Emunator

I originally had this flagged for a direct post, but I'm struggling to connect this to the original source material outside of chord progressions. If anyone can successfully make that connection, this should be a pretty easy pass but it's just not clicking with me.

•ReMixer name: TheBitterRoost •Email: •userid: 32609 • Game arranged: Okami • Arrangement name: Into the Ocean We Walk Peering Way Past the Snake • Individual songs arranged: Inside the Water Dragon • Composer: Rei Kondoh • Link to original: https://youtu.be/LSv-MiYVEP0 • Recorded with drums, mics, acoustic guitars, DI bass, DI electric guitar through freeware amp sims, and a simple Synth1 sine/glass pad. Done for the Pixel Mixers’ Okami/Okamiden tribute album. This was one of my favorite songs from the game; I remember jumping and wasting time in the water dragon to let the song loop a few extra times. The melody struck me as “Opethy,” so I used their acoustic style as a springboard, leading to my usual wheelhouse of doom metal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello hello, No problem at all. Much like a picture is worth a thousand words, I figured I'd bounce out a version of the tune with the original chopped/stretched over top of it. Here it is, I'll refer to it when using timestamps below: Overall, I shifted the tempo up from its original ~175bpm 6/8 to ~189bpm 6/8 to roughly match the feel of Opeth's song "Harvest" (where the pun in the title comes from <-- "into the orchard we walk peering way past the gate"). The guiding light for me through the whole song is the ghosty/sine-wavey synth that carries the whole way in both versions; I even used a very similar sounding synth sound in mine. [0:12-0:40] Chords follow the ghostly synth; they don't exactly match source arpeggios in 2nd and 6th bar of the two 8-bar phrases, but stylistically fits better with the Opeth vibes. [0:41-1:45] Lead acoustic follows source melody with some original-ish rhythm acoustic arpeggios. Dirty gtrs follow the "james bond" harp progression. [1:45-2:07] Acoustics guitars follow source harp arps. [2:07-2:38] Lead guitars follow ghosty synth (+harmony for 2nd pass). [2:45-2:52] Pwr-chord walk-down = 1st three notes of the melody (ghosty synth), countermelody/harmony leads on top. [3:28-3:51] Acoustics follow source melody. [3:52-4:37] Lead gtrs follow ghosty synth melody, with some different harmonies on top to vary the feel from earlier iterations (e.g. 2:07-2:38). [4:45-End] Rhythm gtrs follow and play around with harp progression, leads follow ghosty synth melody. For the latter half-time segment, they switch; rhythms now chug chords and the ghosty synth melody is arpeggiated and harmonized. Hope this provides enough clarification of how I used the source material here. Let me know if you have any questions! Also, I don't know what the timetable would be for this one, but it's about to be included in a licensed Capcom compilation album that Pixel Mixers is releasing soon. Would it be ok for this one to be released after that comes out so that a link to the album could be included in the post/YT video and such? I can let y'all know when that occurs. Thanks

Your ReMixer name: ThePlasmas Your real name: Mauricio Castro Your email address: Your website: https://theplasmasvgm.bandcamp.com Your userid: 30081 Name of game(s) arranged: Megaman Zero 4 Name of arrangement: Frente en Alto Name of individual song(s) arranged: Straight Ahead Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site): Ippo Yamada, Gameboy Advance Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc.: Recorded, mixed and mastered at ABXY home studio, Viña del Mar. Track available on "Z3R0 R3M1X: A MegaMan Zero Tribute Album".

ReMixer name - Justin Thornburgh Real name - Justin Thornburgh Email address - Website - https://www.youtube.com/c/JustinThornburgh Userid - 37749 Name of game arranged - Hollow Knight Name of arrangement - Hallownest Below the Wastes Name of individual song arranged - Enter Hallownest Composer: Christopher Larkin Link to the original soundtrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqispO2Bi2k Comments - The main idea of my arrangement was to explore a creepy and weird atmosphere that I feel is a different take on the dark ambiance of original track and game. I started with the idea of a fusion of orchestral and electronic elements which a heavy emphasis on sound design using analog synths. I moved sections around to create a different momentum and progression throughout with a hopefully cohesive form. The melodies and chord progressions of the original are strong and simple, so they feature nicely and prominently in the arrangement. Live euphonium and cello are also featured on the arrangement. The euphonium is played by Dewey Newt, and the cello is played by Chromatic Apparatus. I've checked with them and gotten OKs to submit here.

