Rock/Metal Medley: Mega Man 9

[FreddeGredde]

Hi guys.

So, I've made a medley of all the songs from Mega Man 9, and I really like it. My main problem is that it's 7:30 long, so it's kinda hard to squeeze the song down to 6.00mb without sacrificing quality. Any ideas on what to do?

(I've tried lameMP3 at 118kbps, but it's not enough, and I don't think I want worse quality than that. =/ )

If you want more context, see the environments etc, you could also

Anyway, comments please!

[Rozovian]

Pretty impressive.

If you're shooting for OCR, you gotta get it under 6 megs. If you use VBR, you might be able to squeeze out a bit more of it. It also gotta be cohesive, and that might be a problem with this track.

Do make sure to submit this somewhere. If not OCR; then there's R:TS. It oughta be downloadable from somewhere.

[FreddeGredde]

Rozovian: Thanks. Well, I think it's cohesive, there are maybe two "transitions" that are a little abrupt, but other than that..

Why are they having that 6mb-limit? I mean, sure, I can compress it at 100kb/s VBR, but don't they prefer good quality?

I'll check out R:TS..

[Rozovian]

As I udnerstand it, cohesive isn't the same thing as transitioning easily throughout. You can have something cohesive with hard abrupt changes, and something that's not the least bit cohesive that smoothly goes from one inappropriate thing to another.

There were a few transitions that were a little harsh, but in a megamedley like this, I think the medley-itis is a greater problem. Source one, source two, source three... Nothing to really tie it together, besides the overall sound. That was pretty cohesive, but the writing wasn't, imo. Check with a judge to be sure.

Bandwidth, storage, whatever. You could compress it to under 6 megs and submit. If you get NOed, you can put it up on R:TS. Or both. You could go on irc and talk to a judge about it, see what they think.

[FreddeGredde]

Rozovian: Hmm.. I kinda understand what you mean, but I don't know if I agree. But I mean, I really like music like Dream Theater's "Dance of eternity", where new things keeps coming every 20th second. I like variation in music.

But yeah, I'm trying to join the irc channel, but I can't connect to the server irc.enterthegame.com. Every other irc-server works just fine, but why not this one?

[XZero]

Let me get the negatives out of the way. As you already know, there's no way this gets on OCR at the current file size. The other problem that would possibly keep this off of OCR, even with a smaller file size, is that there isn't much in the way of getting away from the source material. Lastly, as someone already noted, the 'medley-itis' thing works against you.

Now the positives. This track is basically a compressed version of what I wanted out of the Mega Man 9 Arranged CD (and got screwed on). Seriously, this is amazing stuff. In 7:29, you brought back very fond memories of swearing like a sailor at the TV. I don't know what your time constraints are like, but you should seriously consider doing a separate track-by-track album of Mega Man 9 arrangements. Your talent is amazing for this. Hopefully the others here can give you some constructive advice for getting this on OCR, but if that doesn't work out, awesome job.

[Escariot]

Also, make sure you are remixing as opposed to medley mashup-ing...

It just sounds a bit too coverish to me. It rocks, but not a remix.

[JackKieser]

Ok, first of all, I'll have to say that I personally think that this is skirting the line between cover and ReMix. It's a close call. Luckily, I think this could be fixed rather easily by messing a little with the rhythms of some of the melodies and a little more rhythm backing. Also, needs moar solos. Seriously, I was waiting for some balls awesome rocking out, and got none. You obviously have really good technical abilities, so let's see 'em showcased. I REALLY wanted something during Tornado Man's stage, but that's just me; feel free to solo wherever you feel comfortable.

As far as transitions go, I don't really feel that they were too bad. Then again, I listened to it over teh Yootoobs, so that might have had something to do with seeing the stages in the background. Part of the complaints might just be stemming from the arrangement problems; with the exception of the differing melodies, each section doesn't really feel it's own. It feels more like a stylistic reinterpretation, but with each melody in the same style. Try taking some more liberty with your playing, maybe making one melody a little heavier while making another more bouncy, or making small tempo changes between sections.

