Liontamer

OC ReMix Presents Mega Man 9: Back in Blue! September 7, 2011 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA...OverClocked ReMix today released its 27th arrangement album, Mega Man 9: Back in Blue. The album, directed by OC ReMixer and Cave Story 3D musician Dustin "k-wix" Kulwicki, features 14 artists producing 18 arrangements from Capcom's 8-bit revival for the Mega Man series, Mega Man 9. The album's release also features numerous pieces of visual artwork by a dedicated group of fans, intended to compliment the music. Back in Blue is available for free download at http://backinblue.ocremix.org. This album was produced to help promote the music of Mega Man 9, was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Capcom or Inti Creates; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners. Released in 2008 on the WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network services, Mega Man 9 brought the series back to its NES roots with an artificial 8-bit side-scrolling style emulating the first six games of the series. Accompanying the retro visual style was a soundtrack to match, crafted by Inti Creates' III sound team of Yu Shimoda, Ryo Kawakami, Hiroki Isogai and Ippo Yamada to encapsulate the sound of the original Nintendo Entertainment System. "The goal of the Back in Blue project was to remix the Mega Man 9 soundtrack in a variety of styles and pay tribute to one of the greatest platforming series of all time," said album director Kulwicki, whose efforts have resulted in an album full of funk, rock, electronic, dance, spaghetti western, acoustic and fusion interpretations of the game's original music. "I am proud with not only the completion of this project, but the quality of the artists that shines through in every single track." Following the release of Joshua Morse's The Robot Musem, Back in Blue is OC ReMix's second Mega Man album, and the first dedicated to an individual Mega Man game. "Mega Man 9 was a true throwback to the earliest entries in the franchise and proved that retro games still had a spot in modern video games," said Kulwicki. "We want to say thanks to Capcom and Inti Creates for creating Mega Man 9, and I say thanks as well to the artists of Back in Blue for all of their hard work!" About OverClocked ReMix Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. ### Preview it: Download it: http://backinblue.ocremix.org/ Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Mega_Man_9_-_Back_in_Blue.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=36732

Awesome as usual, Kate! Can't wait to see a formal release and hear more.

GET EXCITE! (album imminent!)

Why's this at 160kbps? Let's get a higher encoding and a unique title that isn't just the name of the source tune itself. We also need the full lyrics. Production's lo-fi in a throwback way. Cool approach, though the singing sounded too distant the whole time. When the "oohs" came in at 1:29, the vocals got cluttered. Some better separation/EQing would have helped that, but it was a brief issue. Aside from those production crits, what else is there to say other than great job? I'm feeling the arrangement here, very creative guys! Definitely a hot debut from the Hot Freaks! Looking forward to hearing more, this was a very unique sonic style for the community! YES

Mirby's correct. We await with baited breath.

That's all José's brilliance, we have nothing to do with that. The idea of album-exclusive videos isn't brand new though: http://www.youtube.com/ocremix#g/p The main video update isn't the most pressing issue right now, but José's definitely been working on some ideas, so hopefully we'll roll with a new version relatively soon.

If you don't have a fully developed idea, then it's too short. We ask for around at least 2 minutes, though that's not a hard time requirement. It can be shorter if the idea is fully developed (e.g. DOESN'T LOOP).

I wouldn't call this "meandering," but you might: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01887/ One would think you'd be against "meandering" anything, by definition. That said, I wouldn't be speculating like that on what you think we want.

JP release date was 12/19/2002 according to MobyGames & GameFAQs, so 2002's correct as year of first release on PS2. Corrected. Should show on the site soon. Bummer. Yeah, it cuts out 2 seconds early. If it had just ended w/o the typical video fade, but the song cut out properly, I would have lived with it; will fix soon. It's lowercase. "de" & "del" are lowercased in proper titles. It's a short preposition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_prepositions#de

Mixers can have 'em (e.g. bLiNd, Abadoss, sephfire), they've just asked me. Has to be a 32 x 32 GIF or less, not animated. Make sure the quality/sharpness isn't ass. I'm an avatar judge too.

Later this year. I'm putting the finishing touches on it and am waiting for one last batch of WAVs. Nah, it'll be a moot point soon.

So where's the hate on this mix? Saw a BUNCH on YouTube, some on Facebook, none here. And we usually have people who are pretty blunt. Still waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Pay us bags of money so that we can work on OC ReMix full time and drop both work and real life. Everyone's busy, that's the short of it. We're working on it, djp's working on it. At the current pace, there are gonna be 64 more mixes posted this year, it's higher than usual. But we'll holler and see if he can do more.

Because naming everything with the most "practical," literal-minded descriptive convention you can think of is STUPID. I can't even fathom how someone could practically address this "issue." What new names could y'all come up with that would be so much more perfect and descriptive so as to ideally preview every album we've made as to not to scare away these legions of fickle album-title-influenced potential listeners? Oh, well "Serious Monkey Business," that's so wrong, is the album serious and dour or is it with monkeys? Somehow both? "Hedgehog Heaven?" Not angelic enough. Coldplay needs to play "The Speed of Sound" three times faster, otherwise the potential imagery of their song title isn't right. Stupidity. If the debate wasn't truly over after that, I dunno how else to end it.

