OCR00387 - Super Castlevania IV "Castle Trance"

[Saunders]

Super Castlevania IV 'Castle Trance'

I love the lone percussion at the beginning of this tune. It’s joined quickly by a more thumping kick drum I believe, and a strange sort of whistle sound. Then the full background kicks in. It does a little whistle-y repetition for a while, and at about 1:20 the real melody kicks in. The little harpsichord(?) almost-solo at ~1:35 made me smile. Strings and a sort of wind-chime sound bring the song back to normal shortly after. I like the main lead sample at this point. At ~2:40 the song changes to a very techno-y style for a little bit. Overall I liked this mix, not exactly memorable, but I enjoyed listening to it. 3/5

[mDuo13]

Apparently my sense of taste is not in full coherence with Rob Saunders', because I happen to think that this is one of McVaffe's best. A nice trance melody with lots of good transitions. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about this song. It's a VERY awesome mix, and you should get it and cherish it and loop it over and over and over and... well, you get the idea. DOWNLOAD NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gnam]

This 4 minute mix contains about 45 seconds of tunage from the original song (divided into two 22 second segments and dispersed widely and thinly through the length of the remix). The rest is just techno/trance that has nothing to do with the original. It's really more of a Castlevania remix of Mcvaffe's techno/trance song than a techno/trance remix of Konami's Castlevania song. I don't think the McVaffe's beat can really stand alone as it's own song either though. The drums in the intro are kinda nice, as are the background "melodies" accompanying the techno beat through the majority of the mix, but they don't really seem substandtial enough by themselves to make the mix solely. If you're a hardcore trance fan I suppose the beat and other background stuff is enough to satisfy, but it's not enough for my personal tastes. It is fairly listenable and might make good filler on your Castlevania remix cd in between songs, but IMO, nothing more.

[zircon]

I would say this is NOT generic techno or trance. McVaffe, as always, packs very high quality samples and arrangement, and it's evident that he has mastered usage of effects. Though perhaps you wouldn't think so while casually listening to it, a more careful listen does show a wide variety of interesting and cool-sounding effects, samples, etc. This is exactly what I'm come to expect from McV, and an excellent representation of his ability to go above and beyond the benchmark for a given genre.

My one complain would be it is sometimes, a certain part will loop for several uncomfortable seconds more than I'd like, but this isn't a problem when listening to it casually.

[Cheeszeman_]

yo. *counts his # times lisnted to on itunes* wow.... i gotta say, ive listened to this alot more than i thought.... its a very interesting song.... got alot of differant insturments, and things... dynamics good, but i gotta agree with Zircon, some parts of the song felt like they'd never end... it was really strange, first 20 seconds has a part like that

yeah, i feel like if you take all the McVaffe songs... and put them together u come up with this. *holy music*

[jordex]

Wow! A castlevania 4 song that's not Vampire Killer.

I love the part at 1:36!

[meccaneer]

--revised after many more listens--

This is one of McVaffe's earlier tracks, yes? For this reason I can be forgiving. I really don't like this song too much. It starts with a nice poundy whumping and a Metroid-like whistle. But, all the keys used in the song are kinda cheesy and tonally out-of-place. It sounds to me like there's an organ, harpsichord and a piano used, though, I can't really tell what they are. I don't like them - they don't work. I really, really like McVaffe's other work - this is pretty weak.

Please, stop making dance tracks, people. I'm not dancing' to them.

[Phoenix Down]

This is definately one of my favorite remixes. Just love that techno-beat in the background. The procussion at the beginning almost sounds like the start of some free-style drum circle, which is cool. As for that strange futuristic whistle, that's something diffinately interesting, but I feel it gives the remix personality. When the melody begins to kind of kick in before the harpsichord, I like how almost the game music itself was implemented, because again I felt it gave the remix character and a bit of personality as did when the harpsichord finally did kick in. I really liked that touch, because to me that really gave it a Castlevania touch. One of the things I find cool is that ghostly sort of wind instrument in the background, wouldn't know what to call it, but it gives it a nice 'ghostly' feel as I said before. Overall,I really love the instrumentation. It seems some what rather experimental, but in a good way. I could see myself dancing to this actually if they did play it at a rave or something. Why? Maybe because I'm crazy and maybe it's because I'm a crazy female who loves techno, but one things for sure. I really do love this Remix and I think McVaffe did an excellent job.

[OceansAndrew]

The drums on this are awesome at the beginning, and though it's a very liberal arrangement, the quality is there. Personally, i'd say it's a little too liberal, as I can't discern much of the source at all, but the entire mix has the proper castlevania mood. Not really a hard enough beat for me to really rock out to, but some decent listening.

[DragonAvenger]

Drums at the beginning are super sweet, got me interested right away. Whether or not they keep my interest, it depends on the part of the song I'm listening to. Generally it's a dancy-technoey track that if listened to closely can get repetative. Makes for a pretty good background track, though. Overall an interesting track to listen to every so often.

[SoulinEther]

In this piece I imagine ecstasy-laden, alcohol-bloated 15-year-old virgin ladies desperately attempting to rhythmically move their tired, heavy and large-feeling limbs while holding back the vomit rising up their gorge with laughter in an ancient haunted mansion while their ghost host lurks about waiting for his moment to penetrate their defenses and end their pitiful existences!

I likey.

[Bahamut]

In this piece I imagine ecstasy-laden, alcohol-bloated 15-year-old virgin ladies desperately attempting to rhythmically move their tired, heavy and large-feeling limbs while holding back the vomit rising up their gorge with laughter in an ancient haunted mansion while their ghost host lurks about waiting for his moment to penetrate their defenses and end their pitiful existences!

I likey.

You like the image of 15-year-old virgins like that? You sicko!

I never found much interest in this mix, although I wonder if it is partly because of lack of familiarity with the source material. For the approach, it just seems too short though - I feel like some more expansion of the arrangement should've occurred but didn't.