Liontamer

Artist Name: Outset Initiative I originally composed this remix in 2019 for the Materia Community album "EXILE: A Tribute to Supergiant Games". This song has always been a personal favorite of mine from the Bastion soundtrack, and it was certainly one of the more challenging pieces I've to worked on to date. Darren's guitar performance makes up so much of the feeling of the original, which isn't something that you can just translate into midi. Since I wasn't using any guitars in my composition, I decided to directly follow the chord structure from the original to make sure there was always a clear link back to the source. That gave me a bit of freedom to have some fun and riff on the piano, which gives the track a loose jazzy feeling that I really enjoy. Due to some poor mixing decisions I made on the first iteration of this track, I decided to shelve the remix after the album launched and not to submit to OCR. The community album ended up getting pulled from distribution a few years later, which was a bummer... but it did give me an opportunity to revisit the track. I had some inspiration and free time a few weeks ago and decided it would be fun to resurrect the project and re-mix it from scratch. It was an enjoyable process and gratifying to see how much my process has changed and improved over the last few years. It's amazing how much you can do with tight EQing and a clear vision of how you want the track to feel and how each instrument should fit into the mix. I ended using probably 1/4 of the plugins as the original version and the difference is night and day. It's a good reminder that less can certainly be more, especially in our digital world where there's a plugin for everything. I'm quite glad I took the time to come back to this one – I hope y'all enjoy!

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Artist: 744 In keeping with the not-intentional theme of submitting two themes from the same game in a row (FTL and now Super Metroid) here's my first-ever attempt at drum 'n bass. After having listened to the Unreal Tournament, Bomberman Hero, and Orbo's Odyssey soundtracks a bit too much, and having gotten very stuck in a DnB kind of mood, I ditched two previous attempts at covering this theme and started over a third time. Since this piece doesn't do a lot with regard to chord modulation, there's some orchestral breaks and switches between a rock beat and back to DnB to maintain some variety. I used some of the Xtreme Lead and Proteus 2000 patches used in the Metroid Prime soundtracks. There's a specific one used in the Metroid Prime 2 multiplayer battle mode theme, which is itself a remix of the Brinstar jungle theme, and a choir patch used in the Meta Ridley theme from Prime 1, to add some...authenticity, is the word that comes to mind? These sounds have that bespoke "alien planet" sound to them and ooze pure Metroid. I also decided to give Logic's new Beat Breaker a shot, and naturally immediately went overboard with stuttering glitch effects just because I was having probably too much fun playing around. I tossed in a few lightly processed sound effects from the game as an accent where they seemed appropriate (credit to "latranchedepain" and sounds-resource.com for making those available from a quick search.) I'm not great at track titles, so enjoy a dictionary word relating to poisons from plants! Other track title suggestions I received included "Green Kill Zone," "why this room pink," and "PLANTS" so I think "Phytotoxin" is acceptable enough in comparison. Thanks to the folks in the Discord (esp. Hemo) for some useful feedback, and thanks for listening! -Ben

Unique approach! And the longer track length allowed you to employ more variations and ideas, so good on you for that. :-) YES

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Artist Names: Hashel, Ridley Snipes This track was originally made for the Pixel Mixers' "Crossed Paths" album, a tribute to Octopath Traveler 2 OST: https://open.spotify.com/album/4CyTS3h5t3Yw1xn0q0VumB I had the pleasure to work with Ridley Snipes, an OCR veteran, who produced the percussions and some extra pads layers. My goal with the arrangement was to keep the "etherial" vibe of the track and try to go for some "electro chill" mood, both relaxing while keeping some groove. Games & Sources The track was composed by Yasunori Nishiki for Octopath Traveler 2, the original track be be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKqc6uIVz60

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The treatment of the cartoon TMNT alone until 1:22 was extremely repetitive (and using it so much violates our standards re: non-VGM source tune usage, as previously mentioned). Ignoring that though, it's definitely going to be tough to do something stylized enough where a faux electric guitar sample isn't going to sound relatively low quality, even if it has flair to it. The percussion for the 1:22 section with those rim hits was just mixed in too loudly. Lots of shrill mixing here; the overall textures would sound stronger with appropriate EQ cuts. No transitions from theme to theme either (e.g. 1:22, 2:32, 3:51, 4:08, 4:49, etc., etc.), which means we're in medleyitis territory where the track doesn't flow like a unified composition and is full of quick themes and abrupt transitions (also frowned on re: our arrangement standards). Would love to hear you, Astroverse, flesh out one of two of these themes with an interpretive and personalized arrangement approach though! NO

