*NO* Splatoon 2 "Underground Usurper"

[Gario]

Hi! I'd like to submit a demo for promotion on OCRemix. The track is called 'Underground Usurper' and it's a remix of 'Nasty Majesty' from Splatoon 2. I tried to incorporate the original's bassy glitch hop elements as well as the game's punk/rock aesthetic.

 

I hope you enjoy listening to it!

 

ReMixer ron day voo

User ID 35543

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by MindWanderer

[Liontamer]

Most of track directly samples the original audio as the major connection to the source tune, which violates our arrangement standards.

It's not enough to build original material around the sampled source tune audio, you have to substantially arrange and interpret the VGM theme. There's some but there's not enough incorporation of the source tune that isn't sampled.

Quote

 

4. Arrangement

1. Arrangements in any genre of music (e.g. techno, jazz, rock, classical) are acceptable, so long as the genre itself does not conflict with any other arrangement criteria.

2. Your arrangement must be substantial and original.

• Submissions must be different enough from the source material to clearly illustrate the contributions, modifications, and enhancements you have made. Acceptable arrangement often involves more than one of the following techniques:
  • Modifying the genre, chord progression, instrumentation, rhythms, dynamics, tempo, or overall composition of the source material
  • Adding original solos, transitions, harmonies, counter-melodies, lyrics, or vocals to the source material
• Taking the original game audio and simply adding drum loops or using an existing MIDI file and assigning new instruments does not qualify as substantial or original arrangement.
• Submissions must not include any sampled audio, including sound effects, from material owned by Square Enix or its subsidiaries.
• Submissions should be long enough to convey arrangement; generally, this requires at least two minutes of material.

 

NO

[Rexy]

You got a solid and nice-sounding groove with some smart envelope work on your dubstep bass.  Not a lot of sounds are present outside of the sampled VGM, but nothing's clashing with anything, so it doesn't matter.

However, this track was close to a No Override decision - but there is some non-sampled interpretation that saved it.  There's melody presence in the dubstep bass (1:12-1:31, 2:57-3:16) and in the backing synth at 3:35-3:58, where the melody went into double-time as the track's tempo dipped.  Despite all this, there's less than 25% of non-sampled source and by far marks the biggest dealbreaker.

Still, it'll be cool if you send over any future works with a more substantial arrangement.  You have the potential to do a dubstep track that doesn't have sampling at all or at least keeps it to a minimum.  Please, keep at it.

NO

Edited August 12, 2019 by Rexy

[MindWanderer]

I'd give this somewhat more credit than all that--I was chiefly the one who argued against this being a NO OVERRIDE--but it's still substantially an embellishment of the original audio rather than an arrangement.

That said, I did really enjoy a lot of what you did with it.  The dubstep layers in the first half were fun if not transformative, but when it turned more synthwave-y at 1:50, you definitely got my attention.  The sidechaining in the entire second half is way over the top, but the original synth riffing you added was pretty darn great.  If that had been layered on material that was also your original interpretation of the source material, it would have been a killer arrangement.

So yeah, it's pretty cool, but it's not what we look for.  If you ever decide to redo this without using the game audio (or at least, much less of it), I'd love the chance to give this another shot.  Sadly, though, I have to give this a

NO