KFSS-704 SQUAREDANCE

[Mustin]

What did you think?

[BAMAToNE]

As a whole, I thought it was very well done. The packaging was great. It definitely had a "special" feel to it. I liked the large color booklet that came with it, and the case that opens up twice (for lack of a better description).

Everything about it was great, except the music. I didn't care for it much, but that's because I don't care for dance/techno music. So that wasn't much of a surprise. But I was still happy to contribute to the project, because I believed in what they were doing.

PMM Gold also had spectacular packaging and collector's appeal. The dvd case was a nice touch, indeed.

(Hope this was what you were looking for somewhat.)

[el Zeratulo]

i'll give a comment to the packaging now as i found it to be very kewl stuff.
the 2disc set had a great packaging; i really didn't expect it to be that way. it's pretty darn cool to open it and have the big 'squaredance' font right on top of it all. but there could have been more pictures in the bookled (imho) as there were so many artists = so many different pictures one could have included, would've been fun;

[mazoboom]

Although the packaging was nice, I don't care about that. The album was incredible. While one or two tracks seemed subpar, they only felt that way because of the quality of the others. I have both editions, and every time I listen to them I feel the emotion that was put into the album.

[demalavor]

The Packaging was awesome, nice packaging like that gives me more assentive to buy it. The quality of the mixes were very good as well. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was. I thought it was just going to be some cheesy dance album, but it turned out to be very well done, especially the matt pollard tracks.

[Hthe8th]

Yeah the packaging was pretty slick.

And as far as the music goes, while I'm not much for techno music I still enjoy the album very much and listen to it quite a bit.

My complaint is this: when it was first announced the album was billed as having every variety of dance music you could think of, not just techno/club stuff but also like salsa, waltz, tango, and I was personally hoping for some swing or some ska on it. But the overwhelming majority of tracks were techno/club stuff. And while they were good tracks, I think it detracted from the overall product. For one, I think it would have been a more accesable album, and not necessarily to VGM fans who might not like techno so much but to the general populace that doesn't listen to VGM at all. I don't think techno music is a good vehicle for proving to people that VGM is quality music that deserves their attention since a lot of people don't give techno their attention to begin with. I still like the album and all but I think that a stylistic variety would have gone a long way to making it something really special.

[Nekobo]

Alright, I'm basing my opinions on the LE version of SD.

Packaging: Awesome. Best I've seen for any music album, ever. Or at least for now. Slick design and the booklet was a great touch, too. Especially with the pictures accompanying the liner notes.

The overall quality of the music was better than what I thought it would be. Some of the tracks let me down, but the stand out tracks made up for it. There was a bit too much variance, though. It would have helped if they were fewer musicians involved and more collaboration (like with AE and Matt Pollard or Mustin's Ceciltrack). The hidden tracks were a nice touch, too. Who doesn't like bonuses and secrets?

Feel? Mm...it was good, but not quite on the professional level. Was it worth the 40 bucks? Mmm...I'm not quite sure. If it were just the music, I wouldn't say it was. To be honest, some of the older remixes on OverClocked appealed to me more(which makes sense, since most of did stuff from there). But the packaging and the little knicknacks put it over the line for me.

But overal, I'd give the whole package A-/B+. Good stuff.

[Marcel]

You know, I liked it. The packaging was excellent...presentation-wise. It is a bit fragile and the 'cd holder' part of my Ltd. Edition is becoming separated from the main package (I treat my CDs very delicately so it's definitely not my fault in this case.) As for the music, it was very good. This CD has made me appreciate electronica and techno/dance music more now. The one problem I felt with it was that there wasn't enough. It was a two disc set, but disc two was a measly 40 somewhat minutes. I know it's getting picky, but I want jam-packed discs.

--Marcel

[Hthe8th]

Yes, Nekobo makes an excellent point

The hidden track bonuses were very nice. Its great to feel like you're getting a little more than you bargained for.

Another thought I had. 40 bucks to drop on an album of VGM might be a little much for someone who isn't a big fan of the genre. And garnering new fans is what this is all about isn't it?

[quincy]

I loved the album. Everything about the packaging and kewl little bonuses rocked, and I enjoy the music very much. I'd be more specific, but most of what i have to say has alread been said.

