Devsman

So there's a story with this one. Feel free to skip it. See the bolded line below. The year was 2004 and Business Tech Essentials was boring me to tears, when I discovered I could listen to remixed video game music for free instead of actually doing my work. Purely by coincidence, I had recently discovered Mega Man and become absolutely obsessed with it, which I remain to this day. So at a time when I was constantly searching for any video game tune that would be cool with some kind of twist, I stumbled upon Mega Man Legends. There's no shortage of cool tunes on that MML soundtrack, but this one particularly caught my ear. I think part of it was the context: while it makes sense for the ruin to get darker as you descend, this one actually gets brighter. Mysterious af. Anyway, I wrote up a pair of drafts of what I would want it to sound like: one as a grandiose pipe organ piece that (frankly) kinda sucked, and another as a more ambient tune that had more promise. I still really like the sound of that one, but I kinda ran out of ideas when it was like a minute and a half long, and I hated anything I tried to do to go forward from there, so I decided to take a break. I came back after a week, nothing. A month, nothing. The months turned to years. I met a girl, I finished high school, I decided to go into engineering instead of music (it was a tough decision, but ultimately a good one). Every now and then, I'd load up that midi (I told myself once I liked the arrangement and got to an ending, I'd update my techniques then) and listen to it, and see if I could figure out where to go next. Predictably, it never went anywhere. At this point, it was on a thumb drive since I had moved on from my dad's PC to my own laptop. Well, I graduated college, married that girl, lost that thumb drive somewhere along the way, and got into indie gamedev. Video games need music, and I wanted to do this thing right, so I upgraded my software, techniques and even tried to learn some composition from youtube videos and internet articles. I had kids with that girl, an OCR remix literally changed my life (https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03719), and while all this was swirling through my head in the year 2023, I decided to give a listen to a classic album that was a favorite of mine: Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I've always thought it was kind of hilarious how the opener was two different songs just mashed together because why not, and I made a passing joke of it in my head: They should make an exception to copyright law... If you ever get writer's block, you should be allowed to just add Love Lies Bleeding to the end of your tune. Wait a minute... Writer's block? Didn't I have that once? OH YEAH. So now starting from scratch because that old midi of mine was long gone, I actually decided on a kind of low-intensity hard rock remix of yet again the same tune from Mega Man Legends, and figured, once I get stuck, I'll do that. I'll literally just glue on Love Lies Bleeding to the end of it. You know, just as a joke. And I did, and it was frankly kind of hilarious. I obviously couldn't submit that to OCRemix, but it did get the wheels turning in my head. And besides, what better way to hone my skills for composing an actual video game soundtrack than by practicing with a familiar tune and connecting with a community to get feedback? So I decided, once and for all, I was going to finish a remix of the Main Gate tune even if I hate it, and I was going to do it before the end of the year 2024, since that would be 20 years since my first attempt, and frankly I can't remember what day or month it was when I started. So you could say this thing is (kind of) 20 years in the making. ... Kinda sad, when you put it that way, actually. STORY OVER. IF YOU WERE SKIPPING IT, HERE IS WHERE YOU START NOW. While it's incomplete and needs a ton of help, here is my most recent swing at a Mega Man Legends Main Gate remix. Here's the original: In mine, I kinda wanted to lower the intensity as well as the tempo and focus on a couple of less common ideas that I have always found cool in spite of (or perhaps because of) their rarity: 1. Modulations to a lower key instead of a higher one. 2. Swapping the role of soloist (or in this case, soloists) and accompaniment so that the melody pretty much serves as context for interesting harmony. You can pick out the modulations easily because they're preceded by a change in the chord progression and accompanied by a bass drum roll. It transitions from B minor to Bb minor to A minor and finally A major right at the end. I love the way it feels when it resolves to the new key; there's a kind of contrast between losing energy by virtue of the modulation but raising tension in the composition. But I think those transitions are kinda awkward and/or abrupt. Especially the second one at 2:50. I also feel like things get a bit repetitive in a number of places. I mean, it's a pretty short chord progression (and tune in general) in the original, and layering the melody in/out only helps so much... I'm afraid I have no idea what to do with the piano in final major part, lol. Nor how to transition into it. Which is sad because the piano was the point, haha. I tried a couple of things and I hate all of it. I'd kind of like to do something other than arpeggios since I've been doing that for like 3 minutes at that point but it sounds awkward without some kind of movement. I do like the chords I chose for that part though, including the sus4-minor resolution and the Mario victory progression at the very end, so I'd like to keep it instead of just ending in A minor. Besides, the tension leading up to it HAS to go somewhere. There are also the obvious problems that this sounds super robotic and I don't actually have any clue how many hands you would need to play it (sorry, I'm not a pianist), which other than recruiting real musicians, I'm not sure how to solve, haha. And then there's the bass drum. I kinda like what it adds to the transitions, but I can't decide if it's awkward that those are the only times it does anything. I feel like it needs to either do more or get cut entirely. I tried adding in some more to the A minor section but it felt like it was intruding on what was supposed to be a pretty simple instrumentation. One last thing: do the piano and flute feel like they have roughly comparable amounts of reverb? I can't decide if that's what it is, but something feels off about the two voices together. So! Any comments, tips or pointers are very much welcome! Thanks! Gate.wav

I don't really have any constructive criticism but I had to comment on how much I love this, lol.

