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Artist Name: TheManPF Additional artists: Zach Chapman Randomly felt like submitting something today I originally submitted this to Dwelling of Duels back in November for David Wise month, I wasn't planning on submitting cuz I was out of ideas, and a week before deadline the inspiration hit to make a pop punk banger because I felt like it. Krook's March is my favorite song from one of my favorite soundtracks from one of my favorite games, but if you know me at all, I usually don't like making straight covers, it's just not interesting or fulfilling to me, I have to slap some weird shit on it because I can't help myself, so instead of amplifying the darkness and drama of the original, I went full 180° and turned this into a happy hopeful pop punk anthem, I don't have any particular influences for it but I was listening to a bunch of Blink-182 and Good Charlotte at the time, so that might have done it. I gave Zach a loose concept for the lyrics and he wrote the words over a weekend, the point is that this song plays in "Toxic Tower", a very infamous level, since I took the song in the opposite direction, I figured I would do that with the lyrics as well, this is about detoxifying, cutting out toxic relationships, and practicing self care, the first half is a cliche story about sticking together through hard times, but the second half is about recognizing the red flags and letting go of those relationships that hurt you for your own sake. I arranged this in a rush in like 3 days, had the lyrics done during the weekend, and recorded/mixed it in the remaining 2 days before deadline, I originally was gonna have another person sing it because I'm not great with pop, but naturally couldn't find a singer due to the tight deadline. I'll probably update it at some point, but for now, I think this is good enough. This placed 20th out of 34 tracks, I guess my voice is a little bit divisive, whoops, Wise gave it a like on Bluesky though, I don't know if he actually listened to it, but the acknowledgement is nice Lyrics: I've climbed so long, so high Muscles burned inside Ripped myself apart on this odyssey If I could just Rise above the hate, I could Pull us from this pool of toxicity Left of us We'll do this One last time This could be so different All those times we said the same Promised to not leave you there Let's do this together Through the pain I'll keep my word Keep your heart (This is all I'm worth) Despite my own (Never mind the hurt) Climbed so long, I don't Know what else is left here When you were in my arms When was I submerged in this Pain and blame you flow with Here and now won't stand for more Stop this poison in my soul I deserve so much more For myself or no one at all For my soul I'll break my word Break your heart (Set myself free) For my own (Show love to me) Games & Sources Game: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Songs arranged: Krook's March (https://youtu.be/lw7Dv00zaao) Original composer: David Wise System: SNES Year: 1995

Artist Name: Gaspode Recently I played the little open-world-indie-game »A Short Hike« and immediately fell in love with its great soundtrack. The song I remixed is full of great little uplifting melodies. I tried to incorporate most of them, but I changed their order or used them as background elements. I can provide a source-breakdown if you want, but maybe you want to explore my interpretation for yourself beforehand. ;o) Games & Sources Game: A Short Hike Track: See You At The Top Composed by: Mark Sparling

Artist Name: Treyt The source, We've Got a Ship, is easily my favorite track from anything ever. For those that remember, this source was my first submitted remix, and my first and only NO (though Micro Mages definitely should've been a no.) I would love to argue this track is 100% source, and I think I will. Heavily influenced by Bossfight (I think I'm going to experiment with more stuff closer to his actual style in the future), and my fun but crappy older stuff from the 2010's. Hope it makes your day suck less! Uses voice clips from: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Star Trek Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Games & Sources Game: Golden Sun: The Lost Age Track: 21 - We've Got A Ship

