ReMix: Super Metroid 'Dirty Sam'

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Super Metroid

Marc Star writes:

"Sorry I haven't submitted any songs in a while. I've been busy in the mix of developing my music career since I've graduated. I went to Japan for a month and have been building my portfolio, trying to find a decent job. As far as this song goes, it's a jazzy twist to a few of the Super Metroid tracks. It was done on a Yamaha motif 6, that I received as a graduation present."

I wish *I* could go to Japan and build *my* portfolio... but I guess I'll just jave to settle for also owning a Motif 6. Marc intros with some deep, filtered oscillating that sits hard enough right to give you that semi-clogged feeling in your ears when you get out of the pool after swimming a long time. Latin percussion is joined by a funky drum beat at 0'32" and a nice phat synth bassline, filling out the middle of the stereo field. The break at 1'05" kicks it MAJOR 70's style with electric piano and strings and adds a lot of depth to this otherwise more electronica mix, and it's thankfully repeated later on. Things then get a bit spacier with some thereminesque lead and digital arpeggios, and very stylized, bitcrushed percussion comes in on top the already well-layered drum track. Some cool, unorthodox string runs follow around the three minute mark, then things get back in to the original, introductory groove and pretty much stay there, with a variety of production tweaks, additive/subtractive measures, and breaks thrown in to flesh out the last couple minutes. At over six minutes, this is a longer track from Marcus, and it uses most of that time to simply establish a groove and let it evolve - in other words, it's not a mix that really "goes" places, builds, etc., but on the other hand, it's pretty infectious at times (the 70's riffs being my personal favorite) and takes Metroid in an interesting, ambient funk direction. The panel had some mixed feelings, with zircon and Gray both citing the hard-right panned pulse and a bit too much repetition for their taste as the deal-breakers. Depending on the sensitivity of your ears and whether you tend to hone in on a pulse of this nature or whether it can fade into the background for you, you may have similar issues on the hard panning and relatively high volume; conspicuous effects of this nature are tricky and are bound to rub some the wrong way. Didn't bug me once the primary underlying beat got going, but the very beginning did give me the afforementioned underwater "wooziness" - your results may vary. Binnie had similar qualms but still reached an affirmitive conclusion, specifically noting repetition after the four-minute mark:

"Four minutes through, I was still impressed by the arrangement. The repetition until that point was negligible, and everything was a go. Past that, the gated synth and recycled beat manage to keep the mix on life support for two MORE minutes."

Whereas The Wingless offered up rather unqualified, eloquent praise:

"This mix is quite delectable, a joyous child sired from the electronica future and the 70's funkadelics. Truly, we have a entered a golden age of the trans-genre mix!"

It'd seem that your sensitivity to the pulse - which is more of an issue at high volumes on respectable headphones - and your patience with groove-oriented, longer mixes would thus be two key factors in whether this mix does something for ya. I'm somewhere between Binnie and John, myself - some of the repetition bugs me just the slightest, and the very intro, on headphones, has some issues, but overall Marc brings the funk and gives Samus a dirty reputation in all the right ways.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
Just came back to this indirectly through a thread in the forums, and hot dang this is sexy times. I actually think the fact that the Rhodes break is so short really adds to the anticipation of its next appearance in the recap. And the strings at 3:00 are <3. This is the first ReMix I've saved to my hard drive in a long time.

- Dhsu on August 5, 2008
I guess when judging on all the things you look for; you may not want the beat to reley on drumloops and catchyness. Though, I think this is one of the dopest beats i've heard on the site. I like AmiEvil & Mazedude. I just feel that there should be no reason this would not be accepted onto your site. But wow... I guess it was a close call? This is gonna raise the bar for me.

- DrunkenSage on July 14, 2008
Hehe this is one good crack induced metroid remix :D i love it.
Although it burned out a long time ago...its still good just meh.

- HoboKa on February 3, 2007
This is still one of my all-time favourite arrangements.
Fantastic stuff. I love the groove, I love the samples, and I love that Rhodes break-down like nothing else.
Great job, Marc. This is my favourite mix of yours. Definitely still gets played often after all of this time.
Hope to hear more of your stuff sometime! Where've you been?

- Mustin on December 16, 2006
What is it about that beat that keeps me coming back to this mix time and time again? Its been at the top of my rotation since it was posted. Great work Marc.

- Harmony on February 19, 2005
excellent, chill, funky track. I listened to it for about 30 minutes straight and zoned a bit. Its an interesting interpretation of the metroid "feel"

- Chiana on February 5, 2005
At first this song reminded me of Akira..
The slow groovey-ness of it is very relaxing though :)

- KonohaSenpou on February 5, 2005
This is just the track I need when I roll through the Zebes hood blastin' on punk-ass Space Pirates.
Nice-nice

- Khrystoph on February 3, 2005
That one beat panned hard right bothers my ear - even at low volume, the inbalance gets me. Still, pretty groovy, but I would have cut WAY back on the grooviness and had more of the aforementioned 1:03-1:20.

- Nobbynob Littlun on February 3, 2005
I would kill several puppies for the sake of having an entire remix done in the style of the bit from 1:03-1:20. 17 seconds of pure gold, and 5 and a half minutes of meh. The ambient stuff isn't bad, but let's face; Ambient + Metroid has been done, and done, and done, and done, and done. That 17 second bit is absolutely awesome though. Tough call on this one, but I've just been listening to generic Metroid ambient OCs for too long.
Oh, I also like the bit at 3:00 with the strings.

- Solin on February 3, 2005
its on mine
BUT FOR HOW LONG?! as you asked

- jordex on February 1, 2005
I must admit that after downloading and listening to it, I Shift+Deleted it without a second thought. Honestly I couldn't feel anything in this track. I'm not an musicalphile but when something sounds like that... Come on lets be realistic here. Its nothing special.
I'd like to know how long it stays on anyone's favourites list.

- dfcentre on February 1, 2005
i hate to critizise cause i know my stuff sucks mega in comparison...but it's just too damn repetitive.

- AmishNinja on February 1, 2005
The repetition doesn't shock me here.
The positions of the breaks are, IMHO, correct.
Excellent strings section !!!
Good bass sounds and patterns.
Yeah, this mix enters my favorite OCRs collection.

- Coucou on February 1, 2005
this blew clear out of proportion.
also - since when is the quality of music tied to how repetitive it is? say what you will about this track but don't make such a fundamentally senseless implication.

- zyko on January 31, 2005

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