pixelseph

Hi VQ!
Gonna reiterate what I can from the live review:
Be very selective about what voice is the focus in each section, and pare back parts that aren't providing texture for your rhythm and harmony lines Consider swapping the bass ostinato from Shinobi 3 in the middle sections of the piece with another melodic phrase from your sources; I recommend the descending arpeggio siren thing from Rise of the Robots This is gonna be a groove machine when you're done. It always sucks to go back and start from scratch on mixes but it's worth it in the end!

Thanks for responding. I appreciate the feedback!

1) You said, "I wanted to hear some more of the melodic material from the original besides the A section, as after the 2 minute mark it started to feel stale."

I didn't want to sound too stale, which is why I kept it fairly short. I tend to make techno tracks that are 8 to 10 minutes.
As for the melodic material beyond beginning of the track. LOLOL! I knew it! I knew I'd hear someone complain about that. I honestly thought about it, but I really didn't like the other portion of the song, because it felt very VERY Nintendo-ish. Nintendo music always seems to follow along Koji Kondo and his style of music. This particular track, after the beginning, definitely does that. Nothing wrong with it! I love Koji Kondo's music! But I like techno more! ROFLMAO!
 
2) You asked, "I am curious about the pauses between your transitions being shortened from presumably an older version of the piece. Were you feeling like they were dragging?"

Nope. There isn't an "older" version of the piece. This is the original remix. The transitions are shortened to keep the length of the track manageable. Like I said earlier, I tend to make longer techno tracks. At the same time, I wanted to keep the adrenaline pumping. Long transitions, when playing at a dance club, slows or even stops the dancing. But if you make the transitions short, people keep dancing!
 
I was trying my hardest to NOT deviate from the source. I love variation too, but I was afraid that if I did that, it wouldn't keep the same spirit of the original song. I really wanted to keep that original sound and stretch is as far as possible without making it too stale.
 
I hear ya!
At the same time, I wanted to keep the track short. To accomplish this, I had to shorten the transitions.
As you know, in techno, people love their drops, and they want those drops to last foreveeeeeeer! I had to resist that urge to stretch this baby to 10 minutes (like I wanted).

Looking forward to the great work you guys will bring! :-) Honestly, I did feel the same way about the Evaluators' position - this is a great change.

Can't emphasis this nearly enough, this is worth more than a dozen paid online courses! Where else you gonna get tailored advice on your remixes by community veterans, judges and even the mighty LT, in live and direct? If you're enthusiastic about VGM, arrangement and music production, come hang with knowledgeable and kindhearted people, learn a thing or twenty and go home a winner. ?

The Sages have been killing it with their Wednesday night Office Hours sessions on Discord! If you're needing musical feedback and growth advice, y'all gotta be in there. :-)

Hey Pixel, 
Sorry for the oopsie, I fixed the permission! 🙈

Guess I had a good nose for some of the most illuminating 15 minutes of the video, skipping through the whole video content like a passionate and fiercely investigating hobby detective. ;D

Are you sure you didn’t watch the video yet? You just covered basically all of the video in your summary! 😂

Nice one. ))

Without seeing the whole video with the length of over 4 hours, I would say the following things are crucial to bring some VSTi/VST-based electric guitar magic in the soundtrack:

1) a realistic electric guitar VSTi with a good amount of faithful articulations/playing techniques
2) a nice electric guitar and bass amp VST simulation that features lots of settings and effects
3) a good understanding of electric guitars and performing special guitar techniques in the DAW (so, everything about the technical things going on when playing a real electric guitar and how to translate it with all your DAW tools like the electric guitar VSTI interface, the MIDI editor and further plugins)
4) and lots of mixing experience

On the other side, even a real electric guitar in the mix can sound like a Goomba stuck in the sewage pipe if the guitar has bad pickups, you stole the fishy guitar amp from a grumpy octopus at the bottom of the shore or your playing and mixing skills just passed the toddler difficulty.

...

During this week in the first part of my summer holiday I also tried to implement a nice clean electric guitar into my coming Crisis Core remix composition - and I got pretty much inspired by the soundtrack "Everytime We Touch" by Maggie Reilly:
 

For the clean electric guitar that I've played more or less via MIDI keyboard in my DAW, I might have to do some work concerning timing and articulation.
But it already sounds like something I'd definitely go for in the coming remix version.

