OCR02754 - *YES* Mega Man X4 & X5 'I Am the One Who Designed and Built Mega Man X'

[DragonAvenger]

Hey guys, this is one of the songs for Maverick Rising. I was conflicted about submitting it in the past, but with the convincing from people like Bahamut. I am subb'a'dub'dubbin.

Your ReMixer name: BONKERS

Your real name: Nicholas Steven Perry

Your website:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1310105117

Your userid:31818

Submission Information

Name of game(s) arranged: Rockman X4 (MegaMan X4),Rockman X5 (MegaMan X5) Name of arrangement: I am the one who Designed and Built MegaMan X

Name of individual song(s) arranged: Dr.light Theme X4 and X5

Link to the original soundtrack:

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc:

The first thing I wish to say is, "listen very carefully the first section of the song"

See if you can find some important part of Dr.Light's theme from the Original X(X5 in this case) that is slyly integrated into the compostition/arrangement of Dr.Light's theme from X4

Really, the easiest way to put it is that these two songs are just meant for each other. It's a strange thing but they just sort encompass the mysterious feeling of all of Dr.Light's left behind capulsles and messages for X and his allies through the course of the X saga. It's fitting as such that they are incorporated together as Dr.Light's own cheesy ,awesome ,rock/prog(kinda?? XD) /ambient , song!

Back to reality, I took a very different approach to making this song than I have done for any other song before(and it's unlikely i'll revisit at least how liberal I got).

At first I had started out with the idea of making it with 80's heavy metal style guitars and everything.(Which was my initial concept)

http://kiwi6.com/file/19z736eofh

I wasn't very satisfied with this concept for some reason. As you can see by my concept recroding, this actually doesn't sound half bad!

Mind you this was in September of 2010, so I can't recall my exact reasons for abandoning this concept.

Next comes what I had called the "weird orchestra ver." http://kiwi6.com/file/9cb3x567td

and we can see why, it's muddy as fuck! Drowned out with reverb (though kind of epicly) and I had stuck some weird FX chain on the MasterBus (which was retarded to say the least).

I was stuck on this version for a while because the ideas that came to me changed the game. Changed my plan, and changed how I processed everything in my brain.

Particularly the section with the harp after the first 2/3 main sections. This you will obviously recognize in the final song. This melody was crafted from the notes and rhythms(note values of the phrases) of both Motif's. However I couldn't muster up anything else to bridge everything together and fill in the arrangement and structure of the song.

This is where I put to use what I call "The Iwadare Method" (I'm sure some will know who it's named after) Now, TIM is basically using the imagination of your mind to construct songs and veritably hear all the musical notes, rhythms, chords, progressions, percussion and, just about everything in between.And translate what you hear from the image of the music in your mind, on to paper, instrument and audio. (i'm sure some will know what this is and have learned it one way or another and call it whatever!)

So. I started taking my Lab Amy(RIP Nov 1st, 2011) on long walks all around where I was living at the time in California(where I grew up and lived before living in Oregon) I would put my body in auto-pilot and drift off to "BONK LAND" essentially. On many occasions I came up with many ideas. Though I would often forget the whole picture and go BONKERS. So I'd go out again with my dog to figure out. Eventually I managed to take hold of the whole idea.

I got to work on writing out the initial plan in Overture as sheet music. It was a crazy blend of prog type stuff, rock, synthsized madness with an ambient breakdown. I used my previous concoction of a melody to craft structure in which the melody flowed in the song like it would in Dr.Lights theme in the two games, with a funky switch of Gm to Am midway with tons of chord variations based on the melody being chordal tones on different triads eventually pulling what I call a "Dun-dun-!-DUN-DUN-DUN-DUNNNN!!" Or in Time-signature speak. "1 measure 2/8 + 1 measure 3/4 back in to 4/4" which bridges my melody with that part I told you to look for eariler(the melody of X5 Dr.Light). Not running short on nifty chord changes either ,that winds down into a straight cover of X5 Dr.Light(mostly, though sometimes I feel like it could've been better) ending in a strange flush of pedal'd notes of furry that lead to the ambient , mellow mid section of the song.

