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....what the hell, I can't leave this one without a review after doing the other two. General Overview: Volume III AKA the Super Castlevana IV volume AKA the best pre-Michiru Yamane Castlevania. Point is, Super Castlevania IV's soundtrack was amazing, and this volume did that soundtrack justice. It's a lot darker and it feels more cinematic compared to the other two. The other two volumes had more loud, fast paced, upbeat highlights. But this volume contains a perfect balance of those fast tracks, and tracks that are a lot slower, and more soothing. And of course, Nicolas Cage. Album Strengths (AKA Personal Favs): Track 1-4: Heart of Limestone (Limestone Cavern) by Rexy The original track was already creepy enough, but the original track relied on synth notes to convey a horror feeling. This track relies only on the piano to convey horror, and it does a really good job of doing so. (Couldn't think of anything else to add beyond what I said in my original review) Track 1-7: Whipped into Shape (Rotating Room) by Sbeast The rock elements of this track make this seem like it would be fun. But then you add the synths and the piano, and it becomes a lot darker. And I love that feeling of having fun in a dark environment. Track 1-11: Deadly Furniture (Banquet Hall) by Slimy Intense orchestrated arrangement. Almost Night on Bald Mountain-esq. Only instead of Chernabog sending little demons to cause havoc, Dracula is possessing random pieces of furniture to cause havoc. Track 2-1: Endless Tomes (Library - Collection Space) by Sam Dillard This sounds to me like what would happen if Yasunori Mitsuda worked on a track for a Castlevania game. It's so ominous, with a hint of intensity here and there to make that sense of exploring the unknown that much more wicked. Track 2-4: The Harbinger of Death (Treasure Room) by timaeus222 It's a good exploration track, but when the beat drops, it turns into an aggressive battle theme. The build-ups to the beat drops are what make this track great, and the beat dropping segments themselves are just incredible. Track 2-8: Stairway to Perdition (Beginning) by Audio Sprite This isn't as complex or as intense as many of the other tracks here, but maybe that's why I like it so much. It's very nice, funky, and nice music to relax to or to go out walking with your headphones. Track 2-9: Dracula's Secretaries (The Attendants' Rooms) by Slimy Very nice and cinematic take on one of the last levels in the game. It feels very much like a climax to the Castlevania adventure. Track 2-10: The Night King's Lament (Dracula's Room) by Sam Dillard The best track in the entire Super Castlevania IV soundtrack evolved, and made to present an incredible showdown between Simon and Dracula. If you listen to Dracula's Secretaries and The Night King's Lament back to back, it almost sounds like it could be a medley about Simon on the home stretch towards Dracula, and then finally meeting him in a memorable showdown.

I got you all a digital download code for free music, I'm gonna hide it below in white text so that it isn't taken by people not involved with secret santa: www.ocremix.org To everyone else, hope you had a good Christmas

General Overview: Volume II continues to pour out the Vampire Variations purpose of providing great arrangements of classic Castlevania music. Volume II is a little more varied in genre choice than volume I was, which I thought was a necessary improvement. Fans of rock arrangements will still enjoy this volume just as much as they did the previous volume. I actually found myself skipping less tracks here compared to the previous volume. Like the previous volume, I was left satisfied with this album at the end. Album Strengths (AKA Personal Favs): Track 1-1: Sinfonia del Diablo (Blood Relations of Heaven and Earth) by AngelCityOutlaw and Chernabogue This track served as an excellent overture for this album. And even by itself, it's a great track creating a sense of embarking on an adventure of the grandest scale. Track 1-3: Richter's Graveyard Groove (Cemetery) by Mega Beardo Very intense, and exciting. Became extremely compelling when the synth strings were introduced. Very gothic, dark, and hardcore. Track 1-4: Nosfearatu (Cross a Fear) by AngelCityOutlaw One of the more eclectic tracks from this album. Loved the rock/electronic/orchestrta combo. Really worked well here. Track 1-6: Transylvania Sound Machine (Ghost Ship Painting) by Stemage and Chunkstyle So damn groovy. This was my favorite track from Rondo of Blood, and I absolutely love what was done here. It manages to improve on the original, while retaining what made the original so good in the first place. Track 1-8: Phantasmal Hellfire (Wild Dance in Phantasmic Hell) by timaeus222 That piano intro really threw me off. Thought I was going to get something closer to the original version, or an orchestrated arrangement. Nope, got a really intense electronic boss fight here. The melody was intense, made even more intense with the aggressive background synth work. Next time I fight Shaft in Rondo of Blood, I might have this in the background. Track 2-4: Satanic Spire by Gario Nope, Phonetic Hero's Sonic CD remix is still the evilest But this is still an excellent track. Loved the eerie and creepy blend of orchestra, electronic, and chiptune. Especially at the end when the speed changes, and everything becomes more and more distorted. It pulls you in with how fun it sounds, and then tries to take over your soul. Track 2-11: Season of the Witch (Together Forever) by Brandon Strader I had a feeling that this was a direct sequel to Vampire's Kiss. Sounds just as good too in terms of quality. The brass/guitar combo sounds really good here. I almost wish this was the last track of the volume, as it would have made an excellent outro to this album. The voice samples were (not surprisingly) used very well here, especially the "finish it" part.

Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent It is with an immense pleasure and honour that I am able to present to you Vampire Variations: A Musical Tribute to Castlevania. Vampire Variations was created to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Konami's landmark series, Castlevania. Twenty musicians to arrange the mythic soundtrack of the original NES game that started it all. Andrew Warwick as visual artist to recreate the unique atmosphere of the demon's lair known as Castlevania. A wide variety of musical genres going from rock and orchestral to jazz and electronic music, including various references to other titles from the series. It has been a true honour and a privilege to create, direct, and contribute to a such project. I would like to thank everyone who supported this venture, and to all people involved be they musician or visual artist. Now, be prepared for an Aria of Sorrow, a desperate Rondo of Blood to this Symphony of the Night! The Lord of Shadows rises from his grave and only one man can stop him... ...What a horrible night to have a curse! -Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey

Hi everyone, I'm doing a cover of Viridian Forest of the Pokemon Red and Blue games. I'm still a newbie and this is my first post, so I hope I can get some feedback from you. The original song for comparison:

Come one, come all, and do some reviews! This is the time of year when many needy mixes need extra love and attention, because it's a good month to do it! It's cold out, you are inside, now is the time to listen to some of the millions thousands of mixes that you can download for FREE and then write something about them. It can be a sentence, it can be a paragraph, it can even be a sentence AND a paragraph! GET YE TO THIS PAGE AND START REVIEWING! TRACK THE NUMBER OF REVIEWS YOU DO SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENS?! * COMPLIMENT MY REALLY PRETTY TYPOGRAPHY * There are bribes presents for people who review! There will be little signature badges for people to show off their awesomeness, and if you review MANY SONGS, there are even better presents! 50 Reviews in December: Download code for Mega Man 25th anniversary album 100 Reviews in December: add a Physical copy of Final Fantasy Random Encounter 200 Reviews in December: add a Physical copy of Final Fantasy VI Balance and Ruin OR Final Fantasy VII Voices of the Lifestream 500 Reviews in December: I will come to your house and act like your dog. I could be your dog! Helpful Review Forum Links: ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time

I've been a huge fan of Metaphist's Sonic remixes since he posted Funky Side Up in the workshop. Love the classic 90's west coast vibe of this one. Solid work from O.A.!

Ahh! Glad you like it!

How have I only just seen this! I wonder if I can get 50 reviews out before midnight tonight EDIT 1: So 6 hours later and I'm at 34 (I think, everything has gone blurry...) They may be the most detailed or concise (or cohesive or in English or...) but I've tried to make each one at least 3 or 4 sentences long with some positives and some negatives. I'm going to try for the remaining 16 before midnight (children, family and New Years Eve parties permitting). Wish me luck! EDIT 2: OK so the allure of free food and alcohol got the better of me so I didn't manage to get to 50. Still; doing review has been quite enjoyable so I'm going to carry on regardless. Happy 2016 everybody!

Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent Following the success of the first album in October 2011, Alexandre Mourey (Chernabogue) and KNGI.org are proud to present Vampire Variations: Volume II – a whole new tribute album to the Castlevania series, released on October 31, 2013. This new album focuses on two major games from Konami's series: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD, 1993) and Bloodlines (Genesis, 1994), and on the music composed by akiropito, Keizo Nakamura, Tomoko Sano, Mikio Saito (Rondo of Blood), and Michiru Yamane (Bloodlines). But this time, we decided to put it to the next level: 2 albums, more than one and a half hours of music, more than 25 musicians and performers, and full album artwork. Everything was done by fans, for fans, to celebrate the games' anniversary. The project's musicians were asked to arrange the tracks the way they wanted to, and to create their own vision of the soundtracks. The project features several different genres, including orchestra, metal, funk, electronic music, and many others. In order to respect the work of the artists, no final mixing or mastering was applied to the project. The project's artwork was created to bring the universe of Castlevania to life, but also to give Vampire Variations its own visual identity. Unlike the first project, different covers were designed for the second one to allow listeners to chose the one they prefer. I would like to thank all the people who made this happen, who trusted me, and who dedicated their work for the project. I truly hope you will enjoy this new musical experience, as much as I enjoyed directing this project. The Dark Lord is rising once again. Hold your crucifixes close. What an horrible night to be cursed once more... -Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey

Ah this sounds great! There's a few tiny mistakes in the guitar sections, but who cares it sounds lovely as it is. Regarding the mixing, it sounds a bit crowded in the first sections since everything is playing similar octaves. I'm not very good at mixing TBH but maybe it'd help to cut more frequencies of the acoustic guitar. You should leave the higher frequencies to make it sound clear and noticeable while removing some of the mid since that is often very crowded with acoustic guitars. You shouldn't remove that much though since it could sound very empty otherwise (especially since the guitar is driving all the chords and base of the song). Panning also helps a lot. I'm not sure how you're doing it here but you could have acoustic guitar tracks panned hard left/right and leave the melodies at the center. You could also experiment and do the exact opposite to simulate more of a live experience. Like, imagine where each musician would sit and pan accordingly! Comparing to the source material, the main difference is the lack of a bass. If you listen to how the original is mixed, the rhytm guitars are much less present and it has more percussive instruments to drive the rhytms. In any case, I feel this sounds great. Performances are pretty good!

I'll echo T-Ape's sentiments a bit. Intro sounds empty since none of the instruments takes the "lead" and it feels like everything is floating without a solid base. The flute is clearly playing similar notes to the source, but the lack of the harmonies present in the source makes it sound thin. The strings is also playing loose notes so it sounds thin too. Finally, the bass is playing some pretty random notes, even going off-key at 0:18 and a few other moments. The mix gets noticeable better at 0:28 when the percussion and different synth kicks in. It's now much easier to follow what the song is supposed to be! Since the bass loops is repeated here you can still listen to some off-key notes. Overall, this is a pretty true to the source mix (which is a great source by the way!). I honestly feel the flute doesn't work currently since it's simply too thin to carry such a sparse soundscape. Besides, the melodies it plays don't feel very focused and almost seem like random notes. I feel you could add to this by having the string synths do more noticeable chords or something to guide the listener. Besides, having some chords there could help it make more unique when compared to the source.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orD8pHjgAi4

Metal never changes hahahaha. Good remix; I especially like the mellow part.

I think most of what we have worked on between when this was submitted and now has to be our production, which is in no small part due to our sound engineer. I am pretty proud of our more recent stuff on soundcloud, but we are always working on a clear sound

I know this is subjective, but personally I think that lead guitar sounds terrible. If it has that "woo" sound as I call it, I wouldn't aspire to sound like it. This likely is due to choice of pickups, EQ and lack of, good, wide, speed-modulating vibrato that suits the tempo. The lack of the latter why most sample libraries are garbage for lead guitars. Here are some lead guitars I think sound great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTKfWnXCAwg https://youtu.be/jNU3cz5eXPQ?t=3m19s https://youtu.be/u9_SEr-ORyk?t=2m25s The key to getting good lead "tone" comes in getting a "warm" sound from an amp sim based on a valve amp, often with only as much gain as is require to get a pinch harmonic. Also, it's a good idea to pinch sustained vibrato notes. Try a set-up based on an old peavy, mesa, marshall or soldano with a tube screamer in front of it and not a "distortion pedal" of the metal zone variety. Also make sure you have plenty of mids and use a good stereo delay to give it all a sense of space. After that, the most important part is to play with bends, harmonic and noticeable vibrato. The occasional palm-mutes on faster runs on the low strings is also a good technique. Also, use the bridge pick-up unless you want a "bluesy" sound on the high notes - then use the neck pick up. Most sample libraries don't let you switch pick ups though as far as I know.

OverClocked ReMix is 16 years old today! Like I said today on Twitter: "OC ReMix is 16 years old today. Older than YouTube, older than iPods, older than a lot of things on the internet. And we're not done yet." What are some of your favorite memories of OCR throughout the years? How has OC ReMix improved your life?