As it stands, it's a good song. Ok, a great song. But that doesn't mean that it can't rock out more. Try not to force yourself to be too conservative; have fun with this one. There's plenty of room for a little showboating.

[othersteve]

Pfft. I've been a silent fan of OCR and other mixing communities for nearly a decade now, but I think people are way too uptight about this whole music arrangement thing. Your song is awesome, Freddie, and it deserves to be heard, whether the judges at OCR deem it worthy of their server space or not. I say congratulations on a skillful and highly enjoyable remix--it'll make my playlist, that's for certain. Hell, I'll even host it for you if you'd like... I don't mind.

Maybe this is one reason why a panel of musical judges ends up failing in so many people's eyes. We're looking for game arrangements here if you ask me. Perhaps OCR ought to divide their offerings into two separate categories: rearrangements and complete remixes. Because as far as I'm concerned, both are equally stimulating in their own fashion, and when stuff like this man's work here doesn't make the grade, you know something might be wrong.

~os

[FreddeGredde]

XZero: Thanks, but I definitely don't want to do separate tracks. The reason I'm into progressive rock and medleys is that I want variation, I can't stand too many loops in music. So, screw OCR then.

JackKieser: It's interesting that you want more solos. I don't think many would agree with you on that, because my experience is that people only like what they recognize.. Especially videogame fans as opposed to musicians. So, with a medley like this it's better to stick with the original melodies, in my opinion.

Also, I personally only like solos if they are really NEEDED by the music, and in a way all the melodies in this medley are like melodic solos anyway, so I think this is enough for instrumental pieces like this.

I apreciate getting your view on the matter though!

othersteve: Thanks alot.

J3: Thanks, I really like these kinds of comments. I guess it depends on what you want from music. I want lots of different ideas and parts thrown at me when listening to music. The same thing developing for minutes can be cool, but mostly I think it gets boring and dragged out.

But yeah, there are 14-15 different songs in this medley, so naturally it was hard to make every transition work well. (I was actually surprised so many of them did.) I also tried to get different sounds for each part, so it wasn't just "horse rhythm a la Iron Maiden" throughout the song.

Regarding the 3:40 part: Agreed, it turned out great.

Oh well, thanks for your comment, I'll just skip ocremix for this one.

[JackKieser]

Please don't skip OCRemix for this one!! There's nothing wrong with constructive critisism; trust me, if you ever plan on submitting anything to OCRemix, you'll be getting plenty of constructive criticism. It's always your choice to listen to it, though, and really the only opinions that matter are yours and the judges'. Either way, you should DEFINITELY submit this piece anyway; you won't lose anything, so why not?

As far as my particular suggestions went, I just happen to like shredding, so that might have something to do with it. Believe it or not, people DO like a little improv or a little soloing, especially in driving rock arrangements. Don't believe me? Check out Sixto's stuff, and you'll see a really good example of what I'm talking about (right now, I'm listening to his arrangment of Ken's Theme from the BotA album). Like I said, you obviously have the technical proficiency for it, so we'd love to hear what you can really do. Please? '

[FreddeGredde]

JackKieser: I apreciated your thoughts, and I agree that there's nothing wrong with critisism. I LOVE critisism, seriously.

My point is that medleys obviously isn't the way to go on ocremix, so I don't have anything here to do. I'll try to make my next medley (Super Mario Galaxy) more coherent, but that's all.

Thanks anyway!

(Oh, and I submitted the medley. Let's hope I got the info right etc. The worst thing is that 100kb/s just isn't enough, but oh well.)

[LuckyXIII]

I'm no OCR judge, but I like medleys done right - like Goat's Super Metroid - The Ice Beam Cometh. It's just over nine minutes long and rocks my face off, though it's never been released on OCR.

I'm really appreciative of this MM9 mix, especially with the video (well-done, by the way!), as I'll never have a chance to actually play the new game. Mega Man was the first game I ever played on an NES so it has a special 8-bit wing in my heart.

