prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) 30 something years ago I spent many hours having fun with trackers on my Amiga 500, and last year I re-discovered the remix scene (mostly thanks to Allister Brimble and Matt Gray) and, searching for my old favorite game tunes, I couldn't find any Nebulus remix so I thought I'd give the original Dave Rogers music some love. This is the first 8bit VGM version I make and share. Even though I ran the original game in an emulator to rescue a few in-game sound FX, I got the WAV outputs of the three channels in the main tune using the Amstrad CPC Musics Ultimate Compilation by Megachur/Paradox ( https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=11166 ). Some original segments were split and processed on Audacity, and others directly on Renoise, where I did the composition, effects (principally stereo work, reverbs, compressors, some phasers and distortion) and mix. Around 60% of processed original tune sounds were incorporated, along with several percussion, bass and synth instruments to make harmony and beat more complex, and a few library elements for transitions and atmosphere. The original tune barely exceeds two minutes. Most of the additional minute in the remix happened just jamming, trying to develop a bit the fun-yet-relentless melody Rogers made for climbing those spinning towers against time. Games & Sources Nebulus was a well known game for both C64 and Amstrad CPC but the likely original, full main tune was composed by Dave Rogers for the CPC. The C64 tune was not credited, and a rather dull conversion sorted out by the Commodore lead dev himself, so the fun original track hasn't received much love in the remix scene. Here's a profile of composer Dave Rogers - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/credit/36495-dave-rogers And an Amstrad longplay video that starts with the full original tune I worked with. Edited yesterday at 01:56 AM by jnWake
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted January 13 Author Posted January 13 wild original. it really goes all over the place. opens with some water sfx, and then we get the chips to get it moving. there's a lot of long-tail verb on this to my ear and it sounds pretty spacey as a result. as far as i can tell, the opening two minutes or so are mostly the same notes as the original, with new instruments and a few extra backing elements put in there. it isn't until the two minute mark that we get something that'd be considered to be really arrangement and not just instrumental replacement. there's some exploration of the arpeggio section that the original ends on at 2:30, and then it fades out. unfortunately i don't think there's near enough arrangement to consider this. i actually like a lot of the choices you made (admittedly not all of them) for instrumental replacements, and i think what you've got here is a lot more listenable than the original. however the vast majority of this is dave rogers's arrangement and the synths are pretty close to his choices too, which really doesn't get this past the 'cover' stage. i'd love to hear this with more intentionality in the arrangement throughout - instead of switching between sections because the original did, make it more of a musical approach where you're choosing what to emphasize and what to stick with. separately, i'd say that there's a lot of fleshing out of the backing elements throughout that this needs. since you're not limited to a few channels, i'd suggest you expand a lot more! there's a lot of meat on that bone in my opinion. i think what's here would be something that the cpc fan community would be into. unfortunately it just doesn't meet the arrangement requirements for our site. some changes could definitely raise it to that bar, but may move it further away from your artistic concept. so it's up to you how you'd want to proceed. i certainly hope though that you'd consider revising it to meet the submission standards though! NO
Chimpazilla ⚖️ Posted March 31 Posted March 31 This is a very fun listen! Although the remix sticks very close to the original source arrangement, there have been arrangement modifications here and there, and the last segment of the remix seems more original than midi-rip. Still, I have to agree with proph that overall this comes off as way too conservative. The submission writeup explains that actual source audio has been used and effected. proph said "instrumental replacement" but what is happening here is instrumental augmentation with the literal source audio as a base. I ripped the YouTube video and put that and the remix side by side in Cubase just to be sure that I was hearing that correctly. Both source and remix are at the same 125bpm as well. While it is ok to use some source audio from game songs, and sfx from the game are usually ok (as long as it's not Square Enix), this is way too much use of source audio from the game for OCR's standards. I'd love to hear this again though, with even more arrangement and writing personalization and significantly less actual source audio (like just SFX and nothing melodic). Even so, I really did enjoy this take on this source! NO
jnWake ⚖️ Posted yesterday at 01:55 AM Posted yesterday at 01:55 AM (edited) I love hearing a remix of such an old and obscure tune. The original is also quite a banger! Anyway, we begin with some fun SFX into the bass of the original. I dig the synth bass used. The main melody soon joins in on a synth with a ton of reverb. At 0:21 we have a key change that's also in the source. So far we're following the source pretty closely in what feels like a "remaster". On this section you add some fun new backing elements. At 0:33 we move to the next section from the source, still keeping the "remaster" feel. I hadn't mentioned it until now but I dig the drum sound, it's super punchy. 0:49 continues the trend of keeping the structure and melodies of the source while improving the sound quality and the backing. To not repeat myself too much this continues for quite a while, until the original's track material ends around the 2 minute mark. Here we finally get some arranging that's different from the source, first with some cool bass and then some fun modifications of the first main melody around 2:29. Not long after that the track ends with the same SFX from the intro. On the production side this is great, I don't really have many nitpicks. Percussion is punchy, the samples picked sound good and everything sounds clear. My only nitpick, and this could just be personal preference, is that there's a lot of reverb and that can make things muddier than they should. Not a big deal though. On the arrangement side, though, we have issues (for OCR's standards at least). For the first 2 minutes this track is basically a "remaster" of the original, you kept the same structure, melodies, genre and tempo of the source, mostly upping the quality. Don't get me wrong, this is a very valid approach to VGM remixing but it's simply not what OCR looks for. Overall, while this sounds great, the arrangement is too conservative for OCR standards. As an "expanded remaster" of the original track this is basically perfect but it's not what the site looks for. If you ever feel like doing something more akin to the final minute of the track I'd love to hear it, but for now, the decision is... NO Edited yesterday at 02:01 AM by jnWake
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