Liontamer

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What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Full Credits Ridley Snipes - arranger, producer, guitar, engineer The Vodoú Queen - voiceover monologue Notes This track was made for the Pixel Mixers Silent Hill album, which is currently in the mastering process for distribution - this recording is my own master for individual/OCR release. I've been trying lots of new genres lately, and this is my attempt at wave. You might get a different description depending on who you ask, but "wave" to me can mostly be described as spinoffs of other genres (e.g. Hardwave, Wave Trap, Wave Phonk) - the main pillars being heavy usage of washy supersaws, wide distorted reese basses, spacious atmosphere, and usually a slower tempo than whatever it's pulling from. Skeler and LXST CXNTURY are my two favorite artists in this realm. The source tune is very simple and very Silent Hill - a linear piano melody bedded onto a droning triphop beat, sprinkled with reverse vocal slices and other unintelligible ear candy throughout. I think I ended up skirting pretty close to the 50/50 line on usage, so here's the breakdown: Intro 0:00 - 0:22 original melody loop, chords borrowed from source, original bassline to complement the source chords Hook 0:23 - 0:52 guitar plays climax of the source melody, chords and loop continue Verse 0:53 - 1:23 piano begins the actual A melody from source, synths continue the clean guitar melody Break 1:24 - 1:53 piano continues with melody B, VQ reads the monologue from the end of source track (after the song is over). There's more ambiguous source here but it is very layered deep in the background Hook 1:54 - 2:24 full blast of the original loop Verse/Outro 2:25 - end piano picks back up at the climax Had lots of fun with this one - hope yall enjoy it too.

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Man, this was great. Chrono Trigger's done to death, no doubt, but look at what you're working with. Are you going to skip a creative "Secret of the Forest" arrangement? NO. Great fundamentals here in terms of lengthy EDM, where you have a gradual build as more and more elements come in before the main verse finally arrived at 1:30, as well as breakdowns like the subtle dropoff starting at 2:59 and eventual ethereal rebuild leading into 4:14. Though the energy was still great and the overall approach was transformative, 4:45 sounded like a retread section until 5:44 added something new by combining different parts of the source together until 6:14 (which was a very cool idea). Repetition wasn't a big deal in the big picture when the arrangement was so creatively developed and expanded to begin with. ABG might feel like creating this piece was analogous to putting on a comfy old T-shirt that still fits nicely and looks good. It takes you back. That said, enjoy the music of someone whose been out of the game for a while but, in reality, never, ever lost a step. ;-) Shawn, it's was a true pleasure to have you back in action. Please keep 'em coming!

(Aaron wanted two tiny spots of loud sibilance corrected.) ad.mixx's comments: This song was a fun one to work on. I had the idea while going through and listening to some old Touhou songs, and the source is actually from the same game I tried remixing a long time ago. That one got rejected, but I'm back at it again this time with singing involved. All I did production wise was the vocals, piano, koto, and one synth in the chorus. Chimpazilla came through with everything else and brought a beauty to the song that I never could have imagined when first working on it. She absolutely killed it with the drums and bass and added a bunch of details with chords, strings, synths, and transitions that really made this song sound 100%. The meaning behind the song is pretty simple in my opinion - it's a breakup song. Think of something like Tyler the Creator's "EARFQUAKE" and you pretty much get the gist of it. It hurts to break up - you feel like you lose a piece of yourself in a lot of ways, and I tried to capture that moment in time to the best of my ability, even though it was so long ago ("everything's getting so blurry"). The vocals and game actually have nothing to do with each other, like my past remixes here, but I felt super inspired by the doujin project "FELT" and how they write their vocal remixes (again, having nothing to do with the games themselves). I wanted to try to transform the song into something a little prettier much like they do, and I think Chimpazilla and I succeeded on that front. This one was incredibly difficult to sing because the melody is so much more complex than anything I've ever done, but I hope everything is up to par with OCR standards, and I hope the judges enjoy it. Chimpazilla's comments: Aaron said "all I did production-wise" but he isn't giving himself enough credit! This remix is his source choice, his concept, his arrangement 100%, his lyrics, his vocal performance and processing, in addition to his piano, koto, pads and fx. Aaron sent me an initial wip of this arrangement with his first sung verse, and I was hooked. It had such a haunting beauty already in wip #1. I added the bassline and drums, sweepy pads, a few plucks and details, a couple of transitions, and I mixed and mastered it. Aaron and I work very well together, with our ideas complimenting each other pretty seamlessly. This track came together rather quickly to about 90% completion and then went on hold for nearly a year due to LifeStuff™. Aaron reached out to me a few days ago with a completed vocal stem, and from there the track was finished and polished in two days. I had never heard this source tune before Aaron sent me his wip, and I was surprised how different his wip was from the source in vibe and energy. One thing I love about both the source and remix is the use of triplets throughout the arrangement. Aaron was able to maintain all those triplets in his vocal writing and it gives the piece a very nice flow I think. Aaron stayed very true to the source melody, but he added such amazing variations (such as the end of the chorus sections "and still I find I'm in love") as he crafted this arrangement, making it flow to express what he wanted to say. He even included the trucker's gearshift modulation in his arrangement! (and it is seamless!) I can appreciate how difficult this was to sing. As Aaron mentioned, the melody is quite complex, and it covers a wide range of octaves too. I think he did a terrific job! This is really an achingly sad song, but Aaron and I managed to put together a soundscape that is so lovely, and I feel like the beauty of the piece adds a hopeful feeling to counterbalance the intense pain in Aaron's words. It was a joy to work on this! Stuck In My Head lyrics: Who's to blame? It's all the same The battle's won, still it's a goddamn shame We oughta not, it's best we forgot Leave it all to rot, yet I'm still thinking what it could be I'm stuck in my head making all the wrong moves The wails from the dead say I'm breaking all the wrong rules Who's to blame? It's all the same Our hearts are charred from the unruly flame I'm so tired of this Guess I'm just not that strong So now I'm trapped with my thoughts and this same damn song I'm stuck in my head acting like a damn fool The tales from the dead say I'm being way to damn cruel I've wasted all of this life So that my hate could finally feed It's crazy for me to think That all of this ends without a bleed Enough with the nonsense, I'm stuck on the offense I'm trying so hard not to lose It needs to be confessed, my troubles were repressed And now I'm just left here confused I'm bruising my own skin to hold down the demon And still I find I'm in love I can't stop with the fury I'm so sorry Who's to blame? It's all the same The battles won still it's a goddamn shame I'm so tired of this Thinking I did no wrong So now I'm stuck here just writing the same damn song I'm stuck in my head making all the wrong moves The wails from the dead say I'm breaking all the wrong rules I've wasted all of this life So that my hate could finally feed It's crazy for me to think That all of this ends without a bleed Enough with the nonsense, I'm stuck on the offense I'm trying so hard not to lose It needs to be confessed, my troubles were repressed And now I'm just left here confused I'm bruising my own skin to hold down the demon And still I find I'm in love I can't stop with the fury I'm so sorry Everything's getting so blurry I'm so sorry Games & Sources Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith Stage 5 Theme: The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Saw