Original Decision Artist Name: Worlder I really wish the Audio File upload would work for me Dx I am again submitting this Electronic/Rock remix of Team Rocket Hideout Theme from Pokemon Red. It has of course, been changed a lot, although it is not a total rehaul of the instrumentation or anything like that. As mentioned in the original upload, this was heavily breakbeat influenced and also some techno/electronic music composition techni9ues have been used as well. Building intensity on the stacatto-played guitar part that references the main melody of the original theme (0:00-0:20) was the key idea here. Way back when originally writing this there were ideas for more parts, but the resulting structure at 4 minutes length seems solid to me and so I did not want to add more parts to what I already had as I felt it would just waste time or be messy. The timbre of the synth that comes in at 3:23 is also meant to vaguely reference walking around with a poisoned Pokemon, which you could expect to happen in the game area that this tune plays. - - - This is a resubmission, and so I must thank the OCRemix staff for the feedback on my earlier upload of this track. It can't be overstated how helpful and yet succinct the feedback was. There was some clean advice, and some of it was so obvious that I can't say what I was thinking. I think there are some good use of pans in this song, but retroactively I am unable to explain why the "solo guitar" section was completely panned. It should be easy to avoid such mistakes in future submissions. There were other pans that I brought in to be less wide as well. Apart from changes that directly address Pan/Dryness/Kick Drum, some changes to guitar tone and reverb have come with decisions to welcome a bit of difference in feel. Most notably, the section from 0:38-0:58 previously was where the energy kicked in more but still did not have a full sound. I feel now that the sound is full, and now feels like it is a "restrained" - for lack of a better word - until the next section. The guitar is more clear yet it is also more distant from the listener, so it's a pretty different texture here. If anyone who saw the original was wondering why this resubmission took so long - I lost all my MIDIs and had to rebuild the library. It was only a tiny bit painful. Anyway, the arrangement breakdown here should cover what needs to be said. Arrangement Breakdown: (Referring to timestamps in the video uploaded above) 0:00-0:20 - Stacatto type version of the opening melody in th source tune with a kind of "Spy Movie" type thing going on in the bass. 0:20-0:38 - To me what is kind of old school techno technique, repeating a small portion of the melody as a build up. 0:38-0:58 - End of the "intro" - this is referencing the same part of the original theme, but the music has become more filled in. 0:58-1:14 - This is a direct reference to the section of the original theme that plays 0:23-0:28 in. Instead of playing the turnaround that normally ends the progression each repeat, it's been combined with notes referencing the opening melody. 1:14-1:17 - This is 0:31 to 0:35 of the original theme. 1:17-1:43 - Turns 0:35 to 0:42 from the original theme into a repeating groove. Dynamics are carried by the drums here, in fact alternations in the drum patterns would be the primary tool to keep dynamics fresh throughout the song. 1:43-1:56 - This is 0:31 to 0:35 of the original theme. 1:56-2:32 - Fulfills the same dynamic as the section from 0:42 to 0:57 of the original theme without directly referencing it. It is sparse in the same way and precedes the song building up its intensity again. My remix is supposed feature the same elements of the original themes structure while also utilizing building grooves so that you get a chance to dance, and this is fulfilled primarily in these ending sections 2:32-2:38 - This melody is the bass line that the original theme instates from 0:42 to 0:50. Continuing until 3:03, where a synth lead line is introduced, which is referencing the bass line of the source tunes opening melody (or at the end theme, before it repeats, it can be heard on its own) These instruments work together and continue to build until 3:35 3:35-4:17 Reprise of the stacatto-ified opening melody of the original theme. Tasty 7th chord, end. Thanks for listening Games & Sources Team Rocket Hideout theme from Pokemon Red Version A biting aggressive track from the original Pokemon games with some dynamic softer sections. Arrangement Breakdown: (Link to Original theme for timestamps)

Like we wouldn't have them... :-D https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kbxL0oM6xsneNMq5fwCkAqKWgI93IIz5/view?usp=sharing

Artist Name: Michael Hudak October 26th of this year will be 25 years since Majora’s Mask was released in the US, and I wanted to make something for that milestone. Astral Observatory has a beautiful chord progression that I figured could lend itself well to the post-rock/ambient/whatever experimentation I’ve been doing recently. A major influence here was the album “The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid” (which might be a good alternate title for this remix...) by Stars of the Lid. There are two halves that juxtapose each other in intensity and mood. I don't think one side would work without the other with how I mixed and arranged them. I worked to get Pt.1 to sound analog and not synth pad-y; there are pianos, trumpets, and strings run through several reverbs (Reason’s RV7000, Synapse’s DR-1, Valhalla Shimmer), with external LFOs slowly altering settings like diffusion rate and pre-delay time. I took only the wet signals and blended them and then processed them further. I needed the chords to do the carrying while I focused on timbre and texture. Pt. 2 is a second movement of sorts, and has the piano playing (and altering) the melody. The AO chords are played throughout the entire song, albeit very slowly, aside from a brief detour from 1:10 to 1:22, and then from 6:40 to the end. Long fade-out but I think it fits the tempo. Listening again, maybe I could’ve made this even slower… Hopefully the chord progression is noticeable enough to pass, but I will leave that up to the judges of course. Games & Sources The source is "Astral Observatory" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0krxH0dWhU by Koji Kondo. You may know of him.

