Epic1044

This is one of the only ways I can picture a Hell March mix working. The source is pretty bare, with just a few guitar riffs giving it identity. This mix has the beat and the guitars staying pretty close to home, and the orchestra that complements them perfectly.

Lives up to the title. A nice groove. I absolutely loved the outro. I only wish the drums sounded a little more organic, meatier.

My favorite tracks are Art of Zen, Nitronic (with a perfect synth solo), Standpipe Valve, Mindbender and Antigravity.

I thought some more about these tracks. They're extremely pro-quality, not like the throwaway electronica you hear in club mixes. There's some real musicianship over the awesome beats. Can't wait for the CD.

A variety of styles compared to the VG remixes of yours I know. Pre-ordered.

This piece has great personality, and you can thank the excellent solo guitar work for that. The percussion is also very professionally done. Sometimes those beats sound like an afterthought to the "real" music, but every high-hat note seems chosen with care here. And I love the Vampire Killer easter egg.

This was well put together, but it never achieves the driving power of the original. How awesome this would've been if GL had kept up the pace and the volume at the 1:30 passage. The start-stop phrases between 1:00 and 1:10 made me check to see if my Winamp was skipping. This is a very successful piece technically. I am sure that my stylistic criticisms are in the minority.

Here, the goodness lies in the mood and quality of the sounds, not in the melody. It's very well put together and makes a nice ambient piece.

So I checked. This is the same file found in the torrent. What happened to the "real" NMG?

If this is old, which one is in the torrent? The "real" Next My Generation?

It's hard to believe this is a collaboration piece, with how well the strokes blend together into such a cohesive tapestry. This is awesome.

There is some good technique here. The arrangement is very faithful as well. Every nuance of the melody and background chords is maintained. The only gripe I have is slight deviations from the tempo as the pianist sets his fingers. A great live performance.

I usually don't like electronic music, but this just grooves. It's a definite keeper. And Fei's death wail at the end brought back memories of serious ass-kicking.

*watches them dance the Ken dance*

The styling of this one is impeccable. Very clubbish. I appreciate that the melody wasn't watered down from the original. This is a remix chiefly because the background chords were stripped of their latin flavor and given a convincing nightculb feel. The tempo has been slowed down just a little to bring it into the "danceable" 120bpm range. The lead instrument is a loud synth. This might have been a grating choice, but good use is made of effects and slides to make the synth sing. My favorite part of the entire piece is the extended wrapup, with "hit" samples woven into a typical snare-fill club pattern.

I love the fact that Super Metroid received a complete remix treatment, but I didn't care too much for the product. Did you? The whole soundtrack was very homogenous. Almost every piece started with a fade-in of tinny drums, followed by a watered-down version of the melody. And that's my biggest criticism -- melody. Just because it's a "remix" doesn't mean you have to transplant the melody into a different style that doesn't quite fit. I would've liked to see more enhancements, rather than unmemorable interpretive pieces. The main theme of Super Metroid only made a brief cameo in the ending piece. About twenty seconds was devoted to that awesome melody, and it was represented by a stacatto synth string. The rest of the song was filled with the same dreary ambiance of the previous tracks. The DKC remix project turned out more enjoyable, and I think the reason was that there was a greater variety of composers. Many of the tracks retained the elements that made their originals great songs.

Pretty much the entire OC Remix collection is awesome. Even among that company, though, there are a few songs that have enough longevity to follow me from MP3, to CD-R, to whatever media the future holds. This is one such keeper. It strikes a unique mood that I haven't heard on a single other piece. Ignore the complaints about out-of-tune guitar. I've listened five times already and I can't detect it.

I think "Amazon" was meant to be heard like this. The instrumentation is perfect, the execution is ALMOST. The mellow jazz guitar at the beginning sings the melody in front of a laid-back accordian. They switch for the second verse. The solos go well with the song too. Just a couple of hiccups. The first one is a judgement call, but I wish the awesome countermelody at 0:28 would've made it into this remix. The second one is more technical. The acoustic guitar in the third verse needs a little tweaking. It was obviously played on a keyboard, because it issues a loud TWANG above a certain volume. The result is sporadic twanging that covers up the melody underneath. (You'll hear what I mean). It's no big thing, just something that's always dogged a keyboard guitar voice. Props to the composer, and I love the ending.

This could have been the archetypal OC Remix. Great Nintendo source material, excellent recording quality, the support of a growing studio. Really, there's not much to decry here. Except one thing, and the remix is so good that it surprises me the composers didn't fix it. The melody is shamefully hidden under the background. Two instruments take the melody at different times -- a staccato synth that's a little too short to make an impact, and a faded "orchestra hit" type sound that washes away in the background. With better instrumentation on those two lines and a little more volume, this remix is a top 5.

This is definitely one of the highest-quality remixes at OC. A lot of effort was obviously put into it. Every digital effect seems hand-picked. It's that rare programmed song that emulates the expression of a live performance (in style, not sound). The main theme really shines at :50. Then, at 1:23, a particular melody line is repeated with an electric guitar rhythm pattern in the background. It's those subtle touches that make this easy to listen to. My biggest compliment is the deference to the melody. Too many remixes go overboard with 1/16 techno effects and forget that they're trying to remix MUSIC. This one stays faithful to the catchy Nintendo melodies, but really modernizes them in sound and expression. That's pretty much the OC Remix mission I guess, so fans should definitely download this one.