Hello OCRemix, After posting on the "Post your game remix" forum, I wanted to submit a song from my album to confront it to a new audience. Contact Information ReMixer name : Black SeeD Email : Website : https://blackseedbm.bandcamp.com/releases Userid : 37884 Submission Information Game arranged : Pokemon (Red&Blue and other versions probably) Name of arrangement : A Scent of Lavender Song arranged : Lavender Town Comments : Hello everyone ! This track is part of my album of remixed video game tracks in an atmospheric black metal way (you can find the whole album here : Black SeeD - Farplane of Memories (2021)). The goal of this track and the album in general was to work with songs on which I felt that I could emphasize melancholic themes with my favorite music genre. This one also has some original melodies to make it a whole song and not just a cover. The original Pokemon theme is distributed through the whole song, pretty much with all instruments at some point kind of as a "ghost melody", at least that's the feeling I tried to give. I hope you'll like it ! Thanks a lot !

Original Decision Epic Footsteps, a remix of the first walkabout theme from Dragon Warrior 2, by the Audiomancer(a.k.a. Eric) Dragon Warrior 2 is an NES game. This is another attempt at this remix, and since my last attempt, I have: Procured some synths as they have gone on sale. Hopefully the new sounds are more pleasing. I also automated various parameters on them. In addition, I applied more layering of synths. I had two choirs at the beginning with different attack values, I removed the one with the slower attack. I also altered the "voice" part at 1:49 I have applied compression on a per track basis, as opposed to on the master. The master bus does have a limiter on it, but I didn't push it very hard (I think). I also removed the vocal/vocode part mentioned, and also added a couple "splashes" of the walkabout theme from the first Dragon Warrior game to increase the percentage of game music content. Those splashes are heard at 20-26, and 1:28-1:35. The part at 42-55 is based on the second walkabout theme in DW2, albeit very loosely. Thought I would point it out, and even then, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't considered an interpretation of the source material. The previous 8 bars of melody are based on the Dragon Warrior 2 theme. I lowered the volume and did EQ changes on the hats so they don't take up as much room. I also varied the volume and panning on the hats as well. I did some small frequency cuts and boosts to try to make things more clear, and to give instruments more room against each other. Also tried to remove resonances. I still kept the arrangement largely as is. One of the judges compared this to older remixes arrangement wise, and I take that as a compliment. I like the older ones:) I did change some of the instrumentation, however. I spent what I think is too much time on the bass drum and snare you hear here. I tried to give them a little more meat, and there's like, 6 effects on each of those tracks. I probably put in a lot of work for something that won't be as well received as I hope it will;) Once again, I appreciate the time and consideration:) Respectfully, Audiomancer.

Hi, I'd like to submit a ReMix for evaluation for OCReMix. You'll find it attached as an MP3 file. --- ReMix info --- ReMixer name: MFG38 Real name: Santtu Pesonen Website: santtupesonenmusic.com Game arranged: Unreal Name of arrangement: Sunrise on Na Pali Song(s) arranged: Dusk Horizon Comments: Unreal is one of my favorite FPS games and I'd been wanting to pay tribute to it in some form for a while, so when the inspiration finally hit me recently, I decided to take full advantage of it. The end result of that inspired period of time is this remix of the track "Dusk Horizon". When I set out to make the remix, I knew I wanted to keep as much of the original vibe as I could while simultaneously putting my own spin on it. It felt like a good excuse to properly put my Behringer TD-3 synthesizer through its paces. The TD-3 plays the main bassline - other synths I ended up using in the track were the Korg Minilogue, with which I tracked the lead parts, and Massive and Monark by Native Instruments. Drums were provided by yet another NI plugin, Polyplex, with randomly generated sounds that I kept hitting the Randomize button on until I had something I figured would work. --- Game information --- Released in: 1998, for: PC Developers: Epic Games, Legend Entertainment Composers: Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopée, Andrew Sega, Michiel van den Bos Link to soundtrack:

Your ReMixer name: 227 Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile: 17063 Your real name: Je Christian Name of game(s) arranged: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu in Japanese) Name of arrangement: "Lovers' Quarrel" Name of individual song(s) arranged: "Lover 3" Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1ar1oiZTY Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site): It's an old tactical RPG for the Super Famicom, back before the Fire Emblem games received official translations. Wikipedia says that the composer is Yuka Tsujiyoko. Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc.: The original track is kind of relaxing and romantic, so I wanted to murder all of that with a hatchet and inject a boatload of drama. First stop was changing the time signature from 4/4 to 6/8 and establishing a general vibe. Everything up to :36 is original material (so 1:14 to 1:31 also doesn't have any of the original song in it, either), so that's where the original's melody starts to come in. I changed the chords behind the melody when everything builds up at :56 and 2:08 for the sake of extra drama. Finally, I added pitch bends, which are the most ~dramatic~ way to play with pitch. Hopefully all of this makes you want to scream at someone in the rain and throw a shoe at their face.

