Darkflamewolf

Unfortunately, I do not have as much to say as background info regarding this track. I know it was one of the first five received during year 1 of the project and it was relatively painless. @Ganaé approached me about the track and I was willing to let him have a crack at it, despite not knowing or having heard about him prior. What he returned was a faithful, yet expansive take on the Sky Pirate Island theme. I do remember that there was a language barrier of sorts as we went back and forth with him on polishing up the track with the faux judges we had signed on board to donate time to the project. However, he wrapped it up fairly quickly and finalized the piece within the first few months of the album production cycle. It's finally good to have this track see the light after so long sitting on my hard drive.

What can I say? I truly lucked out with @Sam Dillard. Back when I was first recruiting for the album during year 1 of the project, I was literally taking shots in the dark. I was going down the alphabet of the Remixer roster on the forums and sending messages out (5 at a time per day, since that was a limit, it was painful). 90% never got back to me, the other 5% weren't interested and then there were the remaining 5% that agreed to the project It was to my great shock and surprise when Sam Dillard responded back saying he had fixated on the Great Silver Shrine track. Since he was inbetween projects, he was more than willing to help us out. I believe I had originally tapped @Platonist for the track, but after several false starts and real life creeping in, he had to bow out. So it was definitely a stroke of luck when Sam Dillard rolled in and created something completely unique with the piece. As stated in his commentary for the track, he took the essence of the original song and turned it into something different, yet recognizable. Unfortunately, he had to get back to his own endeavors shortly after completing the track and could not stick around to polish it up for any faux judges feedback from @Gario or @timaeus222. I still pushed it their way just in case they felt there was anything jarring, but as expected, nothing surfaced and it was pitch perfect the moment Sam turned it in. I have to give a big thanks and kudos to Sam for taking time out of his busy schedule to lend his talents to this album!

I hadn't heard of @RebeccaETripp until 2017 when she came onto the remixing scene with a flurry of amazing and similar sounding remixes. By similar, I meant, she already had a unique and solid style that was solely her own and could easily be recognized as hers the moment you listened to any of her tracks. She marked her remixes with it. Since the tracklist was dwindling down to the single digits left to be claimed, there were only a select view that I had open that I felt she would be ideal for. One was the Little Jack and the other was Remote Town. She gravitated towards the latter and within a short span of I think a month, she produced the fully realized track. We, of course, vetted it through our faux judges, @Gario and @timaeus222 , who graciously donated their time to the project. This critique only helped Rebecca polish and tune up her track and a week later, we received the final version. There really wasn't much going back and forth with this one. It was almost akin to a business transaction: I scouted her out, she agreed to the terms, the product was made, and both parties benefited. The smoothest interaction I ever had with any remixer. Kudos to Rebecca for making this an enjoyable experience for me during the production of her track!

It was completely worth it! I loved every single track on this album. I even had to cut some renditions and/or remixers from the final line-up due to a variety of reasons and some tough calls were made, even when some of the submitted tracks were near completion. Thankfully, I kept all WIPs and unused remixes and with the gracious permission from the original creators, was able to include them as part of the bonus disc so listeners could hear the delightful variations of what might have been for several of our tracks! Every remixer, both officially on and or off the official track listing gave fantastic effort in bringing the soundscape of Skies of Arcadia to life! A question I've been getting asked recently is what my favorite tracks are on the album. Honestly, I could list just about the entire album if I'm being honest. I'm not fully comfortable picking out favorites, especially since every single remixer did an excellent job. However, if you were truly twisting my arm to make a dang decision and choose, I'll limit myself to just three, one from each disc and based on my own personal preferences in music tastes and such - even though I'm in love with the entire album as a whole! Disc 1 - "Secret Bass" - By Silent Ice I was extremely patient with Silent Ice and worked with him literally for the entire 3 years this mix was in production. I heard its inception from what would be its core tone to the final product you are listening to today. I enjoyed watching this track evolve through countless iterations and since I was there for its entire development, it holds a special place in my heart as one of my favorite tracks. Disc 2 - "Coding Angel" - By Jason Covenant Those who know me know that I'm a die-hard fan of Jason Covenant and pretty much anything he does is gold to me. I adore his voice and singing in every track he's done. He's been primarily on the compo scenes more than he is submitting remixes to OCR directly, but I took note of his unique style right away. His track was the last one delivered (not counting the sudden last minute submission rework by Deedubs) and was a nice capstone to a completed album tracklist. He met and exceeded my expectations I had for him when I sought him out for this album. Disc 3 - "Shining Silver" - By Sam Dillard Oh man, choosing just one from disc 3 was hard! However, I'm going to go with this one purely on my nostalgia of the location you play in Skies of Arcadia where this song plays. Visiting the Great Silver Shrine for the first time was a memorable and inspiring location where some of the greatest plot twists and reveals were given to the player, so having this song reimagined into a innocent, yet majestic piece was genius. So yeah, it was insanely hard to limit it to just one per disc, but I couldn't just pick one! So many good songs and so many great remixers, but these are just 3 of my many favorites on the album. What are yours?

