DarkSim

Love the Advance Wars series, and I'm glad a remix has finally been posted from the game that started it off. What a great debut from Mico too, it has that authentic Advance Wars feel, with the slight rawness to the sound design, and really chugs along nicely.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! I can just imagine the little kremlings on their rollercoaster yodelling away to this. It's madness, hope you find a yodeller to realise your vision!

Now I'm just imagining Lil' Jon yelling "EXTEND"

Version without the answerphone up on my soundcloud. Thanks for the comments

Hnnnnngggggg this is just perfect for what I'm listening to right now! Absolutely love the synthwave movement/revival, and these sources are just fantastic material to work with. Not much deviation, true, but when the sources are this good, why bother?

Who knew the water temple had a theme?! Incredible job by Emunator here to not only evoke instant memories of the game using his sound design, but actually also remind me of the music in the water temple! The addition of the potion shop theme was inspired, and took me completely by surprise as I listened to it before reading the writeup. Loved the journey it took me on here, from the eerie Eastern-sounding wind and string instruments, through those epic vocals (almost like something out of Smack My Bitch Up) to that instantly recognisable synth at 3:50 that sounds exactly like the noise when you defeat the boss in the temple and step into the blue light. Wonderfully done! Finishing with the Serenade of Water just capped off this piece perfectly.

Anything by David Wise is an auto-DL for me, and this track elevates the source to its full potential, no doubt about that. Great remix, looking forward to hearing more from Light Pillar

Well it seems like you've identified most of the areas you need to touch up already! I've been listening to the Tropical Freeze soundtrack a lot recently, and that Stickerbrush flute section sounds very similar to the style of Dave Wise's version on Tropical Freeze. Not sure if that was intentional but . Not too sure about the Hot Head Bop transition, but as you said you're going to work on that. Gorgeous soundscape and instrumentation though, and if you could get them live that'd be even better. Can't wait to hear the finished thing

Really fun remix! I always enjoy obscure source tunes, especially when they're from the older systems. Nice usage of SID-style sounds, cool soloing, and that opening chord progression really reminds me of halc's First Time on Outset remix: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01917

It never ceases to amaze me how different each remix can be of the utterly godlike soundtrack that is David Wise's DKC2. This is an all-round superb composition, and the gritty, dark atmosphere that palpable sets up in the intro works so well with the melody that I get goosebumps every time it comes in. I love DiGi's rapping style, and the peaceful chorus vocals are like a breath of fresh air in amongst the intensity of the rest of the track. Doesn't get much better than this, really!

Awesome track, super-clean, energetic, and that bass synth really snarls. Love it.

Ah I remember this from the WIP boards a while back! Really happy to see it got a direct post; I love it! Your other stuff is great too, I hope it makes it onto OCR in future!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Baby!

Nice one lady and gents!

Yep, just commenting to say I loved this piece, and with some minor touches to the strings I'm sure it'd be an easy pass. Nice choir in there as well - maybe play with the attack on it just a little to make it a bit more natural/have more feel? I'd also just wind down the ending a little bit slower than the abrupt finish. Beautiful piece!

Just finish the god damned song already!

Hey, this is really good! Great sound choices, nice subtle touches of vibrato, and a really good progression through the song. That bass sounds a little "flappy", maybe try and reduce the attack on it to almost nothing, or layer it with the same sound an octave higher at slightly lower volume. Is there slight clipping at 2:43? That crash sounds a little harsh, you could scoop out some frequencies and keep the same effect there without causing it to overcompress the track at that point. Also, after that crash you should bring in some pads to fill out the low-mids and drive home those climactic bars. Just a few points of improvement you could make pretty easily there, but I think you're onto a winner with this one!

Welcome back to OCR! Thanks for sharing this WIP, it's got a lot of potential! Seems like you've got a lot of ideas and ambition for this track. I love the changeup at 2:20 - if you didn't get a vocalist, you should just have this section come in about a minute earlier and then extend it. Rockos might be right about this being too liberal at the moment, but it's a great start.

Is this the right source? Your remix is pretty cool, it's kinda hard to comment on how you've interpreted it since the overall feel of both source and remix is very similar. The source feels more dramatic, whilst the remix seems more chilled. It might be personal taste, but I'd say give it some more bass punch and snarl. Good effort so far!

Hey thanks for listening to my remixes! That particular one I made about 3 years ago now and I think I've become much better at mixing since then, although I'm still not anywhere near the level of some people on here. I think the key to your question is to have a very good mix before you start master compression. You can (and probably should) use compressors on individual tracks before you put some compression on the master tracks. I tend to compress in 2 or 3 stages, but the key is to have a good mix first. By that I mean, make sure each layer is EQ'd properly and has its own space in the frequency spectrum. It's not just about overall loudness, but frequencies as well. Let's take the kick as an example. Comparing the kicks in our tracks, you said mine sounded about 25% louder. For my kicks, I like to boost the EQ at around 100-120Hz, and then cut that range out of all my other bass sounds using a small bell filter (nothing too extreme like a notch filter, just enough to give it some breathing room). I also roll off ALL other tracks that aren't bass at around 120Hz using a low cut filter. That way, you don't accidentally get any reverb or artifacts bleeding into the bass frequencies, which will cause you lots of mixing problems when it comes to compression. I may also layer my kick to give it a bit more weight, although that's not too important depending on your kick sample. I then compress the kick until it sounds beefy enough, and go from there. Here's a remix I made just a few days ago. It took me about 3 goes to get the mastering how I wanted it, but I think I got the right balance of loudness and clarity, whilst maintaining a dynamic range. Don't be afraid to drop out instruments to leave holes in the frequency spectrum. When you bring them back in, the perceived loudness will be greater. Once you have a good mix, the overall compression should help tie everything together. Try experimenting with the EQ a bit more, and don't be afraid to leave a few things out now and again!

Sounds very overcompressed - there's little dynamic range here so everything seems to blend into everything else, arrangement-wise. As such, it becomes quite tiring to listen to. Try dialing down the compression, and adding some real transitions between the sections to make each part of the song stand out.

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll just put some finishing touches to this one and then send off a final mix to the joojes.

So glad you mentioned this! One of the first games that came to mind for me was Pinball Dreams, also on the Amiga. I've tried to remix 3 tunes from that soundtrack, but every time I don't feel like I can do them justice. Same with Zool 2, which had a fantastic soundtrack as well. Digger T Rock on the NES was hard as nails, but the soundtrack made it all worthwhile. I later found out it was composed by none other than (Sir) David Wise.

Holy balls. This is incredible! The energy! Super clean sound as well. Seems like the ending is cut off before the crash cymbal finishes though, so you might want to sort that out. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be trying to rebuild my mind, cos it's just been blown.

If you haven't played this game already, it's pretty fast-paced fun and full of pixellated carnage. The soundtrack is also awesome, especially the track I chose to remix. The game sees you answering messages on your phone, and trying to piece together who is sending them to you, and why. I've tried to tell a story using the remix as to the slowly decaying mental state of the protagonist as he tries to overcome the trauma of being forced to commit killing sprees behind a mask. Who's There?