Seth Skoda

I'm hopping on this bandwagon for the lucky 13 haha! I didn't see it, but is anyone remixing/has anyone remixed Walrus Cove from Diddy Kong Racing? Or, for that matter, Frosty Village? I think I'll rearrange one of those, as they sound very Christmasy already. I hope you don't mind it being Trap style (I might pick a different style, I dunno yet).

The main theme here is that Robotnik is now a gangsta. The entire setting of the game is now much like the hood. Robotnik has amassed a battery of automatic weapons, explosives and ammunition. He's about to rain down a living Hell on the inhabitants of Angel Island and abroad. The music should reflect this alternate story. This paragraph here is an edit made 11-29-2019. I'm adding it to say that non-trap rearrangements may be submitted in midi format via PM. I understand that not many here know how to make trap music (it's actually quite easy once you learn a few things). For that reason, I've expanded the possibilities to include rearrangements from those who have no knowledge of how to make trap music. The album will still be 100% trap, as I will turn any submitted MIDI files to trap. It's almost as easy as I make it sound. But please, do not send me a MIDI sequence you just downloaded on vgmusic or something like that. It must be your own rearrangement. I don't necessarily need rapping here. I fear that it may take away from the melodic content of the source material to do so, and therefore I am okay with an instrumental album. Though if someone does want to rap, I will give it careful consideration. I aim to have just the main level and boss themes remixed. If anyone wants to do stuff like the title screen, competition menu or anything else, they're welcome to it. The end goal is a single CD album, so long as all of the tracks fit into 80 minutes or less. I have a few tracks that I consider "almost complete," which I've uploaded to Newgrounds Audio Portal. Two of them made Featured Content, surprisingly. Here are the tracks I have so far: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/885604 https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/884680 https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/880226 and, most recently, this: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/890207 I consider none of these finished. My plan is to bang out the ones I feel like doing to a nearly completed state, hoping for others to join in this project. After that, I'll go back and fix what I feel needs fixing. Then, at that point, I'll reevaluate the status of this project based on how many members there are (if anyone joins). I'll make my next move from there. In the event that I completely finish all of the tracks I feel like doing and no one has joined this project, I will start work on the other tracks. I may even close this to anyone else and keep this as a blog of my work. I have no problem with being a one man show or hosting the project somewhere myself (though I'd rather have OCR's support and an official OCR album). To be honest, though, life has taught me to never wait on other people... I guess I should go on to explain what I want. Any rearrangement of music from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, really, as long as it's trap style (you can fuse other genres if you want, I suppose) and at least loosely follows music from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It can even be of source material I've already covered (see linked tracks above). Hybrid mixes of more than one theme from the game are welcome as well. If there turn out to be enough tracks, hybrid mixes could be bonus tracks, possibly for a "disc 2." Obviously, quality is a must. If your arrangement is good, but your mixing is not, you're welcome to PM me the mp3 and a zip of the audio stems and MIDI data. It would actually be best if the mixing is consistent across all tracks, so I may ask for this anyway, good mixing or not. If you happen to use Mixcraft 7 or 8, you could send me a zip of the project file instead (use the command in the File menu). I have Mixcraft 7 Recording Studio and Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio (so I can sidechain and what not). As for submitting tracks for this project, tell me the name of the rearrangement, the name by which you want to be known and preferably a .wav file, though .mp3 at 192kbps or higher is acceptable. Also please poast in this topic to make it official that you're in this project (even if it's just one track). BTW I'm trying to add tags, but the thing to add tags won't load. I wish to add the following tags: album, remixer. I'd appreciate a moderator fixing this for me. I may add the tag "artist" when this project is close to completion. On the other hand, I know someone on Newgrounds who makes album artwork... EDIT: I am still unable to Add Tags...

Well, it's good to know there's a good community here. By way, this is off-topic, but I left you a review on that Sonic CD remix. I was blown away. I'd like to collab some time... To TheVideoGamer: I guess it's good I got that out of the way, then, as I would definitely like to participate in more of these challenges. I did enjoy remaking that tune. Thank you to everyone for your help.

ah, I figured it out after poasting that. Oh, well, thank you, anyway. Also, it is finished and submitted.

What's this? I'm trying to sign up for a ThaSauce account to submit my piece. But I get this: Name any ThaSauce compo: This question is a means of preventing automated form submissions by spambots. What am I supposed to type in there? I've never even heard of this site before...

Oh... oh, my bad. I didn't know that my explanation was out of bounds. Sorry about that. But when I'm done, I link it here, right?

Ah, thank you for this. I might as well say what I have so far. I separated the high end and low end drums into separate percussion channels. The open and closed high hats get the long and short envelope PSG noise samples (which I ripped from Sonic 3) respectively. The kick, snare and crash cymbal are replaced with DAC samples. The kick and snare are from Sonic 2 and the crash cymbal I don't remember, I just have it. I split the melody and bass into 3 FM channels and made a few changes (only to keep the added panning balanced, as all things should be). I also copied the dual melody track into two PSG square channels as well to give it a boost as well as flavor. I'm going to be adding either arpeggios or pads as FM channels 4&5 (stereo panned) to beef it up further.

Hey, can I just upgrade this with the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive sound chip? A higher grade chiptune, basically. I will no doubt throw my own stuff into it, but it will mainly be an upgrade. I see nothing in the contest rules about this, but it's not allowed for official submissions, so I thought I'd ask.