Man, I love this. It gives me so many cool ideas, too.

I don't dance. Except to this.

Ok so here's something I threw together with Synth1 and the Atmospherik Mekanisms soundpack from 99Sounds. I also added one that was just the percussion. I didn't bother to clean it or even write a decent melody; it just uses the Jpop IV7-V7-iii7-vi progression and loops the same two phrases over and over after a layering intro. But as a proof of concept, I think it sounds ok. I think with some processing on some of those samples to make them sound bigger, this could make for some pretty cool machiney percussion. MachineyPercussionPoc.wav MachineyPercussionPocRaw.wav

Thanks for the suggestions! Lots of good stuff in there, especially Damage 2. It kinda hit me just now, it may not be a bad idea to wait until I have a car problem and then ask my mechanic when I drop it off if I can record some sounds. Not sure how they'd feel about a customer walking around when they're trying to work but you know you'd find some great sounds that way if they allow it. Also, if you're me, you don't have to wait long for car trouble.

Forgive me if this comes across as Devsman thinks this comment section is his personal blog, but I think this is worth sharing. About eight months ago, I was listening to this, and asked myself, why am I still here? So I posted the comment above to let the remixers know it had made me think. To provide context, I was an engineer by degree but never managed to get a real engineering job. They just didn't happen where I lived. I was nine years into constantly getting my foot in the door, getting experience in a kinda-sorta-related industry, and more or less just losing hope of ever landing the job I wanted. So to be asked why are you still here was like a movie character making eye contact. Of course I knew why--my dream job just didn't happen where I lived. But I thought, you know what, that's not insurmountable. I'll do something crazy for once, just for kicks. I actually applied in the next city over, got an offer, and even convinced my family that we should accept and make the move. Eight months ago, little kid Devsman would have been ashamed of my job. Today, he would say "you do what?! That's freaking awesome!!!" So thank you, remixers, for the wake up call. And to everyone else: Your fate is in the stars. Why are you still here?

The kind of stuff you hear in factory/mine levels: https://youtu.be/YAB0uPsSY8w Some of this seems to be actual samples, or sound effects repurposed as percussion, so I'm not necessarily looking for anything that matches super close to any particular sounds here. But if there's a way to get a lot of sounds in the same general spirit, that would be awesome.

Ah, I think you're onto something here. I just came up with a few simple melodies to hum as-is and then a whole step lower, and it does tend to sound sad, even if it goes from a minor chord to a major.

Yeah, that's exactly how I'd put it. Another tune that does something similar, but I understand why a little better, is Aurora's Theme from Child of Light, which has a really obvious minor chord progression, but the melody focuses on the major third between the third and fifth to make it sound cheery in spite of its own key: It's so effective that there's even a solo version that could completely fool you: Heh, I'm trying to learn some music theory, so I've been looking for stuff like this to try to understand it.

Hm, I dunno. A lot of times minor doesn't sound sad to me exactly, but maybe like dramatic or edgy. Sometimes it even kind of contrasts a fast tempo so the song doesn't end up sounding like something out of Barney. Like in a lot of rock music. As a kid, I usually heard it more like that, where it just would have been too much to be fast and also cheery so they mellowed out the melody a bit. It's kind of recent that I really started noticing it sounded a little sad.

I could never put my finger on exactly why, but it sounds kinda sad to me. Not like weepy sad, but more like, a little bittersweet or something. Anyone agree?

I always thought this would be a cool mix. In the style of or Vocals/lyrics optional.

So I just did my 2021 update, haha. New additions: Mega Man X 'Rolling' by Maverick Astley Donkey Kong Country 2 'All Aboard the Glitter Express' by Light Pillar Ocarina of Time 'To See Like Me' by Bowlerhat feat. Felix Brassel, Pierre Vyncke, Gregory Ksiondzyk, Dirk Bosman, David Jans, Chae Yeon Lee, Hee Hyun Lee, Louise van den Heuvel, Arno Grootaers & Rebecca Driesmans Sonic the Hedgehog 'Speeding Towards Adventure' by Azzykay316, Final Kingdom, Furilas, Jorito & Tuberz McGee Mega Man X5 'Never Gonna Give (Up the Funk)' by Jorito feat Tuberz McGee, Anton Corazza & Eino Keskitalo Final Fantasy VI 'Dream 'Til Tomorrow' by Earth Kid Street Fighter II 'Family Man' by Overclocked University & Moonlapse Golden Sun: The Lost Age 'What I Want to Say' by Vylent and TSori feat. Spy Girls Fixed mistakes: Added Metal Gear Solid 2 'Big Shell West Bristol' by BenCousins. I accidentally left it out when I first put the yt playlist together. Moved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV 'Pizza in the Van' by Chidi Enyia, MMvsUSAF, Roqsteady and Samara Smith to the end of the playlist, where it was supposed to be. Many thanks again to all the Remixers who have contributed to the site! Hm, I took a look and it says they were removed by request. There are a whole lot of ReMixes from this author that were removed by request. Huh. Well, I suppose that's all anyone needs to know.

Dang man. Why am I still here?