ReMix: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'Jammin' with My NES'
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- Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Ultra Software, 1989, NES)
- ReMixer(s): Shnabubula
- Composer(s): Kozo Nakamura
- Song(s): 'Hudson River near the Holland Tunnel'
- Posted: 2012-03-23, evaluated by the judges
Shnabubula just released his latest album, NES Jams, and (shocker!) it's very, very, very good. Look at what DarkeSword just wrote today on #ocremix, not even knowing he'd be quoted:
"[14:01] <@DarkeSword> it's a bit obscene how good shnabubula's NES Jams is."
There you go: A completely candid, organic endorsement - just in case for some reason you needed one. The timing on this particular track is also good because Michael Bay, who someone keeps giving large film budgets to, recently disclosed that in his upcoming movie the famous heroes on the half shell would be ALIENS, not mutants. So TANT, basically. Next thing you know, Splinter will NOT be a radical rat and he won't even teach them to be ninja teens, and April will routinely change her wardrobe & branch out into sacrilegiously un-yellow options. What can you do? I'll tell you what you can do, you can enjoy the hell out of this TMNT mix, a dazzling display of Sam's piano artistry & chiptune wizardry made one. He writes:
"...this song is formed around Live Piano.. the NES is only half the equation, and I recorded the out put of the 2 squares individually the NES and panned them apart therefore, adding further "production" value. I understand this won't be an easy decision as it is 50% chiptune and 50% acoustic, which in itself might be deemed reason for rejection, mixing of two possibly incompatible pallets. But great care was taken to create synergy between the two timbres, both in the composition and the production, from the EQing of the piano, to the utterly detailed and intricate process of programming of the 2a03."
So I'm gonna go out on a (pretty firm) limb and infer that double-quoting the "production" like he did there was a bit of a sassy diss at what he perceived to be our chiptune policy. In reality, we don't HAVE a "chiptune policy," we have submission standards that try to make it clear that we are looking for relatively complex, nuanced music - from an arrangement AND production perspective. While we DO mention that using nothing but basic/rudimentary chiptunes might get you in trouble, I think we can all agree that NOTHING Sam does could be sanely labeled "basic" or "rudimentary" - quite the contrary, his mixes have been some of the most elaborate, spiraling, breathtaking music we've posted. There was a relatively productive and reasonably civil forum thread on this topic recently, and hopefully we can either revise the standards for clarity if they're truly ambiguous, or clarify our original intent through posting some badass chiptune mixes, in the future.
..But right here in the present you've got an amazing, virtuosic blend of spectacular live piano and intricate, dynamic NES chiptunes that I personally find hard not to love. By juxtaposing his own formidable piano skills with a comparably impressive ability for programming the 2a03, he makes the case with his music far more eloquently than I think almost anyone could with words: chiptunes can hang. Here they are, right alongside some amazing live piano, and it don't sound wrong, it sound right. Without knowing all the ins and outs, I'm going to assume that's because Sam's taken the time to painstakingly ensure, for every single passage, that the "NES" half of his album title was adapting & changing (MUTATING, even!) to the composition, as it progressed. The interaction between the two elements is legitimately exciting, new, and completely musical; brilliant stuff from Shnabubula, go check out his album at http://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/nes-jams for more!
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - Crulex on December 13, 2012
- MrKraz on April 11, 2012
- bobby1983 on April 4, 2012
Bravo!
- Emunator on April 4, 2012
- Moot on April 3, 2012
Incredible.
- rykerrk on April 2, 2012
- herograw on March 28, 2012
- WesternZypher on March 27, 2012
- Magellanic on March 26, 2012
Dafydd;851252 wrote: Amen. Seriously, they should slap a warning sticker on his stuff - "May leave listener feeling unworthy."
i understand what you mean, but i somehow expect shna to hate this type of compliment. music is meant for inspiration, not intimidation. i know it's a joke, but it's also not, isn't it? :)
oh yeah, great tune!
- Nase on March 26, 2012
DrManhattan;851120 wrote: Shnabubula's stuff is always making me feel like quitting music...
Amen. Seriously, they should slap a warning sticker on his stuff - "May leave listener feeling unworthy."
- Dafydd on March 26, 2012
