Mega Man: The Wily Castle Remix Gauntlet 2011

[SectorZ]

It's kind of funny that, after Darke talked about capping the number of participants to make the competition between participants closer, the last few rounds have been very close near the end (this round, there's seven in a pretty close competition).

Yes, it is close right now, but it's hard to tell exactly how close because Rexy changes her votes more often than a Snake Man sheds its skin.

[Rexy]

Yes, that's how close the competition is; one minute I'd think "such and such a person should win", the next I'd think completely differently. With orlounge's theory stated above also taken into consideration, you can see how it's been hard for me to pick all week xD

For example, right now my first place vote is standing at Rozovian's entry "Halite". I wasn't really won over by the production techniques when I first listened, so it didn't immediately grab my attention, but the way he handled the sources really grew on me over the course of the week and has resulted in a strong collaboration with the rest of the Mega Ballers. Considering that "Solidity" was my first place vote in Round 3, it tells me something of how Rozovian is plowing through the contest.

And then there's my current second place vote, "Black Alleycat". That was one that grabbed my attention production wise, but I similarly passed over it because I didn't sense enough Shadow Man on my first few listens (then again my familiarity with Mega Man 3 is a bit faint). But I dig the mood with that one, and it should be something for Amphibious to be proud of, a very consistent performer in this contest

[SectorZ]

Yes, that's how close the competition is; one minute I'd think "such and such a person should win", the next I'd think completely differently. With orlounge's theory stated above also taken into consideration, you can see how it's been hard for me to pick all week xD

That's why I waited until the end to vote. There are so many great entries this week that I have been going back and forth all week.

[Gario]

That's why I waited until the end to vote. There are so many great entries this week that I have been going back and forth all week.

Really? I wait until the end because I'm buzy/lazy.

[Rozovian]

My votes. Why do I wait until Saturday to vote?

call the fire department

nice sounds but raw sound, hard transitions.

when the moon cries

somewhere between poetry recital and metal-y singing, also long and slow. not my thing. at least it's not voice clips. nice sounds.

which one do i shoot?!

compression bothers me. some generic sounds. scratching and glitches, cool. nice take on gemini, too.

float

i was going for shortest name of the round, u fiend. nice and mellow track. slow and drawn out gets boring after a while. nice sounds, esp. at the end, really like that lead thing.

wily's ruin

more vocals. messy, a little exaggerated, but good attitude.

skull shield

way too hard transitions. good energy. could have had a bigger ending. vocal clip.

a swarm of voxels

really cool sound. getting a tmnt vibe.

halite

three-way collab practice, just in case. terrible intro. annoying ride, and the rest is even worse. whoever made this something something.

black alleycat

i like this intro. nice groove. i like this track. gets a bit old tho, could have changed some more in chords or something.

totally tubular fortress

more 80s. i like the sync/pwm synth.

megaman awesome

hopeful much? cool drums, occasional empty parts, clashing writing. if it doesn't get better before half the track is over... it doesn't. check that your writing doesn't clash... and if it still sounds weird, check that your instruments aren't tuned differently (easy to check on synths, just check the oscillator pitches). tuner plugins are useful for this stuff (I use those for making sure my noise/filter/resonance patches are tuned right, as those don't use oscillator pitch).

[SilvernixSP]

Ruby Spears Mega Man Cartoon Theme Song. At the end of my song the melody for "Super Fighting Robot.... Mega Man!" plays on one of the backing synths.

Wow, I would have never found it, this is awesome.

[Gario]

Uploading mine now - sorry if it's a few minutes late, DS, I needed time to encode it.

[DarkeSword]

This week's theme is

.

[Rexy]

Cool choice, Shariq. I'll inform Brandon about it right away as he makes the last charge for the BGR

[SuperiorX]

This week's theme is

.

Oh what a great theme! There better be some epic stuff coming this round! I'm pretty jealous I don't get to remix this one.

So Mega Man 3 is our only MM game excluded... round 10?

[Phonetic Hero]

Holy. Shit. This theme is awesome. I'm taking the reigns this week for the Mega Ballers. MERRY CHRISTMAS, BITCHES!!

[SuperiorX]

Holy. Shit. This theme is awesome. I'm taking the reigns this week for the Mega Ballers. MERRY CHRISTMAS, BITCHES!!

