Don't know how I've missed this track after all these years. It came up on my iPod in shuffle mode and I'm loving it. Such a fun, happy piece.

Quoted for emphasis.This is pretty much a reality in the web/dev sector already. Now with voice cloning, music industry majors won't hesitate to copy-paste an artist voice and generate a fictional appearance to broadcast to billions for 1/100 of the cost. Fake AI-fluencers are already fooling hundred of thousand of 'perfectly sane' human beings. Likewise in the game industry. None of the execs cutting massive corners, firing humans in droves mass-exodus style, will think twice about pushing a button if it can instantly generate an entire game's soundtrack (or a full game, period) for a fraction of the cost/time it would take a philharmonic orchestra to do so. And they will still sell it full price. And people will still buy it. TLDR: let's all enjoy the 'good times' while AI drinks up the oceans and turns the planet into a giant desert, for fun and profit. 🤣😭

Same proverbial boat as Emu, Flex and CtW. It's a cool idea that might get me out of the retirement home for misunderstood remixers, hopefully before the next solar eclipse. 🌞🌝🎹

Opening both the 2012 and 2024 versions side by side in an audio editor, you can tell from the waveform data alone how much extra effort had been poured into this remix for over a decade. Let's listen! 🎧 On the prod aspect of things, I ran analysis with a Blackman-Harris function, both 128 and 512bins on linear and logarithmic scale, to positive results. Spectrum analysis didn't make me fall off my camel either, you've got nice stereo separation and likewise no alarming RMS. However I counted more than a 150 clipped samples throughout, which might be related to that enthusiastic -12.23db LUFS integrated with a 6LU loudness range (accounting for DC offset as well). Either slightly limit your master bus output just to be safe, or keep rocking the '0db sample peak' lifestyle. Up to you. 😉 Arrangement-wise, there's been massive improvements in texture, sound choices, dynamics and overall balance from your 2012 original, pioneering mashup. Melodies are less muted, the mix sounds clearer throughout and the soundscape is so much fuller now. Imho, your greatest success here is instilling new life and movement into the piece, making this revision much more engaging to listen to.  Case in point the first section from 0:15 to 1:00, where the industrial percussions have increased in presence and intensity compared to the 2012 version. But conversely, the source's melody is also more prominent and distinct during that part, which creates an interesting contrast, rather than an irritating dichotomy. The second section from 1:15 has undergone a shocking transformation, where the melodic material used to timidly defer to the classic Roland drum kit, but is now emboldened and confidently riding shotgun with the rhythmic bed from 1:32 to 2:05, before the eerie, melancholic twist of the original remix metamorphoses into an array of decisive stabs complemented by surgical percussion hits, which now makes the 2:05-2:38 section hugely more climactic. As for the ending section from 2:40 onward, I applaud the pivotal choice to swap instruments for the lead which confers it an exotic yet contemporary quality, meshing beautifully with the thunderous drums in this dreamy yet tangible soundscape.🤩 There's a lot of subtlety and detail about this arrangement that people hopefully will notice and appreciate. Like in spite of the whole remix being centered around a repeating leitmotif and written with a singular sound palette, you can distinguish the theme associated with each source in relation to its time period and cultural inclination. Which to this day remains a testament to your ability as an arranger to assimilate material from different sources, then interpret them with both cohesiveness and distinction. I can still revell in the care that went into creating this ambient/industrial tribute with delightful Deus Ex influences, yet I also realize that such flavor might not suit everyone's tastes, and might be looked down upon in some leet circles... In any case, it's wonderful to see you revisit and reinvigorate this old work in such an elegant fashion, so many years later. I can only commend your diligence and consistency in the pursuit of this ideal, in the spirit of Ryu Hayabusa. May this labour of love capture the judges' hearts and ears, just as it captured mine back on Game Duels. This truly made my day, thanks for sharing this Eino. 🙏✨

(Full disclosure, I've been studying and playing music for nearly 30 years and producing for fun for half of that, and I've never even once used a loop or sample in my tracks, let alone AI generation) You're not wrong in that "if it's good, then good". That's how art is and I'm 100% in agreement that if the music sounds good, it's good. The problem I have (and others have) with AI is twofold: 1. With generative AI, it's just a matter of time before AI algorithms utilize AI generation to self-produce "music" without human prompting. This "music" will then flood the internet faster and farther than any human could possibly produce, even with an army of spambots at their disposal. Who is going to filter all of the crap from the good stuff if the crap is self-replicating? Even today, with more humans than ever before producing good music (and total garbage) with human hands, there is still an upper limit, a human limit, on the amount of material that is produced on a daily basis. When the streaming sites/algorithms start self-producing AI music, everything made by human hands, good and garbage alike, will be drowned out forever with AI-regurgitated tonal spam. And as a side note, it also completely undermines the concept of commissioning artwork. Why pay someone and wait when you can get something "good enough" with auto fill? A real bummer for those who rely on commissions to make ends meet. When people talk about "AI stealing their livelihoods", it's a legitimate concern. If the amount of material exceeds the amount of time that every human on earth can dedicate to listening, then of course people will never be exposed to "genuine" and "original" music. It's just a numbers game at that point and whichever AI can produce the biggest number of tracks and capture the largest audience will win, even if the AI generated "music" is just a non-original rehash of the material it was trained on. AI music is essentially a race to the bottom and do you really want to spend your limited time as a conscious being consuming the lowest quality non-original art? If you do, that's all fine and well, but it will also financially reward and therefore promote AI music above and beyond human artists because AI doesn't cost anything more than a little bit of electricity. With the profit incentive in place, human artists will be further disincentivized to pursue their craft and will inevitably be priced out of the game even if they can manage to catch a handful of fans. I'm fine with AI replacing monotonous labor in a factory. I'm NOT fine with AI replacing human artists. It's simply too 1984 for my tastes. 2. The current AI models like SunoAI are only able to generate convincing "music" because they were trained on material without the consent of the creating artists which is a violation of copyright law. I'm not a lawyer, but I guarantee you that SunoAI will get sued into oblivion in relatively short order, or at least ordered to retrain their model on material that has no copyright (classical music, free licensed music, etc). It's really a slap in the face of the artists and there will be some form of retaliation in response. In the meanwhile, I'm sure that there will be legions of "influencers" punching generate on whatever AI model is the flavor of the week and advertising themselves as "musicians" to their subscriber base even though they have zero talent or skill simply because the models produce music that is "good". Do you really want an entire generation of "artists" clicking ctrl+A -> Generative Fill? Is a future devoid of original thought and creativity in art really the future we deserve? That's not to say that AI doesn't have its place in music production! For example, I came across this Ocarina of Time in the NES soundfont and while it sounds "good" and it's cool and I like it and it's music and, and, and... There's nothing original in the notes playing or were there notable changes to the soundfonts used. It probably took some time to produce but it doesn't require musical skill, just monotonous button pushing until the desired result is compiled. AI could easily reduce the monotony of rehashing midi files (or generating them from a track wholesale) with new sounds and I don't see any issue with that because it's simply improving the productivity of a producer as long as credit is given to the original artists (and in this case it was).   Anyway, just my 0.02. I'm not opposed to the tech, but I am opposed to people using the tech to steal from artists and fill the world with spam.