Due to his 'Saria's Drop' remix, @GlacialSpoon immediately became my #1 choice to remix the Victory themes for the album. I loved his wacky and insane way he remixed such a simple theme from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, that I knew he could do wonders with a similar sort of theme from Skies of Arcadia. I was happy to find out that I was not wrong and he seemed game on tackling these themes and delivering what I feel to be one of the stand-out tracks on disc 1. It serves as a nice focal point for the middle of disc 1, separating neatly the first half from the second half (despite it being part of the second half notwithstanding!). It feels like the conclusion of one part of the journey, which I feel is the intended goal. I would later ask @GlacialSpoon to take on another combination track, because he was both not only willing, but also because his unique style brought great diversity and flavor to the project. I would not mind working with him again in the future.

@Sbeast was one of the first to sign onto the album and one of the first completed. He had originally started up his own Metal-only album for the SoA soundtrack, but it unfortunately didn't gain much ground and wallowed in obscurity. I didn't really seek him out (to my recollection ), and he in fact sought me out once it was clear we were signing on remixers for the album. He adamantly wanted the Vyse Theme since he had claimed that track for his own metal album and wanted to at least see his vision of the piece realized in some public form. I admired his passion and loved his enthusiasm for the source material. Since I was unaware of his capabilities as a remixer, unlike @Deedubs, where I knew what I was getting into when I sought him out, I was curious to see what sort of track we'd be receiving. I was very pleased and being a metal fan myself, ecstatic at what SBeast delivered. Delivered around the same time as Deedubs and a few other early bird remixers, they laid the groundwork for what my expectations should be as a director on what sort of quality I needed to be enforcing for tracks on this album. It was this shining example that helped me decide on using a few judges and their graciously offered time to help polish and improve 90% of the songs submitted to the project. Thank you again, @Sbeast, and many others in trusting me with your work.

Deedubs was definitely my 'go-to' ReMixer when it came to getting something done on the album in a short amount of time. With a whopping amount of 7 ReMixes he participated in or arranged himself, he is definitely a stand-out ReMixer on the entire album, generating the most musical content of any other. Every remix was unique and every song different in sound, tone and genre. Deedubs has proven time and again that he's got the chops to handle pretty much any sort of musical challenge presented to him in my 3+ years of working with him. Not once did he shy away from my requests to assist the album or other ReMixers who needed some additional help in completing their tracks. He was a good sport and always willing to help. I applaud his dedication and work ethic as well as his friendly nature in dealing with me during this album. As stated in the review, this was his second track submitted coming hot off the heels of 'God's Ambition.' He was still pumped for the album and wanted to tackle yet another high-energy track and chose the two Bombardment themes as his music of choice. Given his great rendition of the Armada Battle theme, and the fact we had so few ReMixers sign on at this point in year 1, I couldn't really say no! The moment I heard his debut with 'Flashman and the Sorcerer's Stone' way back in 2015, I was floored and I knew I wanted to hit up Deedubs immediately for the album. This decision proved to be one of the most lucrative choices I ever made for the album, producing no less than 7 tracks from him. If I was involved in a future gaming project that required a game music composer for the soundtrack, I know immediately who I would be going to first to hire. Definitely a vehicle for his talents, Arcadia Legends is definitely improved with his inclusion in it. May he get the attention and praises he's earned for the hard work he put into helping us make this album a reality! My hats off to you, Deedubs!

