[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[MrBogus]

Incredible all around. Faithful to the source material but not afraid to venture into improv territory and sweet rhythm mixups. Sick crunchy guitars and badass solos. There is nothing not to like about this epic metal opera. (Edit: Another Soundscape is correct, the ending could have been done better. But I loop the song on 10x repeat, so I don't notice unless I'm really paying attention.)

If you enjoyed listening to this remix, I highly highly recommend also checking out his interpretation of Final Fantasy X's boss theme - Tag Team Back Again. 1st place finish for March's Dwelling of Duels.

[Another Soundscape]

The first thing that struck me is how cool the distorted bass is. The guitars are clean with plenty of that much-needed mid. Sometimes I feel that the higher "lead" guitar is a bit too far back in the mix but it's not a dealbreaker.
The arrangement in itself is amazing. All the musical quirks and odd numbered riffs makes me sit at the edge of my chair always wondering what will happen next! The soloing is also good but honestly I'm more interested in the wicked rhythm guitar coupled with the drums.
My only qualm is the cut-off ending, you could've done a small fade there, and that some of the levels could be better balanced.
Otherwise, this is a freaking amazing arrangement! Recommended.

[megadave]

This is a very unique rock mix, and like the guy above says, the effects (such as the distorted bass) really make it stand out. The solos seem to be there because they belong, not just brought there for the sake of having over-the-top noodling solos. While this is not a remix of my favorite track from Blaster Master, it does great justice to the source track. It's not just a silly head-banging song.

By the way, Danimal Cannon, and his band Arm Cannon are genius. He never disappoints, and I hope to hear more work from him soon, especially if it's based on Blaster Master (cough do the whole soundtrack cough cough).

[Yoshi3gg]

Very cool arrangement. The guitars sound great throughout the whole arrangement, with the section starting around 3:22 standing out as being particularly awesome. There's a good degree of variation throughout the entire mix; Danimal Cannon managed to keep my undivided attention for the entire four and a half minute runtime. This mix is a prime example of how a remixer can remain faithful to a source tune while bringing in something new. Can't wait to hear more from him!

(As a side note: I totally love the title.)

[evktalo]

Great "prog-metal" arrangement! I wasn't so keen about this mix at the start, but the part that begins 01:15 totally won me over. The beginning sounds good to me now as well. :) Minor flaw of this tune is that to me the non-solo lead sound is a wee bit tinny. More serious flaw is that the drums have a mechanical feel to them and would in my opinion benefit from a more "roomy" sound, they don't much blend with the other instruments which I would prefer. But I have to say the drum arrangement itself is creative, versatile and enjoyable!

The use of the choir synth at 02:51 is a fantastic touch. It really makes the part. Very nice solo of course too. No arbitary wankery there. Nice "gliding" sound. I like the ending as it is. I much prefer that cut-off with reverb to a fadeout. EDIT: Whoops, I now realize that there's a cutoff in the reverbed stuff; true, that's an unfortunate glitch.



--Eino

[Dafydd]

Ok, those guitars are awesome. But the drums aren't real, are they? Even though very nicely arranged, they're a little weak, and this song would have been better still with some "rawer" drums - particularily the snare drum feels a little "held back". Also, the drums are so perfectly in tempo all the time, unlike the guitars, which causes a little friction (see what I did there?) between the live and the non-live parts. Other than that... nice work!

[richter]

I (and many other people) have been enjoying this for about 6 months now. It's one of my favorite DODs ever -- nice to see it on OCR so that it can get more ears.

[KogeJoe]

It's been a while since I've posted, and those that have read my posts before know that I can get pretty nasty. I could follow the "if you can't say something nice" rule, but then, what would posts and forums like these be if all you heard was praise? You gotta get negative feedback at somepoint. It's the whole point of publishing your works. Take the good with the bad.

First, I liked the thought of hearing this piece in actual instrumentation. Love the effects and the improv in this arrangement. Hearing many things at once.

One thing I've gotta say is, I'm a stickler for keeping true to the original melody line. Hate to say it, but the guitar is off in more places than one. Maybe problems with accuracy? You can always play it off as "it's my arrangement," but I don't wanna hear that crap. Once you delve into improv, you are free, but at the beginning, when the melody was introduced, I was put off by the ad-lib of some parts. It would be nice to hear the guitarist give me the original melody at least ONCE in the arrangement, and true to the game music. Not to mention a lot of the time the guitar was LATE as hell. Annoys the hell out of me to hear an instrument trying to catch up. The other thing I've gotta complain about at the beginning of the piece is the un-changing base-line. The game is much more elaborate, and again, it just sounds like the player isn't competent enough. (Sorry, he may be a competent player, but this line doesn't change at all. If he/she is a better player, it isn't doing him/her much justice...) Is it that hard to play the root, 5th and root again up top at the same time? And is it really that hard to shift between a i and vii chord on a base?

Otherwise, I thought it was an awesome idea. Sunsoft tends to have really good, nostalgic bits of music in its games, and Blaster Master is no exception. I've heard very little at OCRemix that I've liked from Blaster Master, and I actually like this one. Interesting work in the changing meters. And this may be just me, but I swear I can hear some influence from the Doom department. Love the echo effect in the electric guitar at 3:30.

Some sharpening of the melody would be nice. It makes the player sound like he/she has a really bad ear, or that he/she is getting a little bit to creative. But overall, good work.

[danimal cannon]

Yeah I did simplify the bassline in a few parts.

The one during the intro where it goes root-4-5-octave at the end of the intro, I probably could have pulled off by doing bass tapping in hindsight. I would still fudge it a little bit since that particular pattern doesn't lend itself to tapping too well, I probably would just stay up at the octave a little instead of going back down to the root. I could have gotten it perfect if I punch in every rising arpeggio seperate if I was feeling ambitious.

I'm a lefthanded player and I borrow a righthanded bass to record with. That makes a few of the basslines a huge sonofabitch to play.

During the 6-7-8 chord section with the double kick I didn't match the original bassline because I wanted to lock in with the doublekick because that was the way I specifically wanted that part arranged. The switching back and forth between the root and 5th there on the bass wouldn't have fit in very well with the guitar rhythm, or it just would have gotten lost in the mix unless I boosted it to a stupidly high level. I was tempted to throw in sweep arpeggios in that part, but I had a similar thing in a mix last year.

When you refer to the 1-7chord part I have no idea which part you're talking about give a time reference.