Super Metroid Overture

[Sam Dillard]

Hi everyone! Here is a 'movie style' composition I did of the Super Metroid opening:

http://www.gamesare.com/music/MetroidOverture.mp3

I tried posting it here and it was rejected so I am wondering what I should do to make it better. Kind of a mix between the feel of Prime and a more cinematic style. Thanks for listening!

More at my site: http://www.samdillardmusic.com

[The Unsung Plumber]

Well, there really isn't much on the rearrangement side of this,

0:35 same bass line of the original

0:56 main melody note for note, with some flair added on top.

1:49 we see "Samus appears" note for note, also with flair on top.

Right now, you really need to focus on rearrangement. Read the Submission Standards and Instructions, and keep trying.

[Dafydd]

Cool stuff. The synth bass is offset by 2 notes compared to the original, it's kind of annoying... (listen to this clip I made just now (or a midi, if you prefer) - the first 4 measures show how you did the bass, and the last 4 measures show how it should be. The timpani in the actual SPC are off-beat and offset - just listen to the song from the beginning and count the measures, ignoring the timpani, and you'll see.) Other than that, really fucking sweet, dude...

Hey, could you do the song named "Theme of Samus Aran - Galactic Warrior"? I really want to hear your take on it.

What are using to make this anyway? The timpani was pretty hot.

[big giant circles]

can you dig up the "judges decisions" thread? i don't believe i've heard this one before, and i'm sure the other judges gave some good things that could help your mix fit better in compliance with site remix prerequisites.

as for your mix in current condition, unsung plumber summed it up pretty short-and-sweetly. you've got some pretty great sounds in your mix at this point, but this is one of those tracks that's more of "an upgrade in sound quality via better samples/soundfonts". we don't just look for the original tracks beefed up with better instruments playing the exact same source music. we like for you to be at the helm of your mix, and expand on the original music a little more, not just improve the sound quality.

you've got a good base here, and this is an awesome source tune. just try not to make it such a verbatim comparison to the original theme and you'd be gold.

[Dafydd]

Keep the verbatim one though, there are lots of people who like listening to sound upgrades It doesn't get you into OCR, but hey. You can always make an "OCR edit". But yeah, if you want your song on OCR, you need some more "interpretation". I would dare say that the little clip I posted above could probably be an intro for an OCReMiX. Not much, but a remix could be built from it.

[Sam Dillard]

Hmm I see... well actually the entire song was composed from scratch in cubase, I have never seen any of the original music. But I like the metroid tunes so I tried to come up with something that sounded close, though I doubt I got it 'note for note' as I was just going off memory from the game's music plus I knowingly made some changes.

Anywho, sorry tis not more original, someone suggested that I post it here so I said sure why not, lol. But I don't really like mutilating themes and music or adding a 'techno beat' to stuff I enjoyed as it originally was. To me, doing that is not a remix but rather an original composition inspired by a previously composed source. Ah well I guess, thanks for the input though and for clearing things up!

btw, what exactly is a soundfont? I use my keyboard mostly and some vst's, I have heard people mention soundfonts for a long time but don't know what it means, I know it has something to do with midi though.

[Dafydd]

Hey, I agree, don't add techno beats if you're happy with it as it is. I think most remixes are created from an idea - I get them all the time, like "hey, this song would sound great as a rock song" or whatever. If your idea was to make it sounds like movie music, stick with it - don't change it just to fit someone else's standards of what a remix is. Unless you want it published on the site that is.

If you didn't even have access to the source material - well, you have pretty incredibly good memory. The bass was pretty much the only thing that didn't play the notes pretty much exactly as in the original.

A soundfont is basically a sample package complete with patches (instruments), with settings for how the samples are used (modulation envelopes, loop points, etc).

Try this is you wanna know more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundfonts

Please, do a movie music style remix of the song I asked you earlier. It's gonna be sweet like honey yum yum.

[Sam Dillard]

Doh, I thought soundfonts were something else not just a replacement set of crappy midi instruments! lol I guess I been living in a cave too long.

Heh, well I love Super Metroid and I remember all the music from the game, as it is with most games that I like a lot. To be honest, I don't own a single game soundtrack other than Ocarina of Time and Lunar The Silver Star Story- both of which came with the games when I got em, lol.

