ReMix: Amberstar 'AmberTrance'

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Amberstar

Hail to the Redskins! While I'm not the biggest American football fan in the world, Washington D.C. is ultimately a football town, and the 'Skins win today in OT against the Jaguars was pretty sweet. Speaking of pretty sweet, if you've been waiting for some good ole-fashioned four-on-the-floor trance ear candy, newcomer VIRTUALVIBE, in real life Beat Gregoric, has cooked up a fine example of such with this arrangement from a relatively obscure Amiga title called Amberstar. As an interesting sidenote, when I Googled for screenshots of said game, I got some rather risque materials mixed in, which always livens up the ReMix-posting process. Jesse had some problems downloading the track from Beat's site:

"in trying to download this track i accidentally "bewerten"ed "sehr gut," which is opposed to "schlecht." I'm not sure I made the right decision."

Fortunately, that situation eventually sorted itself out. The panel's vote on this piece was actually split - trance somewhat notoriously raises red flags around repetition and arrangement that the genre inherently makes a little more difficult - but there's been a number of relatively straightforward trance pieces that have similarly managed to incorporate enough variation and interpretation to cut the musical mustard. BGC, whose demo will just blaze you, came in with the tiebreaking passing vote, and had this to say:

"Well, I guess I get to be teh n00b ti3br34k3r, zOmGz0rzz!!!!!11!!!eleven!!!1!!one!!!11 Upon listening to the source, this is passable on the arrangement level as far as I'm concerned. 2:20 onward was a bit of a let-down in terms of expectations, but overall, this song was decently constructed. The gating was nicely-done, and the crowd effect blew my socks off. The theme itself is catchy enough. 1:05 suffers a little clipping/overcompression, but it doesn't cripple the piece, nor sway my vote. I would have preferred for the crowd to make a 2nd appearance in the 2nd half of the tune, but that was your call, and while it's not what I would have rather heard, my preference is not what this vote is based on."

This mix isn't attempting to be caviar, but rather a quick bit of solid fish n' chips, and in that sense its near four-minute running time gets the idea across and employs standard additive and subtractive trance arrangement mechanisms effectively. The filters used here are supple and deep, which helps a lot when they're being spread out gradually over several bars, and from a production perspective in general everything's pretty crisp and clear. Some additional harmonic risks and some extra counterpoint elements would have upped the arrangement ante and added a bit more distinguishing character, but Beat's turned in a fun and architecturally sound first mix nonetheless. Don't let the (likely) unfamiliar source material throw you - this is a track almost anyone should be able to get into.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
Yikes, the samples! Something about them are pretty grating early on for me. The song smooths out after the minute mark though, although it seems like the song is missing some lower end action i.e. some untz untz untz untz.
The ending also seems pretty weak :-( . The song could use some more development after that changeup somewhere around the 2:20 mark - you're led to expect some huge build up for the future, but it doesn't really happen.

- Bahamut on May 31, 2010
Despite not knowing the source, I think anyone can get into this mix, and it's worth a listen. It has a lot of solid stuff going on to bring out the trance feel, and there aren't many flaws that pull the track down. I'm agreeing with most people that the crowd should have been towards the end to really give the track a lift before it finishes, but it isn't bad where it is now.
Nice work, worth checking out.

- DragonAvenger on December 5, 2009
Solid, fun, enjoyable track! And I've even played the game a little bit! :)

- evktalo on December 11, 2007
Seems like pretty straightforward trance until you look a little closer; there are a lot of different change ups used to keep this interesting arrangement-wise. There's even a modulation, which you don't hear often in the genre.
I really liked some of the floating synth lines used as counterpoint at the 1:35 point. More like loved.
I think the crowd is really cool but would have been better employed near the end to really kick the song into the atmosphere. Still this is a great dance track, and stays fresh for it's duration.

- OA on December 6, 2007
Yeah, it's not revolutionary. But, it's a pretty decent dance tune compared to a lot of the stuff at OCR. The crowd thing is snazzy and energizing. On the whole, it's emotionally upbeat and technically solid and I enjoy listening to it. And I generally don't like dance tracks.

- meccaneer on January 15, 2007
I think personally that it is very well made and has different features and aspects that bring it alive. as for people who dont like trance, you probably wont like it but i think its awesome!

- The Instrumental Light on November 11, 2006
Global-Trance wrote: Not trance. :(

Then what, bluegrass?

- Insaintan on October 14, 2006
Not trance. :(

- Global-Trance on October 11, 2006
quite possibly the most unoriginal, lifeless use of vanguard i've ever heard. not worth the download. at all.
sorry.

- realpolitik on October 4, 2006
I'm always of the opinion that for a site whose existence simply must denote an understanding of how great remixed videogame tunes can feel to veteran players, OCR often gets more anal than makes sense. A site whose listeners are inspired by reliving and recreating these tunes, yet technicalities, while not the only factor, seem to always be the deciding factor in judging new arrangements.
Or in short, this tune sounds so light and fun and it bugs me to think that some technicalities about what this isn't got picked on and as a result I almost never heard this. And yeah I too love the crowd heh, fantastic. =D Its like simple, easy mass happiness when I hear that.
Anyway, not bitching for a solution, just bitching 'cos I was reminded. I really enjoy how this mix makes me feel. I agree that it does stale out later on, but it doesn't make it a bad, just more plain than it was teasing us with. All its doing wrong is not matching the hype it created to start with. Imo.
Lack of innovation does not get points off...just misses out on some bonus points. The arrangement is solid.

I thank Vig (and those judges who adopted a similar perspective) for keeping OCR in check.

- Defend on October 4, 2006
That crowd effect is amazing!

- Retlaf on October 3, 2006
whoo boy that clipping is pretty grating on my end :[
edit: or not. first download got corrupted halfway through and clipped for the rest of the track.

- Red Shadow on October 2, 2006
Here's an unusual little diddy... which is... of course... trance in general. :P
Trance has never really been something I can get into... it's just not catchy enough and tends to sound weird. This song makes no exception since it has the usual repetitive synth, weird background sounds, and an over-used catchy section. It's perfect for those trance fans out there, but that isn't me.
The production is fairly smooth, not real noticeable balance issues. The arrangement could have been better, but it's not bad either. Maybe just a wee bit more variation to the melody... if there is a noticeable melody in trance.
So basically... trance fans go ahead and listen... anybody else... well... I dunno what to recommend.

- Pink on October 2, 2006
Fun song. I've recently been going through the music over at RKO, and this is right up my alley. The blending around 1:15' is just nice on the old ears. Excellent work. In fact, I've had this on loop for the last ten minutes or so. :)

- Nec5 on October 1, 2006
What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

- djpretzel on October 1, 2006