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Intros with the sampled original audio before transitioning into the arrangement at :18. The mixing's not clean at all, but the bassline's phat and the overall sound's impactful; will look to the musician Js for feedback on cleaning the soundscape up. Even though the percussion pattern wasn't changing (and should have varied more), the textural change at :37 was welcome. Sax solo at :57 was a fun idea over the top of the source and a nice way to further personalize the sound. The ending was relatively abrupt, IMO, but if a longer and more developed arrangement ended this way, I'd have to live with it; if you're not going to fashion more of a resolution, consider some sort of trailoff so the ending has some room to breathe. At barely a minute's worth of arrangement, Magoo, you'll need to flesh out this concept more, but you're moving in the right direction. See what more you can do to continue varying up the presentation of the theme; a variation on the beats, dropping them out and changing the overall instrumentation for another iteration, adding a wholly original composition section or adding other original countermelodies; there's lots of potential directions to take things in to achieve a more substantial arrangement. Good start here! NO (resubmit)

Artist: Magoo A fun, hip hop inspired take on the original Puzzle Bobble theme. Wanted to keep the playful vibe of the original while making it into more of a head-bobber. Sax solo for extra good vibes. Highscore achieved! Games & Sources Puzzle Bobble // Neo Geo MVS

It was a solid sound upgrade, but the verse section wasn’t selling me on this being transformative enough. Once it hit the chorus, OK, THEN the presentation was becoming different enough. Nice, tasteful SFX usage as well. Short and sweet, but got’er done. :-) YES

Pretty lo-fi in terms of the overall sound, and I wish the core beat was more sophisticated with the writing, but it's getting it done, and I respect the approach. Hahahaha, OK, shizzle went kafrizzle and now the track's just in the left channel from 1:30-2:05. You know what, I thought I'd be more annoyed by this based on the other Js reactions, but, even though I wouldn't mind that segment to be briefer, I'll live, and I actually like the overall tone of the track changing, which was actually a very nice touch along with the hiss. It's like the tape got messed up, and was pulled off nicely. In fact, I'm actually more annoyed that the track's energy seemed so reserved once that left-channel-only gimmick ended at 2:05. At 2:05, the soundscape's pretty muddy and busy, but the core beats still feel the same as what we heard in the beginning, so the track's overall progression feels flat, which is undermining the attempt at dynamic contrast, even when things got denser at 2:39. If there's a way to update/vary the core beat pattern at the heart of this without compromising the vision, I'd love that. I may be overstating the issue, because there's other creative writing going on in that final minute, but when you listen to this, the creativity of that final section's undermined not only by the core beat coasting but by the mixing being cluttered. Again, I could argue with Mike that it's a feature, not a bug, but it wasn't that to me. In any case, I'm gonna stay open-minded. This isn't ideal, but this is very nicely transformative and the hard panning gimmick was actually creative and well done. Nah, we ride. YES

As soon as the beat came in, I was excited. Even though this isn't a huge melodic change, I've also never heard this theme approached with this kind of sound palette. Love the way the core beats have lots of power; they fill out the soundscape well. I liked the brief original writing that was like a countermelody from 1:03-1:14, and would have loved that to stay involved. I also would have loved to have had this take some distinct melodic or rhythmic turns, which'll sound like I didn't like Mike's approach; to me, it felt like the sound design ideas were so enjoyable that there could have also been good mileage out of other writing ideas together with these instrumentation choices, and that's just excitement over that writing potential, not disappointment at what we have. Very cool stuff that beefed up this classic theme well! YES

Artist Name: Gaspode This is a song that’s get every now and then stuck in my head. I had to remix it at some point, because I love the Luigi’s mansion games, especially part one and two. I tried to make a bigbeat-version (hope this is the correct term for this musical style), and integrated various sound-samples. My wife convinced my to exchange them with original samples from the game. This was a very funny process because there are videos on YouTube with all the ripped audio-data from the game only consisting of »Ah’s« and »Oh’s« with Luigis voice. By the way, I asked beforehand on discord if it’s okay to use the original voice samples (in the case of a release on OC Remix), which was confirmed. But when it’s a problem there is also a version without the samples available. Oh, and I used my own voice for the »impressive« whistle at the end. Of course it’s out of tune which fits the style of the original humming by Luigi. ;o) Hope you have fun with this remix. Games & Sources Name of game(s) arranged: »Luigi’s Mansion« Name of individual song(s) arranged: »Main Theme«

Basically a sound palette change, though I liked the tone of things. Basically could be a MIDI rip for all I know. The claps sounded very barebones and exposed, but at least there was some attention given towards making this sound spookier. Needs more melodic interpretation as well as overall dynamics and variation over time; right now, everything's pretty by the numbers and the core beat plodded over time. Fun, but just a cover and an underdeveloped arrangement, I'm afraid, Str1ctur3. But keep adapting things and seeing how you can add more of your own personality and ideas into the picture for these sound upgrade renditions and you may just walk into a more interpretive arrangement over time. NO