[Moguta]

The music was pretty slick though a *bit* lacking in professionalism, the graphic layout was nice minimalism, but the Limited packaging itself was BAD. The glossy black cardboard has been scuffed up on the outside of mine so much that it's more of a dull dark grey. Meanwhile, my PMM Gold & Silver are no worse for the wear, excepting some scratches on the transparent plastic protector.

Also, on the SQUAREDANCE Unlimited, there was room enough in the jacket for at least telling people what songs came from what game & composer. Leaving the liner notes entirely to the Internet ain't a smart move IMO.

I think SQUAREDANCE was definitely a step in the right direction. I mean, you can't start up a company and be expected to instantaneously spit out L337 PROFESSIONL QUALTY!
(Time & Space, unfortunately, wasn't much of a step forward from that. I realize that's to expected on such a rushed timescale w/all those problems, though.)

P.S. Not including game & composer names for each track is actually one of my biggest peeves, which should show how much I did like SD. I mean, if you're trying to spread VGM, at least tell them what they're listening to.

EDIT 'gain: I definitely agree with the bonus tracks being cool. We need some more 'o that action. And not just nessesarily wacky-crazy-cukoo ones either. ;)
I'm thinking that any bonus track should be different from the rest of the album. Kinda as a cool unexpected break from it all.

[Anonymous]

While the whole album was great, I especially loved po's 2 tracks. I'd love to see more from him in the future.

[Sitorimon]

One of things that I liked about the album was the way how the tracks seemed to start where the last one finished, and it had a orderly flow to it...e.g. fast beaty into catchy beaty, into slower catchy, into slower numbers, then it'd eithier build back up or hit back with a big one. There was consistancy throughout and original interpretation added to some of the songs (not a straightforward conversion) and that makes the album a step up from most others.

All in all, a lot better than I expected!

Sitorimon

[Gonk]

I'll do a track by track.. and then an overall impression. I'm no musician, so this is all.. layman's impressions, heh.

LE DB

1. AE is amazing, everything he ever does is amazing, and this track is no different. Its a perfect opener for the CD

2. I don't listen to this track all that much... straight up trance is very hit or miss with me, and this one just happened to miss. I can still respect it's quality, though.

3. This track is quite good, even my little brother likes it, and he doesn't listen to VG music at all.

4. I'm tempted to say this is my favorite, its definitley one of the very best on the CD. In terms of placement, I think it fits in very well between Spacecat and Cyan (myktransformationmix). I find myself skipping to this track and listening to it repeatedly very often. Hats off to Mustin and ffmusic dj.

5. This is another excellent track. Things really get good towards the middle of the CD.

6. I loooove the drums in this track. I could have never imagined World of Ruin as a dance track before I heard this.

7. This is a very dark track.. a good listen. I think the overall emotion it conveys is its best quality.

8. This is a really pleasant change from the rest of the CD. It was mentioned earlier, but I would also reiterate that there needs to be more tracks like this one, and less techno.

9. This is tied with Hello World for my favorite track. I wish only two changes- more length and more oomph!

10-13. I don't really listen to these tracks very much.. dunno why. All good tracks, but none of them made a big impact on me.

14. I love this track, so do my parents (who generally get sick of me blasting VG music). Superbly done, and the surprise at the end is great.

LE DB

I don't listen to disc b very much, so I don't have much to say about it, except that the battle for smithy and mechanicalcobrena are my favorites.

Overall impressions..

I felt that SD came off as a much more.. unified project than AttNU. Its a step in the right direction. My biggest change would be to mix things up a little more- I love techno, but I like to hear some variety. Also, the second disc felt too much like an afterthought, the same thing was true of AttNU. I know it was bonus material, but if you're gonna include something, give it the worthy attention!

[Moguta]

Gonk, Disc B really wasn't "bonus material", but rather a lot of them were remixes that the project leaders didn't find good enough to put on the single disc verison. The way you put it makes it seem like OneUp as a whole arranged every song. I'm sure the individual arrangers thought they gave their own songs worthy attention.

And, really, I love a lot of the Disc B tracks...
Mechanicalcobrena
Forest Animal Groove
Mystic Mountain (Whirlwind)
Reiterated Inspiration

I think Mustin is going to hate me for saying this, but I loved him on the unique-sounding distort *guitar* in Mystic Mountain. ;) (Oh... and where in Forest Animal is the electric guitar that Mustin's supposedly playing? The bass?)