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Artist Name: TheChargingRhino This was originally composed for Pixel Mixer's PM Rockin' Mother series album. I exclusively used a VST called UVI to make this remix, and I decided to transform it into a sort of "80's remix" with synth basses and drums and various synths. Took a fourty-three second track and turned it into two minutes and thirty-three seconds of "head-bobbing funkiness". Threw in some cowbell from 0:58 to 1:54 (with pauses in-between), stacked two synth basses on top of each other (essentially combined a slap and funk bass) plus a few organ synths to change up that organ break in the original. I took liberties with the melodies for this, it sounds like the original, yet it sounds different too. Source breakdown: Original - intro, section A, organ break, Section A, Section B, Section A (cut in half), Section C/ending loop, repeat My remix - bass and drum intro; organ break (extended); Section A (greatly extended); Section A repeat with harmonic melody and altered/expanded ending loop chords); (mostly) original section with organ break, altered organ chords, and original melody; Section B (altered); Section C (altered); ending Games & Sources Game: EarthBound (Nintendo, 1994, SNES) Track title: Earth's Love Song (The Lost Underworld) Composer: Hirokazu Tanaka, Hiroshi Kanazu, Keiichi Suzuki, Toshiyuki Ueno Site listing for this - https://ocremix.org/song/26405/love-song-of-the-earth Song Link:

Artist Name: Gaspode Tunic is a great game with a lot of depth, mysteries and even its own secret language. But what stands out for me even beyond the quality of the game is the soundtrack. According to its composer »Lifeformed« it was created over a period of seven years. When the story gets tighter you find yourself in a kind of production facility and the fitting music emphasizes the strange and threatening vibe. This is »Ooze control«, a piece that hits from the first seconds with its vast soundscape. It took the main 16-notes-melody that starts around 0:49 and created something rather simplistic and bass-oriented. To include a bit of variety I used the part starting at 1:21 for the middle. Then the main melody return and gets faster and after that I added a solo on on top. I hope you like my remix and if you didn’t play the game already you should definitely give it a try. By the way, here’s the source breakdown: 00:00 – 00:14 Ooze Control (0:49) 14s 01:05 – 02:19 Ooze Control (0:49) 74s 02:25 – 02:40 Ooze Control (1:21) 15s 03:12 – 04:15 Ooze Control (0:49) 63s 04:16 – 04:30 Ooze Control (0:49) 14s 180s => 68,2% 00:00 – 04:34 264s => 100% Games & Sources Game: TUNIC Track: Ooze Control Composed by: Lifeformed, Janice Kwan

Artist Name: thebitterroost Featured on this awesome Pixel Mixers LP! Go check it out 😤 First two playthroughs are pretty 1:1 but adding some guitarmony and such, then I take components of the song (some cool arpeggios and such) and doomify them one by one until they have been reforged with the power of mehtuhl 👹 Let this song hopefully stand as proof that a fingerpicked acoustic guitar + proximity effect = passable bass. Drums/acoustic gtrs/workhorse mics/stock reaper plugs, guitars through Audio Assault’s (free!) Blacksun amp sim, bass through the free BoD VST, background MIDI arp twinklies courtesy of AiR Xpand! 2. Games & Sources Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Level 1: Moonlit Blade

Great source tune choice with a very meat & potatoes approach, but as that compo has proved time and time again, there's more to interpretation with an arrangement beyond melodic changes. Smooth instrumentation choices throughout that certainly stood apart from the original song (though briefly exposing the blocky piano sample at 2:20 I could have done without). Everything flowed nicely, and the textural change-up at 2:49 was a thing of beauty. Sufficiently rizzed fo' shizz, so the call was easy peasy. :-) YES

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@Deathtank No links to A.I.-generated music, please.

Artist Name: The Vodoú Queen Finally, a Zelda arrangement in my grasp! MWAHAHAHA!!! Ahem, *evil C H A O S-filled cackles* aside, welcome to my take on Dragon Roost Island! Done for Pixel Mixers' upcoming Wind Waker: Songs of the Great Sea album, it was an absolute blast, pleasure, and I feel very lucky and grateful to have been able to snag the opportunity at such a popular track. It's definitely one of my top 10 favorite in the entire Zelda franchise / library, starting all the way from Gen 1 - the NES, and I certainly did not hesitate to put my all forth on this one. I still remember to this day the wondrous joy I got out of encroaching upon the land of Dragon Roost for the first time as a teen playing Wind Waker on release (damn, I feel old, lol.) Those castanets...that Spanish flamenco guitar, that Calypso-island, con brio beat. For years and to this day, no matter the medium, the context, or the remix this track has undergone, it still fills me with that excited whimsy and odd...happy-sensation of FINALLY finding land after aimlessly sailing across the vast Great Ocean for hours on end, and getting to explore! I don't know why this song in particular hit me like it did (most of the WW OST did, TBH, with how flavorful, colorful, rich and full of expression all the tracks were), but I seriously got hooked when--about 9 years after Wind Waker's release--I stumbled onto an outstanding EDM artist called Ephixa, who did a couple of dubstep Zelda remixes , and those songs were a BIG influence and impetus on me wanting to tackle some of the same iconic Zelda tracks, years later. I'm not entirely sure HOW to describe the process and making of this remix, as it all kinda came through in a blur; (I've been on an incredibly weird high and tizzy with a veritable hill of VG remixes for albums to conquer, lately, and with all that comes a lot of emotional peaks and valleys and moments of doubt and procrastination and banging my head against the proverbial wall to "make it before I break it [me]"...so. . . it's kinda hard ATM to string a coherent thought on that said process, when it's a lot more about feeling it sometimes than strategic planning--even though every mix I do has a fair share of plotting-things-out, as well.) As an old, not-born-in, but-raised-in Floridian resident myself, it's like being in a hurricane on the beach-front (and it's a WILD experience, let me tell you!) Not being fully musically-trained in the theoretical sense makes...writing it all down, laced in the jargon and the gear and the FX and the programming - for those music science nerd-out-types - all the more difficult and a struggle, haha. But, the major thing I was assured of in making this remix was that I wanted to strengthen my EDM-game. The only clear voice in my head the whole time was: "make your mark on this, sweetheart ♥." And I hope I did, as I do with all my mixes to-date. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide variety of artist takes on DRI, both on here in OCR, and in the wider realms on Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. I know most of them seem to take the form of Orchestral / Acoustic, or EDM, but I tried my best to make this one a unique and different spin. Is it Jungle? Maybe a lil', mostly Drum n' Bass-centric. . . Is it Tropical House? Well, it's got a very Polynesian-infused sauce, with various garnishes and spices borrowed from House, Dubstep and Trance. . . I don't know...but I'm sure Mr. Hemo or Mr. Liontamer will label this one another host to the 'experimental'... ;) Once again, I don't know what to call my work, or what to label it as, or how to espouse on 'how I did it all' with the fancy words and theory techniques and the music sheets, but its roots run deep, and I hope people listening to it find it to be that same, equal, captivating and explorative feel (and a banger), with that same level of wonder and awe I felt back in 2003 upon reaching the shores of the place that is known as Dragon Roost Island. :) Games & Sources THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER OST; Disc 1, Track 38 - Dragon Roost Island; Artist(s): Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi and Koji Kondo; Release Date: 2003; Label: Scitron Digital Content & Nintendo