I think DarkSim did a tremendous job of breaking down the use of repetition and correctly identifying that, although there's very little wholesale repetition, the soundscape is too static to justify this length. I feel like 4 minutes would be plenty of time to say what you need to say without dragging on unnecessarily. Should be quite an easy fix, but it's not ready in its current form, in my opinion. NO (resubmit!)

I remember hearing this in the inbox and immediately picking up on the muddiness/frequency imbalance across the track. I think @DarkSim nailed the critiques on this one and I agree with him at almost every step, even down to the abrupt ending. The 80-100hz range is problematic for sure, especially because there's a notable frequency dropoff right above that from 100hz-200hz, so everything sounds very boomy. The arrangement here is extremely energetic and features exactly the kind of fun synth lines and retro sound design that I've come to love from you. Right now, I'm quite borderline on this because it's hard to reject a track that has this much going for it, but the frequency balance issues were immediately noticeable and I feel this would be a much stronger submission with a little more effort on the mixing side. NO (borderline/resubmit!)

After a few listens, I'm hearing many of the same positives and negatives brought up by my fellow judges, but finding myself far more entranced by what you got right with this arrangement than off-put by any of its shortcomings. The sound design, while perhaps not as lush and full during the first 3 minutes as I would have hoped, is still quite dynamic and features a constantly-evolving set of sounds to hold my interest. This is a fantastic example of a track that fully justifies its length despite not making any radical evolutions over its runtime. The varying bass tones sound great, and each new retro arpeggio always seems to enter at just the right time. I understand the critiques regarding the choir sample, but I personally found the issue to be overstated in terms of impact. Yes, a lot of the sounds in the mix were exposed and would have benefitted from an additional element of padding to glue everything together better, and I would say this is probably my biggest gripe with the track overall. I'll also echo the comments regarding the drums for the first few minutes, but the underwhelming drums in the first half of the track do make the ones that come afterward sound more intense by contrast, so by the end of the arrangement, I found it to not be a terribly big deal. You got where you needed to go eventually ? YES

I talked to Alex about this and he would like for this to be posted in the normal rotation since this project has become inactive.

Your ReMixer name: Lucas Guimaraes Your real name: Lucas Guimaraes Your website: https://twitter.com/Thirdkoopa - knew nothing better to link for this Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile: http://ocremix.org/community/profile/33965-thirdkoopa/ Name of game(s) arranged: Golden Sun Name of arrangement: Mercurial Mechanisms Name of individual song(s) arranged: Venus Lighthouse (Ed: actually Mercury Lighthouse) Other people that helped: Eladar I took this song on because, while I love Golden Sun's soundtrack, the Lighthouse themes shine high., and this was one of the last important songs that needed to be done. Sometimes, my ambition eats me alive. One of those times was this song - When making this, and even now, my composition skills far outweigh my production skills. I had enlisted someone else before to help, and we were on a tight deadline. Thankfully, Eladar swept in and was able to turn the arrangement into gold - I was extremely thankful. I'd worked with producers for electronic type tracks before, but hearing how well this duo went is wonderful. Prior to, I'd never worked with him. Honestly? Finishing it was a miracle on its own. One of the aspects I appreciate the most about being a creator? Getting to demystify the other side. There wasn't any 'magic'; just a lot of hard work and determination. A lot of that stemmed from when I was finishing my masters degree. I hope everyone enjoys!