[Gonk]

I probably came off sounding more negative than I wanted to be, I was really trying to be picky so that what I said would be constructive.

[Mustin]

I'm strumming a clean electric guitar in the chorus of "Groove."

[Gonk]

I'm listening to SD Disc B again.. and I've decided I must recant what I said in my previous post. Its just as good as disc A!

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I wasn't wild about Squaredance. I guess it wasn't really anything wrong with the music or the packaging, I just don't like electronica that much. Or rather, I din't mind electronica but I don't like having an entire CD of nothing but electronica. Too monotonous. I'll sometimes listen to one song at a time, but never to the whole CD at once.

That said, I thought some of the music was pretty good. I know you didn't want comments on specific songs, but I'm going to have to comment on a couple: Dale's version of "From the Bottom of the Night" and Kaijin and Jaxx's version of "To Far Away Times" were both brilliant. The Dale's vocals on FTBOTN were beautifully done, and gave it a wonderfully haunting sound. One of my all-time favorite remixes.

[Dale North]

*cries*

thanks, dawg

[joe_cam]

I'm sticking to my opinion that the trance version of "This Day" by Zeratul is far superior than the album version. Regardless of technical achievements or recording quality or whatever, the trance version is just better overall in my opinion and was much more suited for a "dance" album than the album version. Also, the bass on the album version is insane and gives me headaches...and I loves me bass!

[Lunar Moog]

I love this album. I got it at MagFest 1 when I didn't know anything about vgmixing or the community. Luckily we (me and my brother) had some money on hand and thought the idea of remixing our favorite vgm songs awesome, so we went ahead and bought PMM and SD:LE. I was not dissapointed. Went I came home and popped it in, not only was I in love with all of the new versions of my favorite FF songs, but also amazed by all the other songs from games I had never played.

Also, I agree with the fact that the bonus songs made it feel like you were getting more. I didn't find Chocobo RoundUp till a year after I bought it. :lol:

[captainwraith]

Alright I'll be honest. Techno isn't my favorite genre of music. That being said, when in the right mood, this cd gets my ass shakin! I haven't listened to this cd in a while and just popped it in before writing this. I happen to be in one of those moods right now where I can tolerate the techno. Perhaps even enjoy it. One thing that bothers me about all music of this style is how long it takes to get through the intro to the actual song. Once there in the main groove of a song everything is good. My favorite tracks are Hip Hop Corridor, Cecil's Jinn and Juice, and Magus. Sound quality is excellent but playing from the cd is so much better than muddy mp3s.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I didn't like Cecil's Jinn and Juice at first, but it's really growing on me. Same with hiphop corridor.

EDIT: as for magus, I thought it sounded great, but it was just that one rift over and over, which annoyed me. And they completely left out the melody itself.

[Moguta]

I don't know if anyone else caught this, but upon aquiring the actual FFV soundtrack I found out that Zophar's FF5 SPC set is labeled incorrectly.
Dale's "The Day Will Come" is actually an arrangement of "Nostalgia" (as it's called on the FFV OST) or "Parting Sorrow" (as it's titled on the FF Anthology CD) rather than FFV's song of the same name. The also-incorrectly-labeled "Reminiscence" in the SPC set is the real "The Day Will Come" on the OST.

Although the incorrect name doesn't make one of my favorite songs on the album any less enjoyable, for sure! ;D

[Dale North]

I don't know if anyone else caught this, but upon aquiring the actual FFV soundtrack I found out that Zophar's FF5 SPC set is labeled incorrectly.
Dale's "The Day Will Come" is actually an arrangement of "Nostalgia" (as it's called on the FFV OST) or "Parting Sorrow" (as it's titled on the FF Anthology CD) rather than FFV's song of the same name. The also-incorrectly-labeled "Reminiscence" in the SPC set is the real "The Day Will Come" on the OST.

Although the incorrect name doesn't make one of my favorite songs on the album any less enjoyable, for sure! ;D


HAHAHAH!
It was originally titled Nostalgia by me, but I was later told that was wrong!
Glad you like the song

[Mr. L]

I was thinking of getting this next (if I can ever find More than Mario ****!!), but what is the difference between the very new (released 2-21-07) Unlimited version?

[Mustin]

It has all the same tracks and includes a new one from Brave Fencer Musashi. You can download the new track for free from www.majesticmix.com

[Boco]

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