Yeah you have received the greatest Wily theme ever, so you better make this awesome! No pressure

[Cyril the Wolf]

OH man, I wish I got this wily theme. Oh well MM1 blended with Shade's theme too friggin well for me to even think about passing up.

[SuperiorX]

OH man, I wish I got this wily theme. Oh well MM1 blended with Shade's theme too friggin well for me to even think about passing up.

Oh man, I forgot you were even in this thing Cyril . I love Shade Man's theme, and I imagine it worked great with the MM1 Wily theme. I'll can't wait to hear what you came up with.

[Cyril the Wolf]

Oh man, I forgot you were even in this thing Cyril . I love Shade Man's theme, and I imagine it worked great with the MM1 Wily theme. I'll can't wait to hear what you came up with.

You'll be a little surprised, its definitely not my usual style.

[Benjamin Briggs]

I will be remixing for The Boner Guys this round

i mean hardmen

[Gario]

Holy crap you had Shade Man with the Wily 1-1 theme? Seriously, that was all that was running through my mind all week... completely disrupted my thought process for Magnet Man, in fact.

Lucky bastard

[Cyril the Wolf]

Holy crap you had Shade Man with the Wily 1-1 theme? Seriously, that was all that was running through my mind all week... completely disrupted my thought process for Magnet Man, in fact.

Lucky bastard

Yea, its super bad too becuase i didn't start working on it until last night. Which makes me a terrible person.

[SuperiorX]

Holy crap you had Shade Man with the Wily 1-1 theme? Seriously, that was all that was running through my mind all week... completely disrupted my thought process for Magnet Man, in fact.

Lucky bastard

That's actually really funny cause I kept thinking of Shade Man too. Both themes have that "Castlevania" vibe to them.

[DarkeSword]

Apologies about results and tallies guys. I'll try to catch up with all that stuff this week.

Mixes are up and available for download.

Just want to point out something about voting that I've noticed in the past two rounds, though:

Voting closes at 12:00PM EST. It doesn't matter if I haven't gotten around to posting a "voting is closed" thing in the voting thread precisely at noon. The main thread for the competition (this one) clearly states that the voting stage ends at noon. If your vote is after 12:00PM I'm not going to count it (excluding my votes; I'm running the competition).

[Mr. L]

Just wanted to say great job to everyone in this round.

Was glad to be a part of this, and I hope you guys have a Merry Christmas!

And call the fire department, for zach72 is taking the reins this week.

Edit: And sorry about my entry -- I didn't add about half of it until about 3 this morning. Of course, it sounded all right then, but now...

Either way, still happy to have given it a shot.

[DarkeSword]

Also wanted to say that with round 8, you guys have broken the 5 hour mark in terms of how much music you've written for this competition.

[Zerothemaster]

0

Edit: And sorry about my entry -- I didn't add about half of it until about 3 this morning. Of course, it sounded all right then, but now...

Dude

I know how you feel. Same thing that happened to my first mix.

NOOBS UNITE!!!!11!!!!!1!!! =D

PS I'm mixing for the Gentlemaster's Club this week.

[ectogemia]

Well, I have an awkward hour or two of nothing to do before the first of many chrimbus dinners I'm signed up for, so it's review time.

Synthesize This -- Got a nice disco orchestral feel to it. I feel like that lead needs a little life, some vibrato for sure. That filter envelope just isn't cutting it. Right around 2:12, there's a muted guitar sounding thing that is panned pretty hard left. Kinda obnoxious, needs to be closer to center or better balanced. Benny Hill theme? Why the hell not, right? Not sure why this bothered me, but at the end of some of the phrases, the lead would filter out a lot... just when one would figure the lead should be at its strongest to really strongly close out the melodic idea. Whaaaa, and an Earthbound reference at the end? Nice. Welp, I really enjoyed it. It was well put together and very well-produced despite those minor issues I brought up.

Cruise Control -- I get the vibe that all your remixes for this compo have been pretty "safe" so to speak. I really would have liked to have seen some weirdo stuff going on, but I guess I'm just partial to weirdo music a lot of the time. Annnyway, the arrangement is very tight and concise, although it's extremely conservative. The production was excellent, but I thought the guitar could have used juuuuust a bit more love.

Drag Me Up (to Heaven) -- Oh shit, I love it already. The arp that starts around 0:27 is just a little loud and hot on the highs. I love the rhythms going on here. Hah, the Magnet Man arrangement is so weird. It's much slower than I'm used to hearing. Those panning pulse stabs beginning around 1:32 are a little loud and hot on the highs as well.