Thanks for posting, Fredde! Good luck with everything! I really dig your work!

[SwordBreaker]

Wow...that is some awesome guitar playing, man. You've really done MM9's soundtrack a huge favor here. I'm extremely surprised that not a lot of people have decided to remix the tracks. Glad that you've decided to do multiple ones into a Medley. Despite some of the abrupt transitions, I'm LOVING this and I'm glad to have stumbled upon it here. Even if OCR does not accept this tune due to the site's standards (you should still submit nonetheless, what do you have to lose?), you should look to submit it elsewhere such as ThaSauce and VGMix.com!

[jaxx]

great tune bro, enjoyed it much. another option for future medleys is to enter a tune into the Dwelling of Duels monthly contest, it's a live instrument arrangement contest where a lot of guitarists (and other instrument players) participate. It's pretty well known, and they keep all the entries in the archive. There is a theme every month, every three months there is a free month (arrange music from any videogame on any platform). There is no size limit. Also, you should also just release it on vgmix.com.

http://dod.vgmix.com <-- dwelling of duels

http://www.vgmix.com <-- vgmix

even if this does get accepted, you need to release it elsewhere for quality sake.

[Ramaniscence]

As I udnerstand it, cohesive isn't the same thing as transitioning easily throughout. You can have something cohesive with hard abrupt changes, and something that's not the least bit cohesive that smoothly goes from one inappropriate thing to another.

There were a few transitions that were a little harsh, but in a megamedley like this, I think the medley-itis is a greater problem. Source one, source two, source three... Nothing to really tie it together, besides the overall sound. That was pretty cohesive, but the writing wasn't, imo. Check with a judge to be sure.

Bandwidth, storage, whatever. You could compress it to under 6 megs and submit. If you get NOed, you can put it up on R:TS. Or both. You could go on irc and talk to a judge about it, see what they think.

Emphasis on the both, lol. ReMix:ThaSauce'll post this in a jiffy FOR SURE. I don't discriminate on cross-posting songs (I don't think anyone does, really.) I can say that we're generally posting stuff a LOT faster than OCR right now, if that's an issue for you. We can also hold off so that it gets posted at the same time as OCR. I'm flexible =P

Quick (dated) overview of R:TS can be found here: http://wiki.thasauce.net/index.php?title=ReMix:ThaSauce

I'd definitely recommend submitting this to OCR if you can get it under 6MBs, though. If not, yea we have no size limit on R:TS. And definitely check out DoD and VGMix like JAXX said.

Really awesome stuff here, though. Really hope to hear more like it.

[FreddeGredde]

Hi again, thanks for your comments and support.

I really don't care anymore, tindeck is fine and I've got an audience on youtube that I'm content with. But you have my permission to spread the mp3 to any site you'd like, as long as my nickname and preferably the youtube link is mentioned. (Although it's all in the mp3 tags, so maybe it doesn't matter.)

Oh, and I made another song/video that's been even more successful than my Mega Man medley:

Anyway, so that's all from me on this forum.

[progressive]

There's no doubt you are talented, creative and, well, driven. The Wind Waker one is pretty amazing. (Like I keep saying, WW is an untapped source!) Kudos, dude.

[Lie Mf B]

I definitely recognize the whole "medley vs. cohesive songs" discussion. I love progressive rock as well, especially the older sort (including solo jams that drag for years) and I often enjoy tunes which go from one part to another. At the same time, I often wonder why progressive rock artists bother to make separate songs at all, when the last minute of one track has just as little in common with itself as it has with the next track. (So Jethro Tull really hit it on the nail when they just released one 40 minute song over one album back in '72.)

Anyway, personally I would love to hear some more repetitions and expansions of some parts, but it's a 7 minute medley and it works really well at that.

And don't worry about OCRemix. This is a good place to get comments and critique and to find people on the same scene, but the path for passing the judges and getting posted is very narrow and a lot of great music doesn't get through. Naturally, as you've already discovered, there are other places, and it seems to me that the people who really care about music in a wider perspective don't lose a minute of sleep over OCR. Congrats on your success on youtube, btw!

... Och jag ser förstås att du är svensk! Kolla in min musik om du har lust (rock/funk/prog-versioner av mestadels NES-låtar [har en WIP av Jewel Man här]) och hör gärna av dig ifall du vill samarbeta nån gång, eller bara snacka tv-spels-musik eller musik i allmänhet. Jag försöker ägna så mycket tid som möjligt åt musiken och letar alltid efter folk med samma inriktning.

Rock on!

Henrik

[FreddeGredde]

A bit off-topic, but:

Lie Mf B: Hehe, and despite the fact that we both love progressive rock, we have opposite views on it! I think the problem with most older prog rock is that the solo parts drag on for far too long. Also I think that "Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull IS cohesive and just brilliant! It's a bit too draggy though (they had to do SOMETHING to cover up the side switching, but the "do you believe" over and over is just boring), but I've been thinking lots of times that I gotta do a remake that's just 20-25 minutes, 'cause it would be the perfect epic in my ears.

Oh, and I don't agree that prog rock bands could just mix every song together. I think it's very important that the epics have proper (and powerful) openings and endings, and that they use the themes for different stuff in the middle, and also mix it all up with different parts to make it all more varied. So in that way my medley isn't really ultimate, but then again, it's a medley and not an epic. ^^

Och jag försökte kolla upp din musik, men det är nåt skumt, för jag får bara 2 sekunder av låtarna på din sajt och din jewel man. :S

[Lie Mf B]

Yeah, I do agree that solos (and any other part) can drag on for way too long. I listen to a lot of jam based music (Hendrix, Led Zep, Cream, Grateful Dead, etc.) so I've got my share of great and dull and endless noodling.

I also agree that prog epics should be real songs with a proper structure, and that this really works in this genre. But I've heard too many performances that are just melodies, riffs, chords, etc., one after another with a questionable flow and no repeats, which means that the concept of a "song" just disappears. In that case, the artist might as well do a "Thick as a Brick".

I love that Jethro Tull album, and I think that about 95% of the song is perfect. But as far as prog albums go, I consider Aqualung, or the Yes records Fragile and Close to the Edge more "ultimate".

That's also how I prefer to make, or listen to, video game music -- a mixture of longer epics and shorter interludes and little ditties -- some sources expanded, others just a little riff that gives way to the next track. As long as every song is good and the whole package is cohesive.

Fan vad jag häver ur mig självklarheter, känns det som plötsligt.

Jag har lagat Jewel Man-länken nu, men de flesta av mina låtar på sajten är fortfarande nere p.g.a. serverkrasch. (Några finns dock, bl.a. på Myspace.)

[FreddeGredde]

Actually I've never really cared for albums as a whole. There are always stuff I don't like, so I focus on songs instead. (And I rip the best songs to the computer so I don't have to deal with cd's.)

So, I really like the song Close to the Edge, it's up there among the best epics ever. "And you and I" is great for what it is too, while I don't care for Siberian Khatru. It's the same for the Fragile album, the three longer songs are great, but I would never listen to the whole thing.

Also Aqualung is just lots of different parts and songs, sometimes glued together well. Some things are great, but Thick as a Brick is totally different to me since it really is a single piece, a true epic. ^^ I didn't say it's ultimate, but I think it WOULD be if shortened down 10-20 minutes to improve focus.

Jag har lyssnat på lite blandat av din musik nu, och tyvärr måste jag säga ungefär vad de flesta andra också verkar säga, att det ofta känns för ofokuserat. Självklart är det en smaksak, men jag gillar ju variation och fokus, inte ett riff som spelas i flera minuter till lite gitarr-noodlande, innan själva melodin dyker upp. Därför jag föredrar nyare prog rock som Transatlantic eller tillochmed Dream Theater, som bryter upp till nya grejer snabbare.

If you intend to answer this, we might as well go private to stop bumping this thread.