OCR02018 - Team Fortress 2 "Electrodispenser"

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Djinn]

That is some HUGE bass. Great work.

[Brandon Strader]

Wow, is there any genre of electronica that zircon CAN'T do?

lol

[A-RoN]

Wow, did zircon just go "Daft Punk" on us?! Amazing!

Anyway, here's the review. zircon gives alot of varied mixes and as of late did a great spoof on another spoof of a game with the same name: Schmelda's Macarena of Time. But onto the song; the intro has some growling bass that you would normally hear in drum and bass music, but at :23 he drops one of the fatest Daft Punk style beats I've heard in a while. The bellish leads are kind of drowned out by the bass, but that could be just my headphones. I tried listening with the treble and found they're more paddish in terms of leads. Some of the saw work is amazingly impressive after 0:55 seconds where the beat sounds more rocky than house (BTW, for those here who think electro-house is boring, refer all the electro house tracks to myself (I need more of that stuff)). Anyway, At 1:41, we get a little bit of break core action to 1:55 which brings us to an awesome melody of the "next song?" Then at 2:23 we hear a more spy theme oriented song. This track seems more like a medley which is a nice switch, but I'm a guy who likes his techno with variations in sound and chords rather than rythums. The ends kind of a teaser as you think it's a transition, but it drops to the root note of the last song. It kind of left me wanting more to be honest. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

I'd recommend this track to Daft Punk fans, but the over-all medley-ish feel to it may leave listeners scratching their heads (not my problem). So if I were to rate this unbiasedly, it would be a perfect 10/10, but for those who want a more traditional electro house song, you'd probably get 9/10 in this case, due to squishing three songs into 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

PS Again, electro-house isn't boring to me, It is my second-favourite music genre and I can listen to it for hours. Send me your tracks if you have any, even if you feel they may bore others.

Love

Aaron

[Flexstyle]

That bass is probably the sickest (in a good way) thing to come off the OCR mirror sites in a loooong time. I second the idea that it might have been better off just taking one theme and direction and running with it, but the medley is cool too. It's definitely one of your better mixes, mister Aversa, and I absolutely love it! Slick production values and OH SWEET MERCY DID I MENTION THAT BASS? Zebra 2, yes? Props!

(by the way, everyone, you should add me on Steam so that I can play TF2 with you, now that this song has brought it up: doctor_uncanny is the id)

[ambient]

So glad that zircon finally decided to do something electro housey. It is a little less musically complex than most of zircon's mixes, and more focused on getting the contemporary sound - which is exactly what I was hoping zircon would do one of these days. Although, I would have been a bit happier if he did in the end sell out and go full on for a "boring" electro house remix.

Electro or electronica, call it whatever you like, but this track is the closest thing to electro house that is on this site at the moment. While bLiNd did a good job on "Golbez N' Goblins", the source just doesn't translate well into electro.

Probably my favorite new mix on OCR in recent memory. zircon, please make more mixes like this one!!!

[Sir_Snooze]

YES!! Holy balls, yes! It's good to finally have some TF2 respect on the scene! djp more or less nailed what I think on the head (less musically complex than most of zircon's works but still thirty flavours of awesome), but that doesn't mean I won't be rockin' out to it while I play.

Thanks, zircon! Solid, solid, SOLID stuff.

[The Radical Sifu]

This week I've been obsessively listening to Justice and craving more electro-dancey-hardcoreness. Thank you, zircon, for satisfying my urges.

This f'ing rocks.

[Hollidayrain]

Andrew, you are insane man. This track is crazy...that's the easiest way I can put it. This is dirrrtyyyy....wowwwww. I swear man, this is why I love this site. The only videogame that I play these days is Mario Kart, but the quality of music that comes out here transcends the games themselves for me. And this is another example of it: never played TF2 (hate on me if you'd like...haha), but I still love this remix!

By the way, I would like to personally thank you for introducing me to Zebra2 through all of your youtube music tutorials....invested in it over winter break and it is currently my favorite VST, easily.

[SargeSmash]

I'm detecting a bit of a Streets of Rage vibe here. Awesome stuff. Ever thought of tackling a few more tunes from that series?

[relyanCe]

this is some phat beats right here. nothing less than what I'd expect from the zirc himself.

Great stuff, Andy. Keep it comin', man.

[nugzta]

Dear zircon,

THIS IS AWESOME!!!111

Best Regards

nugzta

[OceansAndrew]

I love that slightly layered clap, and the sounds are excellent. The arrangement itself is very rocking, and has a strong feel. The shift to triplets was very well handled and gave a good extended transition to a new theme.

My only complaint is that the ending seemed a little weak; compared to the strong builds in the first half, the second half didn't exceed it. Still an awesome mix though.

[Emunator]

I'll agree with OA that the ending wasn't very strong and you seemed to reach the peak energy of the mix relatively early in the mix so the latter half (despite the awesome percussion) was kind of a letdown.

That said, the dubsteppy bass is the shit and the way the rest of your instrumentation complements it is fantastic. One of the most fun mixes to come by the front page in a while!

[Master_Yoshi]

NEED A DISPENSER HERE! NEED A DISPENSER HERE! NEED A DISPENSER HERE!

*clunk*

Dispenser, Comin' right up!

