At long last, I've finally finished this cover! Shoutout to ren for nominating this one way back during the lightning rounds of COVER BATTLEGROUNDS III! So, what I had thought was some weird timing/synchronization issue with the MIDI clock, was actually TOTALLY wrong... The reality was that this was in 9/8 time, and I had a hell of a time trying to groove with the beat! I mean, I CAN count it, but playing and counting 9/8 at the same time was a struggle for me for some reason. In a way, I almost felt like I regressed to the days of when I first picked up a guitar! Anyhow, this is why I had such a hard time trying to mesh with this track! Truth be told, I was almost going to scrap this again and concede defeat finally. However, I was feeling particularly stubborn and decided instead to power on through with a rock n' roll attitude! Unfortunately, I wound up having to change the bass and rhythm section quite a bit. To make up for this detour, I tried my best to keep the lead melodies faithful. Part of the reason that I needed to change the bass and rhythm sections was because they didn't quite allow me much room to make up new leads and noodle around. I also fiddled around a lot more with note velocities for the drums. I usually just keep the velocities close to max, but this time there's a lot more variation. To help back-up the lead guitar, I also threw in some synths into the mix. Specifically a layered combo of my Magical Chase "sparkle"-preset, and another synth. The synths are totally in a support role here, as I didn't want to detract from the guitar melodies/harmonies! Also, 2:02 not sure where I suddenly pulled that one out from while noodling... Really made me think of it being like making my guitar "speak" with a bit of a southern drawl, or something. In any case, I particularly enjoyed doing that little bit! Anyways, hope you all enjoy this cover! In the future, I really hope that I don't wind up having such a hard time with the other Space Manbow tunes (or any others for that matter)! ~DAR OPUS Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/uoti3d0z356wjg0/Space+Manbow+-+Parallel+Space+[Cover+By+DAR].opus/file Originally Composed by: Tsuyoshi Sekito (関戸 剛) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Make sure to Like, Share, and Subscribe if you enjoyed! Follow me at: (The Den of DAR) Official DISCORD: https://discord.gg/uEAfRWP DAR's Cover-To-Do List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DowH1EIjiLyeg29cFx-4XOWpr7-bl1Pwb2_OfVaQ1SE/edit?usp=sharing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Davester2296/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Davester2296 ReverbNation: https://www.reverbnation.com/Davester2296 Originals Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Davester2296 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAOaKtY9eKs

Yay, more Final Fantasy! Big thanks goes out to all of you whom voted for it back during COVER BATTLEGROUNDS V. Your votes, along with Sephiroth's brutal piledriver beatdown during Slaughtermania II has helped secure this FF cover! Also, shoutout to ren for including this track among a handful of other FF song suggestions! Originally I was planning on covering FF8's "Don't Be Afraid", however I decided to consult the Covers To-Do List once more. I was then VERY close to settling on "Maybe I'm a Lion" until I received a nice handful of suggestions from ren. I went and listened through all the new suggestions several times and still hadn't yet made up my mind. Eventually, one day whilst I was listening to them all again, as soon as I heard Eruyt Village's theme, I was like "This one, this is the one!". All my other FF covers so far have been heavy and more aggressive, so I figured that this might be a nice one to mix things up a little. That, and plus I was really feeling in the mood for something soothing and mellow. So pretty "jazzy" huh? I actually didn't intend for this to become this jazzy-sounding sort of thing... actually, I'm not sure what to really call it, its jazz-like but at the same time not what I'd really call real jazz. I was stuck for a bit on this one, since I wasn't sure how to approach it. I was going to try and stay super faithful to the original instrumentation, with just the addition of my acoustic guitar. However, recording the acoustic has its complications... By the way, my apologies for the hiss/background-noise in the acoustic parts. I'm hoping to save up and finally buy a proper audio interface in the future (provided that the world and economy don't both implode next year!). Anyhow, due to the noise, I always have to try and compensate for it by adding other elements to hopefully cover it up. So after recording and mixing the acoustic guitar tracks, I went and pulled out my Stratocaster. After recording some parts from the Strat, I subtly layered them on top of the acoustic parts. At this point, I was goofing around with chorus and even phaser and flanger! I then had the idea to play that chord you hear at the start and end of this cover. I thought it sounded really cool with the effects that I had set up. So I wound up adding these trippy-sounding strums throughout the rest of the track too. I also had some of the strums reversed, since I thought that sounded cool too. So now, I was trying to decide on which flute sample I wanted to use to play the original flute part. However, nothing really sounded right, all of my flute samples just felt a bit too much... I felt like things were just so soothing-sounding that I needed to go a step further beyond the gentle flute. What could be smoother and more soothing than the flute?... The humble saxophone! At least that's what popped into my head at that particular moment in time. As soon as I loaded up my favorite saxophone, I fell in love with the sound. This is also when I decided "Ah, the hell with it, I'm just going to get jazzy and do my own thing with this.". Plus, I figured it'd be great to have Mr. Bones on the saxophone again in a cover (the last time being in that Duke3D cover). Also, I had WAY too much fun cobbling together that "Black Mage Bones" sprite! I also had fun making up the bass parts and playing them. In terms of playing and listening, this is probably one of my most laid-back sounding covers. However, behind the scenes, I had a whole lot going on. Layering and panning around several different instruments, and loads of reverb and other effects here and there. Anyways, I don't want to ramble on forever, so the wall-of-text ends here. I really enjoyed putting together this surprisingly different (for me) cover, and I hope you all enjoy! ~DAR **SIDENOTE: I actually have never played any of FF12. However, all I DO know about it was from what a good friend of mine told me many years ago about Eruyt Village and the Viera. To paraphrase it somewhat, "Dude, DAR, just imagine! A village FULL of only *Bunny* girls!!" ...?????? ???? ??????. OPUS DOWNLOAD: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qw0pl6g3hml9g4q/Final+Fantasy+XII+-+Eruyt+Village+[Cover+By+DAR].opus/file Originally Composed by: Hitoshi Sakimoto [ 崎元 仁 (さきもと ひとし) ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Make sure to Like, Share, and Subscribe if you enjoyed! Follow me at: (The Den of DAR) Official DISCORD: https://discord.gg/uEAfRWP DAR's Cover-To-Do List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DowH1EIjiLyeg29cFx-4XOWpr7-bl1Pwb2_OfVaQ1SE/edit?usp=sharing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Davester2296/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Davester2296 ReverbNation: https://www.reverbnation.com/Davester2296 Originals Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Davester2296 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXTiVr9JqQw