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01284/

I'll just be honest, unless you're packing some awesome music and I just haven't heard it, no hate, but I doubt you're gonna be an official OCR album. But email admin@ocremix.org with what you have and I'll take a look next week.

Didn't feel anything down in GA. Glad to see on Facebook that it's just a bunch of people going "BAH!" and not "AHHHHH!"

For the first minute, I was totally feeling it. I don't disagree with anyone saying the steady beat lasted too long, and that was the main drawback. For about a minute, I was firmly in the camp of "this isn't dragging out, c'mon," because the beat sounds good. But aside from some dropoffs here and there, this simple beat indeed dragged on WAAAAY too long. The arrangement works nicely besides that, and while you should keep Vig's production crits in mind as well, I wasn't bothered by those issues. In other words, if the beats weren't so repetitive, the other crits wouldn't add up to a NO. The lack of instrumental changes Vig also pointed out would be downplayed by the subtle dynamic contrast that would be added by the beats changing up. So just get the beats off this bland auto-pilot they're on and you should be good. NO (refine/resubmit)

This right here. Before reading the votes, this was really nagging on me, but I couldn't articulate the issues holding this back. The bowed strings sounded too sparse and the sequencing was on the mechanical side, though not the worst I've heard. The pizz strings later sounded fine, but, during the chorus, the bowed strings were too quiet compared to the beats. The bowed articulations definitely need to be refined to sound more humanized. The beatwork at the foundation of the track was pretty vanilla and repetitive for the first half. Better, more progressive stuff at 2:00, though the lead synth playing the melody was kind of weak. Back to the pizz strings around 2:30. The arrangement isn't too cover-ish, IMO, as if it was just a verbatim cover, but what's there could still be more melodically interpretive and creative with the bowed & pizz strings and the synth melody of the chorus. It's just a little too plain of an arrangement when it comes to the lead elements. Like OA said, you need something else there to further flesh this out. Right now, you have bland leads with relatively straightforward arrangement trying to carry most of the track. The potential's there, just refine this further and send it on back. NO (resubmit)

Completely disagree. You're basically saying the title has to appeal to the superficial and stupid. The album is "The Sound of a Hedgehog That Runs Very Fast in His First Game." If people were expecting superfast BPM and can't get over that, especially when the original music wasn't superfast BPM, I couldn't care less. The single dumbest criticism I saw of OA & Scaredsim's Green Hill Zone mix on YouTube was that it was too slow, when it was slightly faster than the tempo of the original. It's an album about a speedy hedgehog not a speedy soundtrack, it's a play on words, and we have more than enough people without a stick up their ass enjoying the album to care about a minority of people hung up on the album title. It's the same people complaining that Voices of the Lifestream implied an all-vocal album; it's just a short-sighted, stupid criticism.

I had no problem with the structure or style of the track. It's perfectly fine for OCR as far as the writing and concept. That said, "Totaka's Song" is pretty short, and you didn't use it enough here for it to be the dominant aspect of the arrangement. For a 2:43-long track, this needed more than 81.5 seconds of source usage for the source tune to be the dominant aspect of the arrangement (i.e. in use more than 50% of the time), and for me to give it a pass on arrangement: :05-:15, :20-:30.75, :52.75-1:02.25, 1:30-1:52, 2:30.75-2:41 = 62.5 seconds or 38.34% Not nearly enough use of the theme in here. I like the slapsticky stuff going on. But you need to figure out other clever ways to have the source in play without getting, e.g slowing it down and using it as a backing part via some low bowed strings. Just think of some things you can do to further integrate the theme in here, preferably without just playing it more and more at the same rhythm and tempo in order to provide variation instead of mere repetition. The production sounds good, and the instrumentation sounds well put together. Now get the second part of the equation working. NO (resubmit)

Sorry, my man, really not feeling this track at all. The source tune was used enough, but the sequencing is just super unrealisitic and mechanical-sounding, and the guitar chugs at :17 sounded extremely fake and atonal. The melody sounded off-key from :38-:48 & 1:21-1:32, and NOTHING clicks together as far as the instrumentation, so the textures sounded loud yet sparse & flimsy. The resolution at the end is poorly written as well. Just brutal to listen to, you need to really get the fundamentals down as far as building something cohesive. NO

There are so many people who don't realize that at the time they sent their first (poor) submission and hate us to no end for rejecting it outright. Glad you didn't give up!

No one else cares what you think about how new or popular the source material is.

As if that's never happened before. Try to self-edit and give some non-stupid comments next time. The vocals felt a bit low compared to the music, but it's a nice mix, and solidly produced. Cool stutter effects more in the second half. Interesting take on it, Mofo. Definitely a good listen!