Artist Name: minusworld ARTIST NOTES I'm copying and pasting this from an explanation in the DoD discord. As usual for me, this is a DoD entry, this time from February 2025, Katajun Month! Any PC game was eligible. This track came about because my wife got excited about an Oregon Trail cover when she learned the theme was essentially PC games. I was *planning* to take a break, but told her if she came up with a concept that I would do an Oregon Trail arrangement. Given *gestures at everything* going on these days, she came up with the idea of disparate people learning to get along to make something unique and special. Only some releases of Oregon Trail have soundtracks, but it turns out the OST is 99% American folk songs. The only original piece is the title track (cf. http://videogamemusicnerd.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-gaming-audio-history-oregon-trail.html). For the rest of the arrangement, we visited the Oregon Trail 2 soundtrack which has more original pieces… including two tracks for “Native Settlement” 1 and 2 which are basically recordings of indigenous chanting. The “story”, then, became one where Oregon Trail settlers stumble upon an indigenous gathering at night, and both find something they enjoy about the others’ music, finally combining into something beautiful and hopeful at the end. …That was the idea, anyway. 😅 I hope it comes across. Thanks to my collaborators for making this happen! It was really fun to gather a large crew to throw all these weird instruments together. * Lady Varda - concept, co-arranger * DeLuxDolemite - drumkit * Mattmatatt - harmonica * Steven Higbee - ocarina * optimizasean - violin * me - vocals, acoustic guitar, bass I really wanted live drums for this one, and DeLuxDolemite delivered! (I don’t mix live drums often, though, so I apologize for any quirkiness. 🫠) Mattmatatt went 500% overboard, recording not just one but five stacked harmonica tracks which sounded AWESOME. He also gave great mix feedback. While listening to some Native American flutes, I noticed that many sounded like ocarinas, so I hit up Steven Higbee for a little ocarina work. optimizasean did the violins, which he turned around in like 2 days after getting the parts! Electric guitar is my main instrument, and this is my first non-acoustic remix that has no EGs in it whatsoever. To jam my own personal style into the arrangement, I went a little ham on the bass instead. 😅 Lastly, a word about the vocals: I was exceedingly nervous about this part given, well, history. I wanted to be respectful, so I spent quite a bit of time reading up and watching videos on indigenous music. I even found and read an ethnomusicology publication by the Smithsonian in the 1900’s. 🔎 It turns out many chants are comprised of vocables rather than words—that is, vocal sounds with no meaning, such as “la la la” or “meedlymeedlymeeeee”. In these publications, chants are recorded by writing down the vocables, therefore I mimicked this by writing down the vocables for sele ct phrases from Native Settlement 1 and 2 (from the OT2 OST) and did my best to replicate those. In the end, this was weird track to arrange (and co-arrange, at that!). It was way outside my norm, but I hope it is enjoyable and I hope it conveys a sense of wistful hope. Here's the link to that Smithsonian publication: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/34591/bae_bulletin_136_1943_No28.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Games & Sources 0:00-0:25 - Oregon Trail 2: Native Settlement 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSiyb9YoOe8&list=PLcygF2UN-KeaCDcVwUPfhdkSok8dF6LhR&index=14) 0:25-0:47 - Oregon Trail 2: Native Settlement 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEc7J4woJLQ&list=PLcygF2UN-KeaCDcVwUPfhdkSok8dF6LhR&index=16) 0:47-1:09 - Oregon Trail: Title Theme B section (https://youtu.be/e7uR_WnDIv8?feature=shared&t=46) 1:09-1:20 - Oregon Trail 2: Title Theme A section (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsGtUJNoZVw&list=PLcygF2UN-KeaCDcVwUPfhdkSok8dF6LhR&index=2) 1:20-2:27 - Oregon Trail: Title Theme (https://youtu.be/e7uR_WnDIv8?feature=shared) (1:43-1:54 Oregon Trail 2: Trail Theme 1 cameo) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALKH-wHXxdM&list=PLcygF2UN-KeaCDcVwUPfhdkSok8dF6LhR&index=7) 2:27-2:50 - Original Transition 2:50-song end - Oregon Trail: Title Theme + Oregon Trail 2: Native Settlement 2

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