Albums: Dwelling of Duels: Forest vs. Jungle Month (May 2025)
Thou train hath arrived
Game(s): Final Fantasy 6
Reviews
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This arrangement is really cool. The playing on the violin is solid as is the guitar playing. The transition to the Veldt is so intentional and smooth. Getting the acoustic guitar to fit in with the electronic elements is crazy. The liquid DnB feel was so welcome – and the guitars are recorded so well. The bass at first felt a little to mechanical but once it got to the DnB section it was welcome.
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DnB, new percussion, electric bass, and so forth makes this one stand on its own in its own way. The sound design is strong. I hear a little bit of distortion at the top end of some of the hits which resembles but isn’t clipping – not sure if I liked that touch. But overall, the arrangement and the intensity is really there. The transition to the Veldt fit really well considering that these tracks play close to each other in the original source material. The violin playing is good and compliments everything well.
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daaaang this one feels good. love the violins harmonizing. You gave the acoustic guitar a really good character that compliments this genre. Every note in this one feels very intentional. Great mix, great job.
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Trains are forests now I guess. Atmospheric intro in a great way, the panned acoustic guitar caught me off guard but I like it, gives it a sense of ambience and surround. Strings are awesome!! Strings are always a surefire way of creating cool contemplative atmospheres, and they’re used well here. Bass playing is sick. Amenbreaky drums caught me off guard, in a way they seem like they don’t fit the slow ambience of the beginning, but once they settle in I actually quite enjoy them, it really makes me feel like I’m playing a fast action game in a forest, gives the arrangement a whole lot of dynamism that keeps me on my toes. Really love how this arrangement slowly develops and goes to different places. Mix is mostly good, but more work could be done to make everything glue together better especially when there’s a lot of things happening, the cymbals and the drums in general in particular feel a little too bright and distracting at parts. Same with the balance between acoustic guitar and strings, when they happen at the same time (along with everything else), I can tell they’re there, but I can’t really follow what they’re doing anymore cuz the mix is so busy. Lotta nitpicks in here, and this is just fine as is, but I’d still encourage to polish it further to really get this to epic levels. Suddenly harp at the last 20 seconds! Anon what the fuck!!
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Well given the name, the train vibes are really present here. Love the more acoustic feeling to start with the guitar and the strings, before the electronics come in to start speeding this up a bit. Violin feels a little more drowned out against the electronics – electronics could stand to come down a touch when its just them and the violin. Balance is better when it comes to the louder section, electronics/drums maybe still just a touch too high but overall more balanced. Love the punch through of the Veldt theme at the end, nice contrast to some of the other things that have been happening, before the slowdown and removal of all electronics coming into the end. Love all the performances of the solo instruments on this one, just a few tweaks in balanced to really make this one shine
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Huh, I am very curious to see where this one goes with the train theme. Ooo violin. OH that bass sounds SICK. Synth bass? Ah who cares. (Unless you’re the bass player, in which case awesome job!) Okay, and now a sick drum machine groove? Sure! It sounds AWESOME with the bass. Instrumentation and sound design — OH DIP 2:35 EXCUSE ME YOU HAVE INTERRUPTED MY TYPING. Geez this violin playing is super tasty. OK listen. I was too busy listening to make any more comments. EXCELLENT.
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I love combining elements from different genres and it was done so well done here. The DnB-like bed for the acoustic instruments works great. And that acoustic guitar soloing dropped in? Awesome.
If I had to criticize something, I’m not 100% sold on the bass sound choice. I would’ve perhaps either gone with real electric bass, or then gone for a more interesting and gnarly synth bass sound. A minor criticism either way.
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Second take on the same source, this one is much faster paced and includes electronic elements. First minute focuses mostly on acoustic stuff, I have a bit of a hard time properly hearing the strings in the mix there. After the first minute we get some sort of repeat but now with a funny electronic beat behind, it’s a cool contrast. Out of nowhere comes The Veldt! I had forgotten that one was a jungle, nice catch. On this section I started noticing more clearly that the mix isn’t as clean as it could be, bass in particular is loud but it’s a bit muddy in general.
There’s cool ideas on this one but honestly I didn’t vibe with it all that much…
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This entry is absolutely bonkers! So much attention to detail with the sound design, and such amazing performers in violin, bass, and whatever other instruments I’m not able to identify. As I mentioned in the other Phantom Forest, this was my second favorite entry of the month. The source means a lot to me, and this group of anons really transformed it into something dynamic and action-packed, without losing the inherent melancholy. The arrangement cheated a bit by incorporating non-forest sources, but it’s all good. I really hope this gets to the top, since production-wise, it all sounds top quality to me. My only nitpick would be that the bell sound effect at the end sounds more like a boxing bell.
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