Remixer name : jmabate Real name : abate jean marc Email : website : https://www.youtube.com/user/jmabate userid : 35644 Name of game(s) arranged : Golden Axe Name of arrangement : A Golden Axe Journey Name of individual song(s) arranged : Wilderness ; Battle Field ; Old Map ; Turtle Village 1 ; Path of Fiend ; Death Adder. Composers : Tohru Nakabayashi & Y. "Dolphin" Takada System : Sega genesis / megadrive Original : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA37D25F1B9888952 Track infos : This track was arranged and performed by pleasure ! I wanted to make a medley as a unic track to tell the Story of Ax, Tyris & Gilius to their vengeance. Guests : cello : Chromatic Apparatus violin : ViolinGamer trombone : Dewey Newt trumpet : TSori flute : TerminatedWeasel Oboe & Clarinet : GameroftheWinds Bass : SoulinSadness Tenor : MooglePower Alto & Soprano : Psamathes taikos & tambourin : Chernabogue vocals : Matt Hope you will enjoy this cover. Best regards Jmabate

We've got a new version of this track from Dustin this week. I've updated it in the first post - @MindWanderer@prophetik music please take another listen and see if this affects your votes!

Ryan got back to us with a fully revamped version of this track, and WOW! The new mix sounds fantastic and addresses my concerns fully. I know nearly everyone else was already down with the original mix, but this resubmission knocks it out of the park. What a beautiful remix. YES

Got a WAV from Alex that addresses the cutoff that @Liontamer brought up and updated the first post. It sounds good to me!

This was always a fantastic concept but the execution is now quite comfortably up-to-par in my book. The samples are utilized well and the timing issues appear to be fully mitigated. The drums sound particularly nice throughout. On the production side, it's amazing what a little remastering can do. It's incredibly evident when A/B'ing with the original version - now that the sub bass isn't hogging so much space in the mix, your mids/highs sound so much richer. The revamped master compression chain also helps your extended breakdowns have a little more volume without compromising the dynamic range, letting moments like 2:13 and 4:03 still sound impactful and full. This is a textbook example of a great resubmission in my opinion, I'm glad you came back around to this! YES

Original Decision Hi Emunator, Yeah the rejection stung quite a bit, but I was actually very thrilled to read that the panel really seemed to like my concept! I've extracted all of the feedback from the panel and tried to adhere to every bit, at least to some extent. (Except for Liontamers' note on the abrupt ending, sorry) Notes on what I mainly tweaked: The biggest aggressor, I think, was the mud in the low-end. After reading your feedback, I was able to hear it too and the balance was terrible! This should be cleaned up now for the most part. Furthermore, I've done my best to make better use of the samples I have. The timing should be much tighter, I've switched out some odd registers with instruments that better fit those and some timbres should sound better now as well. The master has less volume fluctuation between the loud and the quiet parts. It's also able to breathe more now as it's only compressed by about 2 Db on average. I couldn't quite understand what MindWanderer meant about the weird drum timing in the climax so I also haven't tweaked that. I'm assuming they're referring to the fact that the final climax is in 6/8 and they were still listening with a 4/4 mindset, maybe? I've attached the new version of the track and I really hope you guys like it a lot more now! Thank you and best regards, Vijay

Here was Michael's response to the feedback: "Thanks for asking. Apologies for making you guys slog through another odd one (but at least it's short this time). Those crackle sounds at around 1:20 are just some granular residue from a send effect, if I recall. I like them. Like gravel in a bird's gut that helps with digestion... The stuff starting at 1:38 is one of my favorite parts of any piece of music I've ever done (even though I put reverb on the low end and boosted it way up, which you're technically not *supposed* to do). I wouldn't want to change it. In fact, there is so much generative stuff in this track that's baked into the export, that I wouldn't want to change anything if the vote is mostly positive; if I re-did some things and tried to export again, I would never get the same thing (I exported 7-10 different times and picked the one I liked best - the one I submitted). This Low song is really interesting! I've never heard of them but it looks like they're pretty new, which is exciting. Will dive deeper in the coming days I hope. Anyhow, thanks again for judging this one. I don't think any changes are due, if I can get away with it! "

I've reached out to Michael about this track and shared our feedback, I'll keep everyone posted on his response!