I wrote up to this point and figured out the end of the song by riffing on my guitar based on the Dr.Light Chord progression and coming up with the rest of the accompaniment off the top of my head for everything else that leads into a reiteration of the X4 Melody followed by a sort of prog'ish synth solo section that warps into a machine gun thundering final melody that ends in a 3/4 measure of 1|5 power chords harmonized in 4ths , 5ths for accomp. And 3rds and 8ths(oct) for the melodies.(IIRC that is)

The end is met Dr.Light's motif once again gracing us with a cheesy little flute solo and Dr.Light himself introducing and bringing it all to a close.

The song was recorded, sequenced ,mixed and mastered in early January 2011. It's been sitting ever since, waiting to be heard and ridiculed by the masses all this time!

In closing, MegaMan X is one of my favorite game series, but what I enjoy most about is the music. I generally am goood to terrible at the games themselves and X1,4 and 5 in particular are special to me. Their atmospheres, designs ,music ,art and gameplay chill me to the bone. I've been playing MM as long as I can remember , though I was born in 91', my first MM games were MM2&3. I was 6 by the time X4 came out and it must have just been the right thing at the right time because it just blew my mind how perfect it was. To this day X4's music by the Musical Mastermind Toshihiko Horiyama (Known for various MM ost's and Apollo Justice's OST) is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks of any kind(OH THE SYNTHS, THE SYNTHSSSS)! The same could generally said about every MM' game's OST really!

Well enough blabberin', I hope you guys can deal with my very liberal approach on these themes. I am almost ashamed myself to have gone this nuts on this song when I am one of the most conservative guys when it comes to Arranging music and talk poodoo about way too liberal songs!

Also: I DARE YOU TO LISTEN TO THIS SONG A 0.77% (don't keep the pitch, let the speed drop the pitch!)speed for the EPIC BALLAD VERSION. (Or pitch shift it down 4 semi-tones for the UBER METAL VERSION)

T_O?

~BONKERS

PS`: Thanks to Bahamut and everyone else for encouraging me to submit this and absolutely everyone who helped and provided feedback along the way over on KNGI. I am absolutely proud to be apart of Maverick Rising, it is IMO one of OCR's most fitting and amazing albums yet! (Srsly, Electronic music+MegaManX+electric guitars and billions of other awesome instruments? SCORE!@)

[DragonAvenger]

Definitely an interesting approach to two themes that are both related, and not. I think that your approach of combining the two themes works a little better on paper than it does in practice, mostly because the notes are so close in range that it's hard to make out one theme or the other clearly. Having one an octave higher than the other might have fixed that, or having more drastically different instruments. Aside from that, the arrangement is pretty clear on the two themes, and they are nice approaches to both. I'm not completely sold on the transitions at a couple spots, but I think it's not at a level where I think it affects my vote.

Production is clean and the parts are varied. Nice drumwork overall, and the playing is good. I'm definitely willing to call this a pass.

YES

[Palpable]

Great arrangement ideas, great execution. If this has a weakness, it's definitely the transitions. Certainly I've heard mainstream music that had abrupt transitions like this (seems to happen a lot in prog), but it makes it comes across almost like a medley. I also think sometimes the leads aren't that well-integrated and sound like they're floating on top of the rest of the song, but that wasn't as big a concern when the rest of the production is clicking. I'm gonna go ahead and pass it, but I think I would have loved this if the sections flowed together better. It felt more disjointed than I like.

YES

[halc]

loved the first transition into the slightly faster tempo (mostly because I thought the intro was a little sloppy), but some of the transitions after that were definitely feeling weird and medleyish as the others have mentioned, and the pad breakdown felt overly long and kinda out of place to me. not as tight as some of your past sub(s) but I'll agree that overall the arrangement and production were passable, although borderline imo.

YES

[OceansAndrew]

I didn't really dig the transitions, but everything else was the hotness. Cool parts, a nice soundscape, it's all here.

Yes

[Emunator]

Hey uh, sorry to bother you again. But I noticed that my Dr.Light X4/5 song passed the panel here recently. But that actually was a bit of a bad thing.

Because I was honestly expecting it to get no'd for production issues. I subbed this before I made any of my final fixes for the Album version (And some other small fixes that I made for the Youtube video). So I was prepared to resub my fixed version. But then , well you know , it passed.

Here is the one I wanted to resub

Though I don't know if that's possible, or if you guys would have to re-evaluate it? Or Just start the process over?

Sorry to bother you with this D:

Anything we can do about this? Thanks.