This album was a very rough, underdog type album. We went uphill pretty much most of the way, considering most remixers had not even heard of the game, let alone played it to have any fond memories of it. When I first started in October, 2015, I was supremely hopeful for the entire project since it seemed I was getting track claims left and right. I even had a few early full track submissions turned in from a few remixers like Deedubs. All things were looking up. Then over the course of the first year, a bunch of remixers dropped out, lost interest and disappeared or went dormant. I managed to get just above 1 disc worth of music by the end of year 1. We then got into year 2, or what could be better known as the 'year of despair.' There were months of no progress and very little gains on the track claiming and completion. However, we still managed to push onward and get a second disc done by the end of the year. We had 12 tracks left to go by the start of the third year and some were in varying stages of completion or just not even claimed as a track. It was looking tight indeed to make the 15th anniversary deadline. Year 3 was definitely a slow start. We received nothing for a few months and managed to snag the last few remaining tracks on the list. It didn't really start coming together until the summer where the majority of the final disc worth of music was completed and turned in. We were then waiting on the last 2-3 tracks all the way until the very end in October where we were running up against the final deadline of album turn-in at the start of November. Thankfully, everyone came through and we were able to sneak the album release just before the 15th year anniversary ended! HUZZAH! Now I hope you all enjoy the music while the rest of us get a nice nap. EDIT: For those interested: For the reasons why I chose the album track order I did, some might be curious why I didn't frontload the entire album with hard-pulse pounding beats and heavy hitters, etc. I chose the order I did on two key principles - The order of the storyline and the rough placement of 'when' you'd hear the tracks as you played through the game and of course how one song flowed into the other from finish to start. Between these two key factors, I crafted the entire album structure. The first disc was a way to ease listeners into the soundtrack and feel like the start of an adventure. The second disc was where the album really travels and gets explorative with its themes and styles, as if traveling to new lands. The third disc is all about the conflict and the crisis to the world and finishing strong in true pirate style. I hope you enjoy this crafted listening experience and agree that the order is pretty damn good.

Now why in the Sam Hill would I yell at you?

Yet another remixer that was found by @Modus. This was where a small communication gaff occurred. I was searching for a remixer for the Credits theme just as @Modus was looking for a remixer for the same track! I had found @Chadlee, while he had found @Juke. It was a horrible blunder and I felt completely awful about it. I had suggested that perhaps they could collab on it and work together on the Staff Roll. However, @Juke had a vision and was on a mission. Within a short span of what I think was a week, he completed the entire remix, dropped the mic and sent us the unmastered wav. At this point, after hearing the finished track, I knew that there was no point to include @Chadlee since it was a completely realized arrangement. So I rolled @Chadlee into another track he was interested in: The Little Jack. I feel this worked out for the best since that melody synced up well with his arranging abilities and I think the album is better off for the unique tracks both remixers took! So what started off as a big goof ended up being a great boon for the entire album! Thanks to both remixers for being good sports about it!

Having been through a remixer previously already on this song and lack of interest in the difficult source material, I wasn't sure if this was a track that was going to make the cut or if I had to replace it with one that was easier to digest and arrange for. However, I really held to my guns, because this was such an influential track for me when I was growing up and playing this game. The atmosphere it generated while facing off a Gigas was immense and terrifying and I truly wanted a remix that would honor the spirit of the track. So when @Modus said he knew @PrototypeRaptor and had his contact information, I was excited and asked if he could broach the subject with the possibility of him remixing for our album. After getting a response back, @PrototypeRaptor had selected, of all things, the Gigas' Theme! I was ecstatic! Not only was he one of my most favorite remixers on the site (I do believe I have every single remix he's ever done on my HD), but the fact he was doing the one song I really wanted done? This was like a dream come true. Within record time, over the course of a month or so, the track was finished, pushed forward with an unmastered wav and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. He turned what was an extremely minimal and difficult to arrange source and made it something truly terrifying and awesome! Definitely a standout in the album! And thanks to @Modus for putting us in contact! We wouldn't have had this track if not for him!

