Chrono Trigger - 'Secret of the Forest' Ambient Remix - by Zack Sottolano

Channel:

Zack Sottolano (Zisotto)

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307

Published on October 18, 2014 11:08:27 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR21DvRWk2E

Game:

Chrono Trigger (1995)

Duration: 10:00

193,768 views

1,666

This is my remix of Chrono Trigger's "Secret of the Forest" theme. I have titled it "The Depetrification of the Submerged Forest." I think it has a very underwatery feel and I think it is the equivalent of taking a chill pill as well!

Chrono Trigger is arguably one of the greatest RPG's of all time. Not only does it boast one of the best plotlines, but it also has one of the best soundtracks ever created, in my opinion. The score was mostly written by Yasunori Mitsuda, along with a few tracks being written by Nobuo Uematsu. The source material for this one (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_QxGtXSa9E) is extremely well known and has been remixed hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It is a really relaxing, memorable, and soothing melody. I thought I'd brush up on my remixing chops and steer this into a more ambient mix. I wasn't planning on having this turn into a 10 minute piece, but the most important focus for this one was to create a soundscape that was very lush, and I quickly realized in order to fully explore my idea for this song, it'd take some time to develop the sound. I never really did a piece in this style before. It gets frantic early on and then mellows out about halfway through with some laid-back drums, and finally finishes off kind of edgy.

The other issue I wanted to learn about and explore more was instrument development, and I tinkered for many hours to tweak the sounds, using effects such as delay, reverb, distortion, EQ, flangers, arpeggiators, envelope shapers, filters, compressors, panning, pitch adjusting, reverse processing, and quite a few more. I also developed sounds in Halion 5 from scratch and honed them to my liking using a zillion different knobs and automating controls such as volume and send effects. I cut down on my total instruments from my last video game remix from 205 down to only 64 for this one. I kind of realized my Wizards and Warriors mix was a bit chaotic and had too many different instruments and too much activity, ideas, and effects going on all at once, so I wanted to it be more cohesive this time around.

I utilized virtual instrument plug-ins including pianos, an ocarina, orchestral harps, flamenco guitars, and mostly a ton of "world" and ethnic instruments to give it a more earthy feel. Some of those include a balalaika, pan flutes, a canapa, a balafon kalimba, a Celtic Harp, Himalayan Chimes, a Ney, and a few more. These were rounded off by more traditional instruments such as strings, but with surreal effects added so that they complimented the ethnic instruments, and also the inclusion of various pads for texture and character.

I had a lot of fun making this one, it's probably a much different spin on the source material than what most are used to, but that was my intent, as I felt the song greatly lended itself to a subdued vibe that I wanted to experiment with, rather than just throw some beats and effects together. I'm pleased with the result and hope this song takes you away on a blissful reminiscience of the glory days of the SNES, traveling through time with Crono and Co!

Special shout-out to Joel Rivera who basically had to force me to play this game!

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