Ahhh... Bloody Brilliant. I will now voice my thoughts which sort of mirror other peoples'. The intro/opening section was absolutely amazing, right from the get go I was loving the groove you had set up. Sort of reminds me of Beatdrop, nice to see you are extending yourself to embrace the raw power of noise. At a minute and a half or so in you change things up and it feels a lot more reminiscent of your earlier work, but I was digging it pretty hard. I could almost grab and fondle the flow basket.

2:22 on seems kind of... tacked on? It's such a disparate jump from what you had going on the rest of the mix, I mean I can see how you build up again to something groovy and raw and toss in some amazing percussion, but did you really have to drop it and then build back up to that? The issue I have is that you spend so much time rebuilding yourself that by the time it is all clicking and popping in place it already ends. And I am left feeling as unfulfilled as Bruce Willis being cast into the part of a middle-aged dad in some teen romance flick. Without shooting anything.

[halc]

awesome mix. love the bass

[zircon]

Thanks for all the comments. You might notice that none of my mixes are very repetitive. I prefer to present ideas and then move on rather than repeat them ad nauseum, which is why I find a LOT of dance music (especially electro house) extremely boring... it's literally the same kind of loop for 16, 32, 64 bars. The way I write a lot of my arrangements is to have smaller builds and falls in the energy and layering of the track. So, 2:18 is a mini-climax. Then we have a fall to a lower dynamic with lots of new elements (the glitchy bongos and hand perc.) That rise continues for about a full 42 seconds before we get "the money", which is similar to the first section of the track, but up a whole step, with bongos/hand perc, a more dramatic bass and lead, and of course a huge ending.

Could I have repeated that last section for another 8-16 bars? Yes, but what would this have added, musically? Nothing. No additional dynamics, no excitement, no drama. Right now, the ending is 16 bars plus the 'hit' at the end. Doubling the length would make it extremely repetitious since we've essentailly already heard a toned-down version of this section once before.

Also, it's very hard to transition from 3/4 back to 4/4 feasibly, and while I could have eliminated the whole breakdown... where's the fun in that? Again, it's not exciting to just keep things going at the same dynamic when there are so many new potential elements to play with and showcase. Here's what I like to be able to do: jump around in a remix I've made and be able to tell, without looking, whether I'm closer to the beginning, middle or end. Too much repetition and filler material diminishes that and makes the whole track sound same-y.

[CC Ricers]

Ah, arrangement compression. Condensing all the ideas down to a short time

Nice remix, it may be electronic but it's definitely breaking out of zircon's usual style. My favorite part comes after the breakdown- A suitable replacement to the current TF2 music on the title screen.

That bass has some real character too. There are various changes in its tone and texture. Good bass is not just about making your speakers tremble.

[ZealPath]

It's really cool to have a TF2 mix on the site, not only do a lot of people here play the game, the soundtrack (even though you only hear it when you first start the game) is really unique and catchy.

There was little doubt in my mind when I saw this that I would enjoy it, though to be honest on the first listen it didn't really do too much for me. Since then, let's just say it's gotten exponentially better, to the point where I've been playing it several times in a row. It's really all anyone could hope for for an electro/dancy remix of the TF2 main theme, and it's pretty addictive!

As soon as I listened to it the first time I knew it could only really end one way, with that oh so familiar victory jingle (I guess it's used in draws too, in a different way). It works perfectly and is the icing on the cake on a really fun mix!

[JadeAuto]

This is fantastic stuff. Really deep, throbbing sound.

Crank this sucka up on a high powered sound system (or a nice set of headphones) and let it blow your mind.

Great stuff, Zircon. Loved the ending bit.

[Martin Penwald]

Incredibly fat low end: the bass is awesome.

I can see where zircon is coming from on the topic of variation in arrangement. Many electronica songs are quite repetitive if you listen actively, i.e. they're much better used as background music that you don't pay that much attention to.

Obviously, this remix does not suffer from repetition.

[Mtlbro]

Off with those lights and start the strobe !!

[DarkSim]

Another amazing remix from zircon... this has been sitting at the top of my most played list for a month - I just can't stop listening to it!

Reading zircon's comment from earlier gives an interesting insight into the creative and technical process behind this track. The lack of repetition makes this track so more-ish that I'm more likely to listen to it than if there were an extra 16 bars of the house-style beat put in there just for the sake of it.

I also think that this track is kind of like the Avatar of music, in that where Avatar just looked so good, the instruments in this tune sound so good. I'm listening not just to the overall tune, but to each individual component on each listen. Right from the off it's just so interesting to listen to - everything is produced and balanced perfectly. That bass at 0:10 just tickles your eardrums letting you know you're going to be in for a treat, and the track doesn't disappoint.

Incredibly interesting stuff here. Now I need to go install TF2...

[ddavis1979]

You know...the first time I listened to this, I wasnt impressed. Now I am ashamed of myself for that! It was playing in the background while I was gaming and now I cant hear it enough. It may be one of my favorite remixes of all time, Excellent work!

[relyanCe]

this song just gets better and better every time I hear it, from the irresistibly catchy intro all the way to the punch-you-in-the-face awesome ending. Zircon will have a hard time outdoing himself with this one, but I know he will, and I can't wait to see him do it.