OCR04329 - *YES* Resident Evil (GCN), 0 & 4 "Mansion of Delete (No Sleep Demon)"

[Emunator]

Name: Michael Hudak

Games arranged: Resident Evil Remake (GCN, 2002), Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 4

Songs arranged: "Save Theme" from all three games. An alternate title for the RE0 Save Theme is "Rest", according to Discogs. I've also seen the RE Remake one titled "Safe Haven", but I think that's probably a fan re-naming.

Name of my arrangement: Mansion of Delete (No Sleep Demon)

Link to originals: REmake- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI?t=302 / RE0- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI / RE4- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI?t=1273 

Link to ReMix: 

 

My 3 favorite save themes from the RE series (the original PS1 RE had a slightly different arpeggio in its save theme that sounded less sinister to me; I prefer the REmake version). Inspired by the waking dreams (hypnagogia) I've been frequently experiencing over the last year. Almost like dreams within dreams, or maybe several dreams spiralling together, kind of like a 5-pronged DNA strand. Bizarre stuff. That's the feeling I wanted to capture here, rather than just aim to do a simple ambient piece, because there's enough of that already (you can go to YT and listen to whole playlists of RE save music with rain storm effects in the background). The strange, filtered, bass-only beat from 1:40 to 1:50 represents the cars going down my street blasting music at 1:30 am. "No Sleep Demon" was the working title, but towards completion I realized that I copped Oneohtrix Point Never's style from his album Garden of Delete pretty hard here, so that explains the title. I think a little bit of the very old OCR ReMix called "Of Transformants and Brevity" by zykO crept in here, too. I listened to that dozens of times in high school. If this passes, I'm sure some people will hate it...I don't even know if I like it! I very much enjoyed making it though. Cathartic experience. 

 

It's mostly source material aside from the final 30 seconds or so. Slowed down a lot using multitap delays, though. Here are time signatures indicating where I used each source.

 

REmake Save Theme: 00-0:19, 0:24 - 1:00, 1:21 - 1:37, 1:50 - 2:00, 2:06 - 2:12, 2:38 - 2:50.
RE0 Save Theme ("Rest"): 1:00 - 1:15, 1:42 - 1:49.
RE4 Save Theme: 1:38 - 1:42, 2:17 - 2:32.

 

The "whattaya buyin'" is a voice clip from RE4 that I chopped up a pitched down. Other voice clips are of me and a friend messing around with instruments. Thanks in advance for slogging through this one. I'll send a more regular one next time. - Michael

 

[prophetik music]

really interesting use of effects on various plectral instruments. the shifting perspectives between heavy filter, big reverb, and fading out is really interesting. the voice sound effect is really odd and unexpected, i guess i don't get that connection. the originals come through pretty clearly where they're just arpeggiated notes, but admittedly the breakdown helps a lot - this is pretty out there. 

the track goes more off the rails the nearer to the end that you get, and the vocal clips don't make more sense as we go along. the huge washes of sound though continue to be so interesting and gorgeous, especially the ending one. there's some time at the end that can be trimmed, i think.

this one's weird! weirder than most of your other ones. i love the parts that aren't the vocal samples, and don't like the vocal samples the more into the song we got. that said, it's over the bar - it's transformative, well-mastered, intentionally arranged, and executed in a clearly competent manner. 

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

I think I'm going have to explicitly not vote on this one.

Production is easily over the bar.  Source usage is fine.  But this arrangement... I just don't even know how to judge it.   How do you judge transitions when the vision is that it's all chopped up and pasted together haphazardly?  Or the voice clips, especially "This is even worse than the first one..." what are they even doing there?  It's clearly all some sort of artistic vision, but I can't even understand it enough to judge it.  Subjectively, I... well, frankly, I hate it.  But it's not for me.  But between my dislike and my lack of understanding of what it's trying to do, I don't feel like I can judge this in any sort of helpful way.

So, it's a cop-out, but I'm not even going to give this one a ?.  I'm just making my mark here to let everyone know I'm not just ignoring this one.

[Liontamer]

Many thanks to Michael for the comprehensive source breakdown. Was able to follow along easily with the structure. Weird track? I jump een it, son. Good stuff going for a creepy vibe.

What's not to love?

YES

[DarkSim]

I gave this one listen and it instantly evoked images and fragments of my own dreams and occasional inception-like dreams-within-dreams. I absolutely adore the execution of this. It's incredibly abstract, but the way the melody hangs like a thread through the middle of the piece, guiding us on the journey, is superb.

The first deep vocal chop at 0:49 is like that moment when you're falling asleep and suddenly lose balance, even though you're lying down. Or that moment in Fight Club where Tyler Durden is splicing a couple of frames of explicit material into children's movies, making you think "did I just hear that? Was that a dream?" It's followed up with a rapid crescendo, like a deep breath after being startled. The heavy reverb sounds delicious, helping us float off, and then the chops start coming in, shifting the entire soundscape in an instant. It's a clever technique very reminiscent of dreams, in that you can instantly be somewhere else from moment to moment.

The chops do get a bit 'poppy' round 1:51, although I appreciate that's both a stylistic choice, and par for the course when slicing samples so aggressively. I'd also say that the clean vocal at 2:43 sounded a bit out of place, although in my mind I was picturing someone finding an old camcorder in a run-down house, and playing the video. Very fitting of a Resident Evil/survival horror trope.

Definitely not for everyone, but for those who connect with it, it's a fantastic piece of work.

YES

[Chimpazilla]

My favorite kind of music is any that elicits FEELS.  WOW this does that so well.  I adore Michael's signature glitching.  The arrangement ideas, the filtering, the flutter and wow, the amazing details are all just top notch, as is the production.  My only gripe is that I want more of it.  This is all kinds of awesome.

YES, WOW