Artist: Str1ctur3 Made in FL Studio Games & Sources Croc Legend of the Gobbos

Not a bad sound upgrade (albeit with pretty exposed string samples), but boy doesn't this sound lossy and muddy; not sure what happened here to degrade how this sounds, and it's at the DAW level or something with the encoding settings. Melodically, Str1ctur3, there's not much going on with interpretation, and at 1:57 the track basically looped with no further ideas, development, or variations. Again, not a bad sound upgrade aside from the mixing being poor, but definitely very underdeveloped (and the track unceremoniously cut off). A decent starting point, but a very limited approach together with poor mixing that undermined the positive improvement in the sample quality compared to the original track. NO

Artist: Str1ctur3 Made using FL Studio Games & Sources This is a new arrangement of Field of Motavia from Phantasy Star IV: End of the Millenium

Artist: NyxTheShield This remix is heavily inspired by "T-Square - Truth" sound and "vibe", but without taking any elements directly from it. I always wanted to make a jazz fusion DKC cover and I felt this was the perfect opportunity to do so while paying homage to my inspirations. I hope you enjoy it! Games & Sources DKC2 - Stickerbush Symphony by David Wise

Artist Name: Cyril the Wolf I'm back on my Mega Man lyrical nonsense. After experiencing some intense burnout following Covid 19 and the release of two albums in 2019 this took probably 18 months to work on and release. As always - the lyrics tell the story of the game but trying to pull back the shiny cartoon veneer to add even more pathos. In this case I was able to enlist my sister EsperPhoenix to help me finish this after several vocalists gave up on me (understandably) due to the timeline in which this took to complete. Overall it's helped me rediscover aspects of sound design, mixing, production and performing that I probably would not have overcome. Even submitting here the song has been on my YouTube for almost 3 years... The story is very plain in the lyrics (and very anime) - young kid (Vent) gets drafted into a war. Prarie (the rebel commander... sort of it's actually slightly more complicated but deal with it) is asking why this kind of awfulness happens over and over again, and Vent is asking himself if he's even worthy to be any kind of champion when he has tragedy from long ago. There's a couple interesting things about this that get me every time I listen - and one of them at 3:14 is purely accidental... apparently when you sing with a sibling you can create some extra overtones that sound like a phantom 3rd vocalist. Every time I heard it I looked through the entire list of recorded tracks and could never find this third higher harmony that randomly appears there and throughout the rest of the tune. Just adding more Mega Man vocalizations to this archive, hope y'all don't mind/ Lyrics: Prarie: Can we have more time? To prepare for the storm? It feels like a lie To imply hope anymore.. And I feel rain washing away all of my fear But a chill strikes as the dark draws near (Refrain) Is it wrong I put hope in you? Though I see suffering I'm sick of those who profit from pain Vent: The chill of the rain The grey the distorts my view But I still see stains The fights that we've all been through Every drop stings a memory I can't forget Those that died remind me it's not over yet Refrain (Both) Is it wrong you put hope in me? Though I see suffering I'm sick of those who profit from pain Both: So it's come to this Another war in sight The lives we all miss Push us toward the light And the demons feed from our rage an d all our fears But They wither when the rain slows and skies are clear (Refrain) (both) Is it wrong I/you put hope in you/me? Though I see suffering I'm sick of those who profit from pain Games & Sources Mega Man ZX - Misty Rain (Area I - Imprisonment Area) Ippo Yamada

What's here's in a vacuum is cool; if this theme were made for a mid-80s NES game, this would fit right in. There's nothing inherently wrong with a demake, but there's also not much intepretation going on beyond the adaptation to this soundset, so it unfortunately falls outside of the kind of arrangements we're looking for at OCR. Even at 1:00 when you get a fuller sound, it was like the track stopped and started over (rather than connected sections flowing together). Would love to hear a melodically interpretive rendition of this as an 8-bit theme if you were game, but a cool creative exercise regardless, Moonset! NO

Artist: Moonset Music As I was working on a chiptune cover of "Grandpa's Theme" from Stardew Valley, I couldn't decide which effects sounded better. In the end, I decided "well, why not both?!" With that, this cover was born, combining the simple, low-effect version with a more complicated one and finishing off with a modulated coda, since I was going to be fancy! This whole arrangement is intended to evoke classic NES-era soundtracks. Games & Sources Source: Stardew Valley Song: Grandpa's Theme Composer: Eric Barone (ConcernedApe)

Artist: DaveWithAKeyboard I wanted to create an explosive, epic arrangement of the song, slowly building up throughout the track, until all the instruments are included by the end. I was inspired by the final boss tracks from the Sonic series from Sonic 06 onward, with their epic remixes of the game's main theme. Games & Sources This is an epic rock-orchestral remix of "I'm With You", the final boss from Sonic Frontiers, composed by Tomboy Ohtani. I also included bits of "I'm Here" from Sonic Frontiers, "His World" from Sonic 06, and "Green Hill Zone" from Sonic 1 in the middle section during the guitar riff. Here is the YouTube source link: