Liontamer Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Remixer Name: Over the Map Real Names: Warren Bray, Colin Sanders, Chris Semoff Email: mr.colinsanders@gmail.com Name of Game Arranged: Mother 3 Name of Individual Songs Arranged: Memory of Tatsumairi, In the Room --------- "Between Frogs" Composed By: Shogo Sakai Arranged By: Colin Sanders Performed By: Over the Map Warren Bray on Bass/Drums Colin Sanders on Piano/Keyboards/Melodica/Drums Chris Semoff on Guitar I like to think of this rendition as an adventure in itself—the journey from one save frog to the next. In the Earthbound universe a lot can happen between saves. The game's rich scenarios fertilized with interesting characters and dialogue allow things to move along quickly. Similarly, we try to waste little time moving from part to part. Since this is a Japanese only game I think I should explain the source material in a bit more depth. The original song is called "Happy Town?" (#126 in the Sound Player) which approximates to "Memory of Tatsumairi" off the Mother 3i album. Anyone in Canada or the US can download the album off of iTunes. This song is played in several different ways throughout the game though they all roughly translate to "this is the song for your home town." The piece lends itself well to the many heroes in the game setting out to do what they do best—kicking ass! As well, we throw in "In the Room (#48)" for some good reggae measure. In our arrangement, I imagine the Pig Masks flying over Lucas's home in Tatsumairi blaring this reggae bit from their loud speakers. Finally, I would like to point out how our soloing is similar to the Mother 3 battle system, where each character can create their own musical piece by fighting to the beat of the battle music. This was a challenging project for all of us, but I hope that there are some fans out there to enjoy it. Colin Sanders ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ While I found Mother 3i, thanks for CHz for tracking down the tunes from the actual Mother 3 soundtrack. Mother 3 - "Happy Town?..." & "In the Room" Mother 3i - (10) "Memory of Tatsumairi" An enjoyable track. Very reminiscent of the style of The OneUps. But...this is too much of a cover. Same tempo, same structure, overall similar instrumentation. Not a unique enough arrangement. 4. Arrangement 2. The arrangement must be substantial and original. * Submissions must be different enough from the source material to clearly illustrate the contributions, modifications, and enhancements you have made. Acceptable arrangement often involves more than one of the following techniques: * Modifying the genre, chord progression, instrumentation, rhythms, dynamics, tempo, or overall composition of the source material * Adding original solos, transitions, harmonies, counter-melodies, lyrics, or vocals to the source material Doesn't end the same way as "Memory of Tatsumairi" with the genteel dropoff focused on the piano (used only briefly here), but the jazzy parts are close enough to the originals where I felt they drag down the overall package as far as the standards are concerned. Same with the reggae-fied take on "In the Room" from 1:47-2:08. A shame too, because I definitely give more leeway to any live performance, due to the performers needing to learn the parts. More personalized flair, new rhythms, new writing for the supporting parts, different instrumentation ideas that are more pronounced, those kind of things would push a more cover-style rendition of a theme into acceptable territory. Right now, what's here is cool, and I don't mean to take away from that. IMO, this performance was a very natural extension of territory that "Memory of Tatsumairi" didn't come close to in covering "Happy Town?...", and I'm definitely gonna be keeping it. But relative to our standards, most of the part-writing is simply covered, even some of the supporting instrumentation. And the overall structure, tone, tempo and energy is the same as the Mother 3 and 3i tracks, which makes this a no-go. Those things don't all have to be different at once, and you guys took some of that in the right direction, but for here you'd have to take that further. Hope to hear more from you guys in the future, so don't be discouraged, as I really like your style. With more time/practice, Over the Map could give The OneUps some competition as far as jazz and funk VGM bands. It's really nice to hear another group like yours with great potential. If you guys were willing to revisit this, I'd love to hear another take of this with more effort to stand apart from the original and arranged versions of the source tunes. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHz Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 Before I start, I just want to say that you should be really careful when arranging arranged versions of video game tracks, because we're here to arrange game music and not game arrangements, after all. Memory of Tatsumairi is a sound upgrade of Happy Town?... for the first half or so, so as far as melody usage goes there's no problem, but the instrumentation in your mix is exceptionally similar to the instrumentation of the arranged version (drums, bass, guitar, and piano all playing similar parts, and the melodica taking the place of the woodwind). I'm definitely not saying that you can't make a mix with similar instrumentation (see Krispy's Halo mix Insurrection) or at least partially rely on an arranged track (see Noir's FF7 mix Jenova for Classical Piano), but you have to make sure you add enough personalization to compensate, and personalization that can be linked back to the original version, not the arranged version. A very enjoyable listen, in my opinion. Nice jamming during the coverage of Happy Town?..., and some nice variety in the middle, although I thought the transitions were a bit weak, especially the one at 1:26. There were a couple of moments where it didn't sound like everything was locking together, like 2:08-2:21, but no real killers. The arrangement is a bit problematic, as I hinted above. There are two types of source usage here that I picked up: direct/nearly direct coverage of the melody (Happy Town?... at 0:00-0:49 and 2:40-3:56 and In the Room at [noparse]1:48-2:08)[/noparse], and instrumentation nearly identical with the arranged version of Happy Town, Memory of Tatsumairi (0:00-1:26, 2:26-2:46, and 3:14-3:56 in particular). The rest of the track is either completely original material or mostly original material that the source melodies have been more or less dropped on. Since the instrumentation is so similar and the melodies are mostly untouched, most of the interpretation here lies just in the original material and enhanced accompaniment. With more interpretation, I feel this could make it. 1:48-2:08 is probably the best personalized part of the mix, but there's a lot of room for more. Changing the instrumentation instead of relying quite heavily on Memory of Tatsumairi's, altering the melodies, changing the structure of the sources so the mix isn't just direct source -> original -> direct source -> original, and so on are all good ways of bumping up the arrangement factor. Right now, it's just not cutting it. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted February 20, 2008 Author Share Posted February 20, 2008 Before I start, I just want to say that you should be really careful when arranging arranged versions of video game tracks, because we're here to arrange game music and not game arrangements, after all. Memory of Tatsumairi is a sound upgrade of Happy Town?... for the first half or so, so as far as melody usage goes there's no problem, but the instrumentation in your mix is exceptionally similar to the instrumentation of the arranged version (drums, bass, guitar, and piano all playing similar parts, and the melodica taking the place of the woodwind). I'm definitely not saying that you can't make a mix with similar instrumentation (see Krispy's Halo mix Insurrection) or at least partially rely on an arranged track (see Noir's FF7 mix Jenova for Classical Piano), but you have to make sure you add enough personalization to compensate, and personalization that can be linked back to the original version, not the arranged version. I'm gonna run slightly counter to CHz's first sentence, as the implication is that ReMixing arrange album tracks isn't kosher. I know what he's getting at, but maybe djpretzel can clarify. AFAIK, there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as your arrangement is different enough from the arranged source tune, and, more importantly, still connects strongly enough to the original game track as CHz mentioned. I mention that second part, because some pro arrange album tracks can get pretty liberal themselves. A liberal take on an already-liberal arrange track could result in something too far off from the original game music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Yeah I'm just going to close this out by saying that you gotta make the stuff you submit here YOUR arrangement, not someone else's, even if it is from an official source. Anyway this is a fun track, but it's way too close to the original. Larry and 'Illi basically hit all the pertinent points, so there's no point in reiterating. Nice job, but NO. Hope to hear from you again in the future though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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