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I'll admit that as much as I love retro game audio I never really came across much information regarding the specific sound chips of earlier consoles. It's one of those things where I always had an interest in them but would never be able to contribute to a conversation about them. While I was trying to remedy this I came across these videos that deconstruct the different channels to show how each channel was used in the resulting mix. If anyone is into how composers worked back in the day and the limitations they dealt with then these are an interesting watch.

This idea sounds a lot like the Freshly Baked Remixer Challenge. Users could make a request, remixers could sign up. After a date, each remixer was matched to a request. That was not a contest, there was no voting. The last round is here: http://compo.thasauce.net/rounds/view/FBRC2011

I like this idea.

Something along those lines, but more like a request, and someone fulfils that request. So i send you a source, and you send me a source, and we both remix said sources.

Oh wow, now I kinda regret not finishing my Lufia II remix. I didn't know this project was still coming :O Edit: great remix! i forgot to write a review! Great airy sound throughout. Good to see more remixes by the djp himself.

Happy birthday OCR!!!! I’ve been with you for 18 of those 20 years and that makes me feel really old lol! So old, that I have memories of going with my dad to get Lufia 2 for my birthday when it was brand new! The first Lufia i had rented so many times and I was highly anticipating the sequel. It became one of my top5 game of all-time!! The soundtrack was a big part of the reason I love this game so much. So it is an amazing gift to me that an album will be finally coming out on OCR! Yay!!

Ah, the glory days of the SNES. A worthy piece for orchestration, and well done at that.

i agree with rexy that the source fits this style really well. the original was already kind of doing that funk-house style, with a really present kit and a bop band behind it, and this definitely takes it farther down the euro road with the chord extensions you're hinting at in the guitar, combined with the acoustic bass and disco vibe. i also agree that there's just way too much sampled content in here. it's so busy, and that's saying something coming from me! the sampled sections clearly aren't in the same level of swing so there's conflicting off-beats, and the sampled content drags the overall fidelity of the track. i did like what the bass was playing, and felt that helped move it along. i'd recommend some space in there to let the instrument 'breathe' a bit. your groove got pretty dry pretty quick when it essentially played the same pattern for three minutes, so starting somewhere less full of notes and expanding throughout the track will help quite a bit, i think. lastly, while i really liked what the acoustic guitar was playing, it was so choppy due to whatever slicer you used to adjust the tempo that it sounds really disjointed. i really wanted it to speak cleaner and it just wouldn't. speaking of mastering, i found the kit as a whole to sound like it was in an entirely different soundscape than the rest of the track. it was very present and wide (the shaker in the right ear was really irritating maybe halfway through), and the continued shifting of the rest of the track's level of fidelity as compared to the static drums was really distracting. you can definitely do some work to volumize the rest of the instruments to level them out. there's definitely some fun moments in here. i'd love to hear more of the EP solo at 2:00, and i enjoyed the panned EP solos before that. i also overall enjoyed the presentation of the melody, and while more variation there would have been good, it was fun. i just can't however get past the constant sampling and lackluster mastering. part of french house is that the mastering really sparkles, which helps the common phaser effects and sampled old disco track bits shine through in spite of their age. i don't get that feeling here and it really makes for a track that isn't where it needs to be to pass. NO

It's the day before Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for this community and the people in it. You guys are pretty neat.

Ooh, I can hear that Moroder influence! Having listened to the three listed tracks, I got the idea that there's a lot more emphasis on melody and textures - and this is no different. Right off the bat, the framework is robust and explores the first half of the source, breaks down, goes to the B section and returns to the A section for a calming finish. The BGM is not only dominant, but there are more melody timbre combinations than I can count on one hand! There have been plenty of opportunities to play around with them, starting simple with rhythms getting altered with the third run-through of melody A at 1:36 and the syncopated feel on the intro arpeggio at 2:08. But when the call-and-response kicks in at 3:24, it equally experiments with melody B's timings and adds new improvisational writing, and the ideas continued to develop when melody A returned at 3:40. These are fun changes that both keep the source's familiarity and make it sound like Moroder could've composed the source himself! Now, I was one of those people that got asked to look out for the production values while Mike workshopped this track. Hearing this finished form, the choice of timbres are varied and excellent for this EDM sub-genre. They're also all identifiable in the mix, and they have contributed to this playful atmosphere going on. Stephen's voice also made those vocoders pop as usual. I know Mike saw it first-hand, but the pitch shift on said vocoder at 2:33 also caught me off guard in a positive way. It's a tight package that made me spontaneously do the djp - a sign that shows he's making retro grooves right. With all this fun and attention on the arrangement and production, I can see it on the front page. I'm also shocked that OCR hasn't received a new submission for this game in 19 years, so consider it a refresher on that part too. Good work! YES

This may have been posted already but... This channel is great.

Battletoads (the NES version at least) was a pretty damn good looking and good sounding game for its time. Of course we have David Wise, and incredible composer in his own right, to thank for the sound. I wanted to share this because this video has David Wise talking about the process of how the Battletoads music had to be recorded, and the limitations he faced when composing music for the NES (such as how many notes David was limited to). And you also get to see him playing some Battletoads music on the piano at the end