@Emunator Need a source tune breakdown; help a brother out!

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Grandfathered in, since this would be a Standards violation for how it leans on the samples vocals as the source tune connection. I wish the beats evolved more, because you gets the untz untz (not “units units”, you dumb phone, don’t autocorrect me!), and not much more. I’d have not had the beats sound out over the top of the vocals so much, but it’s a style. :-)

Good expansiveness per mp’s usual. I’d argue the intro sounded the best, then the rest sounded dated, yet it’s a creative in terms of the arrangement. The autopilot drums for the closing section were disappointing, but for its time this track does stand apart from the original well, and even in comparison to the rest of the Radical Dreamers flood set.

The potential was there to further develop in some different directions, but the genre interpretation was fun. Beats were meaty, the production was spacious for its time, it’s a good rendition. Loved the sampled NES music intro; sounded extra ominous and VRC6-like!

For the early days, this is pretty solid. Though much of the instrumentation is rigid and dated, the arrangement has a ton of character, and the lead piano (not the left-hand part) and the organ in particular sounded strong. Very creative approach by mp!

E for effort, as Saunders himself admits. Feels MIDI rip level with no depth to the sounds, and no meaningful transition between the two songs. A product of its time, the good ol’ days. :-)

Hefty beats here that fill up the soundscape well. The saw lead’s too abrasive for me personally, but I’ll live. Cool to sample the “GO!” vox from the original. Some patience/restraint shown by not getting to the melody until later on, which helped this take stand apart. Didn’t realize how overlooked this Sonic 3 theme was; it was a great stage theme from a fun zone. :-) No stress playing that level back in the day!

Good changing of the textures over time. The saw was the weak point, since it was very vanilla. Enjoyed the breakbeat loop thrown in there in the second half, which I’ve heard in other tracks. The dropoff at 4:35 was well done, with good bass writing followed by getting subtractive with the textures. Shows its age, yet has good arranging/interpretation fundamentals.

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Many thanks to minusworld for the source usage breakdown. :-) I get what the NOs are saying about the relative imbalances (e.g. the volume of the sax first used at 2:04's absurd :-D), so I wouldn't mind another mixing pass at this, but if we couldn't get another version of this, the arrangement are performances are solid, so we ride! YES

I remember voting on ella guro's and, at the time, we'd had a falling out, so though I was impartial with the vote itself, I was upset and shouldn't have let it to color how I expressed things. I still enjoy the arrangement side of "Unleashed!" and most of the production. I've listened to "Unleashed!" multiple times afterward to ensure I wasn't being biased, and I still couldn't get behind the (fully intentional) levels of distortion for the big boom-boom-boom drumming, even though I heard the Guided by Voices references and understood the influence, so it'll be interesting to see if I also feel jmr's approach, inspired by all that and "Ashes in the Snow", is too much. For example, 7:52-11:10 in "Ashes in the Snow" just sounds like noise & mud where the details of the writing are too obscured, so I hope it's not a ton of this. :-( Source theme arrives at :45. Great gradual build of the textures until 1:50, and I of course enjoyed the rhythmic changes. Nice transition into the chorus section at 1:50. I love the tension of the backing parts here, especially knowing the influences, as I'm 2:30 in and now I'm bracing for the hit, it's on the way. :-D OK, 2:43, we get some added geetar in there, and we don't have any massive booming or distortion yet. A-ha, 3:23, there it is, though I'd say this is way more tame than "Unleashed!" You get the boominess and the volume being overdriven some, but "Ashes in the Snow" had the distortion of backing guitars as a really thick backing layer and that didn't happen here, while "Unleashed!" had the drums & cymbals distorted and blasting at 1:33 & 1:47. I'd be really interested in Emunator (this is his kind of thing) or another J comparing "Unleashed!" and "Ashes in the Snow Man" to better articulate why I'm OK with the latter; the best way I can describe it is that the booming drums here didn't slam over the top of the other instrumentation and sound as crunchy & clipping. Diggin' it! YES

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