjoyed the sound-play and atmospheres that you've created. Many thanks! :)

Troisnyx responds:

Thank you. <3

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
6,498
Faves:
27
Votes
56
Score
4.61 / 5.00

Uploaded
May 15, 2017
1:13 AM EDT
Genre
World
File Info
Song
8.4 MB
7 min 21 sec
Software
  • Audacity
  • Sytrus
  • VSCO 2
  • FL Studio 11
Hardware
  • Snowball
Misc. Kit
  • Fruity Soundfont Player

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.