(new version 3/2/2023) (old) ReMixer name: Zach Action Real name: Zach Herrmann Email: UserID: 30456 Remix link (16-bit wav): Game: Final Fantasy VI Name: "Jumped in the Serpent Trench" Source: The Serpent Trench (minor "Opening Theme" source) I've always loved The Serpent Trench theme. When Balance and Ruin came out, "River of Sine Waves" was one of the first tracks I skipped to. When I eventually sat down at the piano to learn the main chords, the song bore a striking resemblance to Radiohead's "Pyramid Song," and here we are. Both "The Serpent Trench" and "Pyramid Song" are incredibly repetitive. "Pyramid Song" gets away with it because its odd feeling of time (still debated on the internet to this day) keeps the listener interested, and of course, haunting lyrics don't hurt either. There's really not much to the original "The Serpent Trench", but those underlying maj7 chords somehow keep driving the track to infinity, never resolving. Likewise, my version keeps the repetition of both the source track and the inspirational track, but hopefully in a haunting, beautiful way that the listener wants to keep looping. I used the FFVI "Opening Theme" dissonant building chord for the end cacophony, which sounds lovely with the Serpent Trench string runs under it. I feel this is a good companion case to my previously accepted "Mario for Airports 1-1," and I'm hoping someday to get to work on a Chrono Trigger "Strains of Insanity" Nine Inch Nails-inspired remix. Thank you for taking the time to consider this submission! EDIT (3/2/23): List of judges' issues/fixes: Tape hiss removed I removed the resonant filter from the string runs at the beginning (and throughout) for clarity. Also removed Little Radiator from them which was adding the "crackle." A "warble" at 0:30 – I'm not sure what this is referring to, as I don't hear it and there's no inherent effect that would be causing such a thing. I think maybe it was just an interplay of the strings and the piano at that particular spot...? If so, perhaps the change mentioned above has fixed it. Low end – I retooled the bass, kick, and the master to clarify the low end. Drum clipping/crackle – Another one I'm not sure about, because as the judges say, there actually is not any clipping. I think cleaning up the low end may have done the trick, and I also scaled back the final limiter a little, though it wasn't doing a whole lot to begin with. Rebalanced all tracks to make the mix a little less busy and let both the guitar and the final vocal step forward. Last but not least, two judges note a high-frequency noise to the point of inducing nausea! I'm a bit baffled at this one, because while I'm not surprised that my ever-aging ears don't hear anything, a frequency graph doesn't SHOW anything like that. I did do a steep low-pass at 18k to get rid of anything truly ultra-sonic, and I notched out a bit of the master around 12.5k. Really about the only instrument or track hanging out in that region is the ride cymbal, so I notched it as well and also lowered the volume on it a little. If the sound is still perceived by MindWanderer or prophetik's wife, I would love for them to take the track into an editor and sweep through to find the offending frequency and please let me know! I think that addresses any and every issue pointed out by a judge. These were quick and easy changes and please let me know if any issue still persists and I will address it. Also, I mentioned in my original submission that I was working on a Chrono Trigger "Strains of Insanity" mix. That one is almost done, but it went a completely different non-NIN (lol) direction, so if this FFVI is published, please do not include that NIN blurb in the write-up. Thank you and I anxiously await further news!

ReMixer name: Neon X Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV8NwzoUa9I9HD1YXRIXp3g UserID: 37046 Name of game: Mario Kart 64 Name of arrangement: Toad's Nightride Name of song: Toad's Turnpike Original composer: Kenta Nagata For clarification: Name of remix: Toad's Nightride Name of original song: Toad's Turnpike

I loved reading my fellow judges votes on this arrangement. @DarkSim made a very astute comparison to The Avalanches that I never would have gotten to on my own, but I completely hear it! My heart flutters a little whenever I see a submission from Paper Mario: TTYD, it's truly one of the most underappreciated and ahead-of-its-time soundtracks in existence, but it takes a special kind of vision to capture the essence of what makes it so memorable in a remix. This arrangement does exactly that - you dial up the insanity without anything feeling tacky, and you maintain the floating, cerebral feeling of the original throughout so it never strays too far from the Boggly Tree source. Regarding the distortion at 1:39 and onward, I would encourage the conditional votes to check out BJ Burton's intentionally-crushed production work with artists like Low. Nothing is actually clipping, it's just using extreme distortion to creative effect but it's absolutely intentional. The closing section of this arrangement takes a similar approach to production, though I will say I'm personally disappointed in the ending of this arrangement - without a retreat back to the quieter, more cerebral tones after the wall of distortion, it leaves things feeling unresolved. However, from a production standpoint, you can count me alongside the unconditional YES votes; in my book, any tweaks to mitigate the distortion would ultimately compromise the effect that Michael was going for. YES

Hey! I emailed you back but I have officially moved your song onto the evaluation phase. Totally my mistake, so sorry that this one slipped through the cracks!