OMG this is perfect for me. I do Trap versions of VGM. Mostly Sonic. https://skoda.newgrounds.com/audio Most of my mixes need a little more work tbh. I'm also learning to mix vocals (I just made a couple of tracks with an acapella from looperman). Hit me up (or check the above link) on Thursday to hear them.

I don't know how to use this message board to its max, but I wanted to thank you. But it's not my composition. I only wrote the percussion and carried out sound design and mixing. If you click the link to the original song on the page, you can hear how the composer made it. IMO it's definitely got that SNES feel, but perhaps not Chrono Trigger. As far as your mixing, try EQ'ing your instruments a little more tightly. Lately I just throw a low pass and high pass filter on every instrument (even the bass) to take out unwanted frequencies and get a cleaner mix. Having filters restricted to different ranges for each instrument (even if they overlap) can give you a cleaner mix. Be careful, though. You could easily end up with a tinny (yet muffled) mix. That other piece I'd like to hear. I love metal and hard rock, so throw it on me.

Go for it, I say. The ladder effect is something that happens on the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive sound chip when the voltage of the sound wave approaches zero. It gives off some rather interesting timbres. The Wikipedia article about this is quite informative and explains it well. They even have a clip of the Streets of Rage intro on the page to demonstrate.

Is this all original music? It's quite chill, and quite nice. Good melodic content and the mixing seems to be on point. I feel like $7 would be fair if you were more well-known. You need to utilize social media to make this happen. I think you should not only jump on Newgrounds, but try Soundclick.com to grab an audience, though that's more for beat and soundtrack producers than regular artists. Wouldn't hurt, though.

Ooh, neato. A bit of a percussive assault at the beginning (percussion bell was a bit loud for my taste), but overall it was quite a good listen. The flutey sound just sealed the chill vibe for me. My only REAL complaint is that it feels like it's over before it can really develop into what I felt it was going to be. I seriously thought it was going to break down into some kind of solo or something. But nice job on all the percussion going on, keeping things interesting.

lol Believe it or not, that's a new version of a track I originally made in 2016. The original kinda sucked, so I felt that it needed to be redone with my new software and increased ability. Thanks again for listening.

O.O Well, thank you for taking the time to listen to those...things. Gas Man... What the fuck was I thinking? TBH Harsh Life and Mushroom Forest Dance are among personal all-time favorites from my content. That's mainly because I feel like I came very close to the exact feel and sound design for which I aimed. Especially on Harsh Life. On the DL I'm making a new remix of that. Note: I prefer the term "skill." Talent is too nice. Making music is something I learned how to do. I believe that it can be taught and learned, so therefore it is a skill.

Thanks, man! Ngl I rip drum samples from games to make sure they're authentic. I have a couple of choice VST plugins for the instruments, and then certain effects to enhance the feel (low pass filter is one of them). But I could do better if I had AlyJamesLab's FMDrive. It has "the ladder effect."

Dude... Thank you for all of your replies. I have seen them, but I have been busy as all hell. Working overtime, getting that bread I wouldn't say Newgrounds is great for getting exposure, but it sure did help me get to where I'm at in terms of my skill level in music making. And sometimes I'll get a few thousand listens on a track in its first two weeks. The community there is great, and I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have another audience. You should give it a go. BUT they have a system in place to ensure that people don't upload other people's music. To avoid too much waiting with that system, upload 3 or 4 original tracks (not your remixes, if you have any) after getting an account (and confirming it) and I can approve you for the Audio Portal (I have tenure). And YouTube did what now? I can't say I'm shocked. Twitter has been doing this to NSFW artists for some time now, and Google seems to have some kind of problem with Newgrounds (because of their NSFW content).

Something. Like, any style. This trap style remix was nice to hear on Newgrounds, but the user is no longer active, unfortunately, so I can't encourage him to submit it: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/675421 He considered it in the past, but decided not to do so because it's so different from the original, he thought it was too different. Here's the source tune for reference, if you haven't heard it: If you're wondering, yes, I had a hand in the making of that remix. I sequenced the MIDI arrangement and sent it to the user who then used it to make that remix. The midi sequence can be found on vgmusic.com somewhere. If you can't find it and would like to use it, hit me up. Just a heads up, it kinda sucks, but it is usable.

I use free stuff for mastering (actually, in general). Broadcast for Compression and default Mixcraft stuff for everything else. I also use cheap equipment. $20 SONY headphones and some cheap GPX speaker set I bought at the local dollar store (it does pump some nice bass, though, even the rumbles, shakes the floor). Good equipment is great, but I get by without it. I wonder how much of a difference it makes. How much do you hear the difference between regular headphones and high-end studio headphones? Speakers? I'm curious to know about this.

Drums are a bit loud to me, but you probably know that already. I'm not thrilled with the detuned synthesizer that comes in after the sound effects and vocal clips. That's probably a matter of taste, though. However, I do like the fast-paced (DnB, maybe?) feel here, and also the chippy 8 bit-ish sounds. If you get your volume levels right and a clear mix, I'd say this would be submittable as a ReMix.

Well, thank you for the comparative feedback! I'll definitely keep this in mind with future pieces.

Thank you for the feedback. That "piano" is a YM2612 but yes, 90s feel was my aim. I guess if I turned down the bass, it would get cleaner. Thanks again.

I really appreciate the detailed advice. Thank you very much!

Thank you for the advice! But really? That's all I gotta do? Other things I was reading were saying use different EQ as well. Would that make the stereo effect seem wider? I think it would.