Here's a short audio sample of my early results:


 

CC - FF7 Remix (Excerpt) - Clean Electric Guitar.mp3

You might turn up the volume a bit because I uniformly master my soundtracks at EBU R 128 loudness standard at around - 23 dB (LUFS).

Hi everyone!
Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below:
VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description:
(not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!)
Guitar:
Cute Emily SG Shreddage 3 Stratus Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando) Bass:
Shreddage 3 Precision MODO Bass 2 Amp Sims:
Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in) Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim) Guitar Rig 7 Shattered Glass Audio ACE IK Multimedia Amplitube 5 Pedal VSTs:
TSE Audio 808 TSE Audio R47 Plugin Boutique Face Bender  

Hi everyone!
Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below:
VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description:
(not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!)
Guitar:
Cute Emily SG Shreddage 3 Stratus Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando) Bass:
Shreddage 3 Precision MODO Bass 2 Amp Sims:
Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in) Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim) Guitar Rig 7 Shattered Glass Audio ACE IK Multimedia Amplitube 5 Pedal VSTs:
TSE Audio 808 TSE Audio R47 Plugin Boutique Face Bender  

Hi everyone!
Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below:
VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description:
(not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!)
Guitar:
Cute Emily SG Shreddage 3 Stratus Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando) Bass:
Shreddage 3 Precision MODO Bass 2 Amp Sims:
Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in) Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim) Guitar Rig 7 Shattered Glass Audio ACE IK Multimedia Amplitube 5 Pedal VSTs:
TSE Audio 808 TSE Audio R47 Plugin Boutique Face Bender  

Hi Uffe!
The track you linked doesn’t sound like it contains western harmony functional chords inside. I’m hearing trills between half-step notes and an occasional whole-step note to make the tension ramp.
However, to answer your question, the method I use to determine chords when listening to arpeggios is to listen for the lowest note and then work out what the interval is between it and the closest note to it, then do the same for the next note. The relationship between the intervals will usually give you the biggest clue to the chord.
Sometimes there can be multiple chords being outlined during a single arpeggiated melodic line. It’s not always easy to pick out when this is happening, though one trick for that is to listen to the harmony/support instruments and if the notes shift under a particular spot in the melody, it’s highly likely that the chord has changed

Interesting that this conversation came up today.
I literally just finished this entire album and dropped the release a few hours ago, and that mother brain track was something interesting. 
Hopefully, I can share it with you all in the future. 

But yes the arpeggios that seem chaotic and are very hard to iron down what they are actually doing with any traditional approach beyond 20th century harmony and heptatonic scales. First, it seemed quartal in nature; but then I would see a minor 3rd & #4th pop up here and there at the end of a phrase and then m6ths & M6ths with m7ths. So tons of chromatic notes. Clearly the idea was meant to sound chaotic unsettling and almost alive sounding, and he nailed it. 
Not sure I could stand behind any chord analysis; but if you wanted a rough idea where to start, maybe think about Fm11 with additional chromatic passing tones of #4s and both M6ths & m6ths played very staccato in 32nd notes. Not sure how much that helps but hope it does some. 

GL with the Metroiding/Jamming. 

Best,
Aaron (MnG)

Hi Devsman! So happy to see some Megaman Legends love!!
Is the intention to keep this piece as just the 3 instruments?
I’m not a pianist, however I’m not hearing anything in your piece that sounds impossible for a single player to accomplish. That said, the sequencing for both the piano and the flute needs more volume and velocity automation - the velocities sound the same throughout (particularly the piano), which make it hard to retain interest with the short melodic figure.
Having the same reverb for your instruments is always a good idea, as it makes them sound like they are in the same space. Did you create a reverb send/bus or is it two instances of the same reverb plugin on the instrument channels?
The concert bass drum rolls are a good way to signal the transitions, however they don’t sound like they are in the same space as the flute and piano. The other issue is that they are currently only being utilized for the transitions, which makes them feel a bit awkward in the space. Would you be against having them in one of the sections, like say the climax of the piece, to help drive everything toward the conclusion? The section at 2:51 would benefit a lot from the bass drums accenting those first two stabs on the piano each bar!
Keep working on this one! Glad to read this is your return to music - definitely looking forward to what you’ve got cooking up next