Tomahawk Man's Final Chapter -- The spoken word stuff is too loud and exposed and panned left a little bit. Piano is a bit dry and mechanical as well. Hah, all that being said... I love the weirdness of it. The chip lead is a bit loud as well. You've gotta low pass that magical8bit stuff juuuust a little bit. They're really fuzzy with the very high frequencies being so naturally loud. The stereo image around 2:02 when the organ comes in is vastly different than what was occurring immediately before it, and the transition is slightly jarring. The muted rhythm guitar at time is extremely quiet and indiscernible -- kinda just seems like noise. LMAO, the "nooooo" at 4:42. Sounds like Consuela. Ok, and that last Tomahawk Man line was wonderful. Yeah, so by the end of it all, this remix had won me over. I really wasn't sure if you were being serious or not through it all, so I didn't want to be an ass and start trashing the spoken word stuff, but yeah. By the end it was pretty clear you were just being 100% hilarious. So anyway, thank you for that. Very creative, solid arrangement, production was lacking a bit.

Towering Shade -- It all seems a bit dry and conservative, although I know you mentioned that you started it last night or something like that, so considering that, it's alright.

Subarctic Nightfall -- Ooooo, I love the juxtaposition of the rhythm and the chill piano-y stuff. That being said the first piano lead-in is a bit loud. Right around 1:07 there's a bit of an awkward harmonic moment. Piano is too loud again around 1:13. I kinda struggled to hear the crappy Wily theme. Anyway, nice work man. You've really honed your chops since your first entry. It shows. You're starting to figure out the chillout style.

Top This -- In response to the explicit challenge in your remix title, please see remix #09 entitled Current Events (Elec Man in Wily Tower 1-1) in order to have your challenge met. Welp, I said it before: DAT BASS. So damn thick. And yeah, I don't know what I was missing the first time. I hear Wily's theme loud and clear this time. I think the first listen I gave it was more of a "HOLLYY CRAPPPP" listen, just kinda taking in all the craziness for its own sake. That comb filtered wubwub bass is NICE. The odd harmonies of Top Man's theme as played by that bell-sounding thing were awesome. Yeah, so this even better the second time around. Awesome work. If I were even remotely a dancer, I would have danced to this.

Ivory Tower -- Oh I geddit. Ivory because it's a piano. Welp, I love me some solo piano and I love me some classical musikz, so let's see how this goes. Very nicely composed so far. All that theory that I'll never learn, and so expertly implemented! And yet completely lost on me. Love the abrupt transition into Wily at about 1:24. Gorgeous arpeggios at 1:59. Eh, I really don't know what to say about this one. I really have nothing to critique. Just an #1 spot? Probably.

Electropuncture -- The lead at the beginning needs a little off its high-end and volume. The arps are nice Did everyone use square arps in their respective remixes this week? I'm sure C7 had them in there somewhere with the piano. Arps were a bit loud around 1:40 as well. But holy crap, man. This is a sweet arrangement. Very chaotic and crazy. The piano needs a lot of production and humanization love. The piano's compression was extremely apparent during those runs around 1:58. Soon after, the piano chords were squashing other frequencies and exhibiting overcompression as well. 2:25 transition got me rock hard. both themes were VERY well integrated. There was a ton of source material here, but it still seemed like a completely unique product, so nice job!

The Return of Gangsta Man -- YOU HAVE DEFEATED GANGSTA MAN. GET EQUIPPED WITH: F. STAMPS. Haha, I LOVE the crash man implementation at 0:52. Once the chip lead comes in, it's a bit weak (are you using the Crash setting on Peach? how creative ). The lead at 1:48 needs to be quieter and it needs to be EQ'd pretty heavily as it's clashing with other instruments. The minor Crash Man at the end was excellent, too. Solid arrangement with some production issues.

I'm a little partial to complex arrangements and chips, so Gario gets the #1. I love me some piano, so C7 grabs #2. Flexstyle's arrangement was thicker than Queen Latifah. #3.

1. Drag Me Up (to Heaven)

2. Ivory Tower

3. Top This

[Rexy]

No Ecto, it's not Earthbound and the wah guitar was panned hard left because it's a rhythm instrument to compliment the rhodes on the hard right.

I've been gaining inspiration from a lot of 70s funk on this one, and just flat out trying to make it as silly as possible since I know just being serious about it in round 2 didn't work out.