This track had a huge, varied history throughout this album. It was claimed quite quickly, within weeks of launching the project by @Garpocalypse and it went through many iterations before the final product. Sometimes we'd go for months without contact from the artist, but he'd always come back with some impressive addition or revamp to the overall track. In the end, he had this grand idea of having a huge swath of folks who helped work on the album provide background vocals as sort of a collaborative feel to the entire piece. Unfortunately, the call to arms was never truly answered and ultimately, I stepped up to the plate and recorded my own 'Wubba Wubbas' in varying tones and pitches and sent them his way. Using them to great effect, you can hear my small, but crucial (of course! lol) contribution to the track! It took close to 3 years, off and on, to finally receive the final unmastered wav from @Garpocalypse. Even after that, he'd message back and said he made a few tweaks, he was never quite done with it until I had to do a 'knock it off' and call it final! Now, after the dust has settled, it is one of my favorite tracks on the album and I am super hyped it is now officially released!

Prepare to set sail...soon....

I know, a lot of us are getting ancy and with good reason! Unfortunately, there are some last minute things that must be done with the website, download package, download mirrors, soundcloud, vgmdb and more. Lots of admin stuff that needs to be handled and it's honestly only being done by a few people at most. So lots of work to do so this is a smooth release. We are gunning for a release this week. That much is for sure. Before the weekend hopefully! Just please give us some time and I assure you that you'll have some nice music to listen to as you travel through the holidays!

For those who want a special sneak peek before the album drops on three of the album's tracks and you missed @Rexy's podcast this past Friday, here is a recording for you! https://www.radiosega.net/content/podcasts/SEGA Mixer Drive/SEGA Mixer Drive - WF-2018 Special - 14 December 2018.m4a Skip ahead to block 3 if you want to skip straight to the preview! (but seriously though, also follow Rexy and her podcast too!

I'm strongly tempted, especially since Arcadia Legends is more or less out the door, but we'll see about how future events in life play out first. Either way, I wish you luck finding a solid Director for this album!

@Deedubs @Guifrog and @YoshiBlade, There is a podcast show of a sort being hosted by @Rexy and she is interested in featuring up to three songs this COMING WEEKEND on the show. I was thinking of using specifically your songs (with you Deedubs, I got freedom of choice here, but primarily ones you've done solely). If you're okay with her featuring on his show prior to album release as a nice sneak peek, just let me know. If I hear nothing back by Friday morning, I'm going to assume silence as consent and suggest the tracks forward.

The release imminent trailer is here! Get hyped, Arcadia fans! We are soon going to be setting sail to the boundless skies and enjoying wonderful music!

Oof, due to some evals, we're having to make a slight track change. Thankfully, we had a back-up track ready to replace and polish up, but it still is a bit nerve wracking this late in the game. We're still on track and on schedule so far with a December release!

Oh snap, that's a great day to release it! Nice call, Jorito! And thank you so much Prophetik for allowing us to do this!

Don't worry, I'll be posting on my Youtube channel all the tracks that are on the album, even the ones that won't make it to OCRemix youtube channel proper. I'll have three varieties: single track listening, full disc listening and full album longplay listening so you can choose how you want your experience. It's coming soon. Don't you worry!

Yep! Totally got it now! Thanks! And whoa, I'm popular contributor of the month! How'd that happen?! XD Also, just saw the pre-trailer WIP from Jose and it looks AMAZING. Fans will be completely stoked after watching this trailer!

Okay, we're wrapping up some website design and a cool little addition we felt would be neat to add is developer's commentary from each of the remixer's on their own tracks. However, we are missing these folks and their commentary: @Chadlee @YoshiBlade @Jason Covenant @PrototypeRaptor @musicbyscottb @Tuberz McGee and @Jorito for To the Horizon song. If we don't receive developer's commentary for your individual tracks by the time website and album goes live, your song just won't have a little additional thing to click for people to read your thoughts on your track selection.

That's fantastic news, Jose! And Might I say, the trailer is looking quite fantastic. One of the best I've seen! But then again, I'm sorta biased here! Good to know that the deadline is taken into account here, we would love to have it land (even if it is at the TAIL end of the year) within the 15th anniversary of the Legends release of the game in Japan. A good Christmas present for us all!

It is submitted.