So there's a story with this one. Feel free to skip it. See the bolded line below.
The year was 2004 and Business Tech Essentials was boring me to tears, when I discovered I could listen to remixed video game music for free instead of actually doing my work. Purely by coincidence, I had recently discovered Mega Man and become absolutely obsessed with it, which I remain to this day. So at a time when I was constantly searching for any video game tune that would be cool with some kind of twist, I stumbled upon Mega Man Legends. There's no shortage of cool tunes on that MML soundtrack, but this one particularly caught my ear. I think part of it was the context: while it makes sense for the ruin to get darker as you descend, this one actually gets brighter. Mysterious af.
Anyway, I wrote up a pair of drafts of what I would want it to sound like: one as a grandiose pipe organ piece that (frankly) kinda sucked, and another as a more ambient tune that had more promise. I still really like the sound of that one, but I kinda ran out of ideas when it was like a minute and a half long, and I hated anything I tried to do to go forward from there, so I decided to take a break. I came back after a week, nothing. A month, nothing.
The months turned to years. I met a girl, I finished high school, I decided to go into engineering instead of music (it was a tough decision, but ultimately a good one). Every now and then, I'd load up that midi (I told myself once I liked the arrangement and got to an ending, I'd update my techniques then) and listen to it, and see if I could figure out where to go next. Predictably, it never went anywhere. At this point, it was on a thumb drive since I had moved on from my dad's PC to my own laptop.
Well, I graduated college, married that girl, lost that thumb drive somewhere along the way, and got into indie gamedev. Video games need music, and I wanted to do this thing right, so I upgraded my software, techniques and even tried to learn some composition from youtube videos and internet articles.
I had kids with that girl, an OCR remix literally changed my life (https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03719), and while all this was swirling through my head in the year 2023, I decided to give a listen to a classic album that was a favorite of mine: Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I've always thought it was kind of hilarious how the opener was two different songs just mashed together because why not, and I made a passing joke of it in my head: They should make an exception to copyright law... If you ever get writer's block, you should be allowed to just add Love Lies Bleeding to the end of your tune.
Wait a minute... Writer's block? Didn't I have that once? OH YEAH.
So now starting from scratch because that old midi of mine was long gone, I actually decided on a kind of low-intensity hard rock remix of yet again the same tune from Mega Man Legends, and figured, once I get stuck, I'll do that. I'll literally just glue on Love Lies Bleeding to the end of it. You know, just as a joke. And I did, and it was frankly kind of hilarious. I obviously couldn't submit that to OCRemix, but it did get the wheels turning in my head. And besides, what better way to hone my skills for composing an actual video game soundtrack than by practicing with a familiar tune and connecting with a community to get feedback?
So I decided, once and for all, I was going to finish a remix of the Main Gate tune even if I hate it, and I was going to do it before the end of the year 2024, since that would be 20 years since my first attempt, and frankly I can't remember what day or month it was when I started. So you could say this thing is (kind of) 20 years in the making. ... Kinda sad, when you put it that way, actually.
STORY OVER. IF YOU WERE SKIPPING IT, HERE IS WHERE YOU START NOW.
While it's incomplete and needs a ton of help, here is my most recent swing at a Mega Man Legends Main Gate remix. Here's the original:
In mine, I kinda wanted to lower the intensity as well as the tempo and focus on a couple of less common ideas that I have always found cool in spite of (or perhaps because of) their rarity:
1. Modulations to a lower key instead of a higher one.
2. Swapping the role of soloist (or in this case, soloists) and accompaniment so that the melody pretty much serves as context for interesting harmony.
You can pick out the modulations easily because they're preceded by a change in the chord progression and accompanied by a bass drum roll. It transitions from B minor to Bb minor to A minor and finally A major right at the end. I love the way it feels when it resolves to the new key; there's a kind of contrast between losing energy by virtue of the modulation but raising tension in the composition. But I think those transitions are kinda awkward and/or abrupt. Especially the second one at 2:50.
I also feel like things get a bit repetitive in a number of places. I mean, it's a pretty short chord progression (and tune in general) in the original, and layering the melody in/out only helps so much...
I'm afraid I have no idea what to do with the piano in final major part, lol. Nor how to transition into it. Which is sad because the piano was the point, haha. I tried a couple of things and I hate all of it. I'd kind of like to do something other than arpeggios since I've been doing that for like 3 minutes at that point but it sounds awkward without some kind of movement. I do like the chords I chose for that part though, including the sus4-minor resolution and the Mario victory progression at the very end, so I'd like to keep it instead of just ending in A minor. Besides, the tension leading up to it HAS to go somewhere.
There are also the obvious problems that this sounds super robotic and I don't actually have any clue how many hands you would need to play it (sorry, I'm not a pianist), which other than recruiting real musicians, I'm not sure how to solve, haha.
And then there's the bass drum. I kinda like what it adds to the transitions, but I can't decide if it's awkward that those are the only times it does anything. I feel like it needs to either do more or get cut entirely. I tried adding in some more to the A minor section but it felt like it was intruding on what was supposed to be a pretty simple instrumentation.
One last thing: do the piano and flute feel like they have roughly comparable amounts of reverb? I can't decide if that's what it is, but something feels off about the two voices together.
So! Any comments, tips or pointers are very much welcome! Thanks!

