OCR04431 - *YES* Super Mario World & Super Mario Bros. "First Jumps" *PRIORITY*

[Emunator]

ReMixer name: BeanJammin
real name: Keenan Lind
email address: 
website: kl-music.com
userid: 38010

Game: Super Mario World
Name of Arrangement: First Jumps
Name of song arranged: Athletic Theme
Composer: Koji Kondo
Original Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVhAkQuZvLQ

 

Comments: Saw your call for Mario remixes on Twitter just as I had been working on touching up this track in preparation for my first cover album going on streaming! I originally made this for a Celeste mod I made with my wife called Quickie Mountain 2, which is directly inspired by the Kaizo Mario hack Quickie World. The goal for all of the music I made for that was to cover the same track used in the original hack, but with a Celeste-y, digital fusion twist. I also took a lot of inspiration from Cake's cover of Manah Manah (yes, the song from the Muppets it absolutely slaps) to try and create something that was as weird as it is fun! Hope yall enjoy~

 

[Liontamer]

The file's a bit wonky with time tracking if you shift around, so my mentioned timestamps could be wrong, I'm not sure.

Opens a bit thin, but definitely like the rhythmic changes. Shift to the piano at :38 and the timing still sounds stilted aside from the lead (which is piercing, though not enough to tank this). The timing is stilted, but the instrumentation has tons of character, so it pulls it off. Super fakey synth guitar at 1:44, which has a tone that doesn't work, but I did like the original countermelody thrown in (the 4-note piano line first at 1:36) before the main Athletic theme came back at 1:55. Yeah, lots of clever bits of interpretation, even if the sequencing could be livelier. Ending at 2:41 was too sudden; ending with a trailing note from the crystalline piano would have been so much better, but I'll live. Then again, you did have that note hang from 2:21-2:27 in the background and it sounded like it was quietly going off-key, so maybe I oughta be careful with that request.

I'd say I have some reservations/critiques/flaws, Keenan, but the positives meaningfully outweigh the negatives. The textures, mixing, and timing could be improved, but none of them are broken, and the arrangement and instrumentation have all sorts of creative and positive highlights. Let'sa go!

YES

[MindWanderer]

Nice mellow noodling around with the Athletic theme.  Lots of changes in lead, style, and accompaniment to keep things interesting, and the Underground break is well-placed.  Normally ping-pong stereo bothers me a lot, but in this case it mostly works.  Pretty much everything about this is a textbook synth remix: nothing revolutionary, but no missteps either.  Ultimately a fun little jaunt.

YES

[Chimpazilla]

Larry is right, there is something off with the timing in the intro.  The track is 100bpm, so I have lined it up on grid with my metronome, and it all seems to fit except from 0:00-0:07.  After 0:07 it all lines up.  I wonder if just one note was left out, in the intro, causing this timing difference?  It does make the flow of the track feel disorienting.  Ok so I just clipped the first seven seconds in Cubase and moved them back one beat and duplicated a note just before 0:07, and now it sounds normal.  I wonder if this should be corrected before posting?  In addition to this timing issue, I'm going to guess that the timing feels stilted to Larry even further than 0:07 simply due to the odd nature of the arpeggio that plays throughout the tune.  The notes jump around in a way that can be hard to follow; the note progression aka "melodic contour" is a little awkward and unnatural.  Add to that the timing error in the intro and many listeners may be feeling "off" throughout the entire piece.

Other than ^this^ issue, this is a very cute and well crafted remix.  Nothing groundbreaking, but cute and varied, and surely captures the feel of the original source tune to perfection.  None of the instrumentation is wowing me but the arrangement is fun and creative.  I like the inclusion of the underground theme into the arrangement.  I agree with Larry, that outro is disappointing.  It is the same arp from the intro, wrapping up with one snare roll and then... nothing.  Some kind of ending or even a "ta-da" thing would have been fun and a nice conclusion.  But yeah I like it.

YES (not a conditional, but I'm curious if others want the intro timing corrected)

Edited March 8, 2023 by Chimpazilla

[prophetik music]

i don't mind the intro. reminds me of some of the ways that prog bands mess with time in intros.

this is a hip arrangement! i really dig the additive intro, and how the melody is getting passed around a lot. there's some small but meaningful updates to the melodic line - the little flips into notes and triplets added really make a huge difference. i also appreciate how much space there is in the implementation - lots of chopped synths, the drums are crisp.

the layering of the Athletic theme with the immediately-recognizable underworld theme is great.

the ending is kind of nonexistent - this is a loop, right? - but it doesn't take away from a good overall package. it's short but fun. wish it was longer! i just wanted to keep listening. easy vote

 

 

YES