Gate.wav

Thanks! And Metroid is from Japan, so perhaps that's why. 🤷‍♂️  But at the time, I think this particular track by Hirokazu Tanaka was probably about as close to being musique concrète, experimental, or perhaps some kind of avant-garde in 8 bit form. 😃 Anyway, I'll take into consideration of what you said, as this is something I wasn't sure about how I'd approach it.

Hi Uffe!
The track you linked doesn’t sound like it contains western harmony functional chords inside. I’m hearing trills between half-step notes and an occasional whole-step note to make the tension ramp.
However, to answer your question, the method I use to determine chords when listening to arpeggios is to listen for the lowest note and then work out what the interval is between it and the closest note to it, then do the same for the next note. The relationship between the intervals will usually give you the biggest clue to the chord.
Sometimes there can be multiple chords being outlined during a single arpeggiated melodic line. It’s not always easy to pick out when this is happening, though one trick for that is to listen to the harmony/support instruments and if the notes shift under a particular spot in the melody, it’s highly likely that the chord has changed

Hi Uffe!
The track you linked doesn’t sound like it contains western harmony functional chords inside. I’m hearing trills between half-step notes and an occasional whole-step note to make the tension ramp.
However, to answer your question, the method I use to determine chords when listening to arpeggios is to listen for the lowest note and then work out what the interval is between it and the closest note to it, then do the same for the next note. The relationship between the intervals will usually give you the biggest clue to the chord.
Sometimes there can be multiple chords being outlined during a single arpeggiated melodic line. It’s not always easy to pick out when this is happening, though one trick for that is to listen to the harmony/support instruments and if the notes shift under a particular spot in the melody, it’s highly likely that the chord has changed

Oh, snap!!! It's updated, @CJthemusicdude!!
Thank you so much, @Liontamer! ♡

It was only way down the line that I forgot another level of humanizing that I didn't do, which was automating the sustain pedal.  That definitely would have helped with a couple spots that were mentioned by the judges. All I can do is learn from that and apply it to future work.
Thanks for the love all :)

This is so gorgeous! @pixelseph's comment also seems to imply it's all midi programmed, not live played, which is blowing my mind. Stunning piece.

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

It's a huge pleasure to be fulfilling this role!
Over the coming weeks, you'll be seeing my mug replying to your posts in the workshop and (if I'm doing things right) I'll be providing you with means to make improvements to your writing, arranging, and/or mixing. Can't wait to hear more of what y'all have cooking out there!

This track was my absolute favorite in all of GSM1 - favorite to track, favorite to listen to, favorite of all the rounds.
Game Set Mash! works by having an arranging/recording/producing round that lasts about a week, and then a voting round that lasts about a week. Emunator brought essentially the entire arrangement to the team by day 2, and by day 3 it had all of the guitar layers as well as Paradiddles’ acoustic kit additions (I think cymbals and some toms?) ready to add.
The finished result is a song I’m proud to have been part of, and proud to add to my “lemme introduce you to VGM remixes” playlist.