Anyways, I was unable to open the rsr file (never heard of that format) but I think I know which track you are talking about- the cool one when you are on the surface where your ship is after the rain and also at the end of the game when you get the rainbow gun?

You want me to do it so you can steal it and sell it for crack right? (hehe)

Okay, I will try and make it more in my own style this time around, as nobody around here likes da original stuff lol! I guess I will just post it here then, rather than getting another rejection email hehe

[DualFace]

Man, "cinematic feel" is a bit of an understatement here. I'm actually really diggin on this quite a

lot. Is what I downloaded today a more final version or are you still working on it? I'm totally giggling

inside like a little school girl at how listening to this makes my mind just go crazy with all these 'what if'

scenarios for the silver screen adaptation of this game! Thanks!

[Dafydd]

Dude, don't get me wrong, this is good stuff. Much better than many of the "interpretive" mixes you find here.

Yeah, it's the one that plays when you get the "rainbow gun" (the one that's called hyper or something, the one you get from the metroid to kill the mother brain with), and also just before you get to the wrecked ship in crateria...

I don't know what you're using to listen to music, usually, but if you want to listen to game music, there's a great plugin package for winamp called chipamp, hosted by OCReMiX... it makes you able to listen to pretty much every console music there is to listen to - amiga, nes, snes, n64, playstation, gameboy, sega etc. Then all you need is to find the soundtracks, like those rsn files, and open them in winamp like an mp3. There are other ways to listen to the music, too, but if you're already using winamp, that's the easiest way to do it.

I don't own any soundtracks either (other than those that come with "collector's editions" of game's that I've bought), but I have roughly 300 or so on my hard drive. They take no space at all, because they're stored in the same format as in the actual game - hence the need for plugins and stuff. For example, the soundtrack for Super Metroid takes only 300kB, as you noticed, and the average NES sountrack is only 25kB or so. They're free and legal to download (I think) - you can usually download source tunes directly from OCReMiX (find a remix you like and click the chiptune tab).

[big giant circles]

Woah, let me just clarify something really quick. By "make it more interpretive" I was by no means suggesting the only way to get this passed, or make it better would be to lay some PH4T T3CHNO BE4TZ!!!11! or anything of the like. Nor am I suggesting you "mutilate" the theme.

Basically, the whole scheme of what we look for and showcase here at OCR is a person's ability to display creative insight with a particular song. That is, take the overall theme, the mood, the mental vibe that is created when you hear the tune, and pick it up and run with it. We like for you to do this for a couple reasons.

-It is a better display of your talents as a musician. Almsot anyone who's ever touched music software here can take a theme and produce an "upgrade" version--either by ripping a MIDI file and tweaking that, or doing what you did, and just listening to the original source tune(s) and writing the parts exactly as you hear them, and using better instruments than, say, the SNES sound chip was capable of.

-It helps you develop and strengthen your own abilities as a musician to understand and apply music theory and technique.

-It gives you more credit than you'd otherwise get. If you do a mere upgrade version, like previously mentioned, again, you're going to score very little credit when someone else listens. If you put more into your arrangement and rearrangement, it kind of puts a virtual ID tag on it. Like "Yeah, here's a cool version of the Super Metroid theme" vs. "Hey, check out the version of the Super Metroid theme that this guy Sam Dillard did". At least, that's how I always look at video game mixes, and I'm sure there are others who feel the same.

By all means, keep the mix you have. Heck, I enjoy it. Dafydd obviously does I'm telling you, though, hunt down a couple of the orchestral mixes that are hosted here and compare them to their respective source tunes. You'll hear what I'm talking about.

I'd post more, but you'll have to do more hunting on your own. Here's a couple good examples, one also from Super Metroid

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01039/

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01274/

By the way, since you're pretty new here, make sure you download and install Chipamp (on the front page) for winamp, and then you can download and listen to additional source tunes without too much effort.

[Dafydd]

Yeah, I'm not saying that this site should be hosting sound upgrades or that what you're doing here at OCR is stupid, but I personally don't mind listening to sound upgrades myself (or the original source tunes for that matter). If a remix doesn't at least have a portion of it that sounds pretty much like the original (but better), I get kind of an anti-climax, it doesn't give me the aural satisfaction that I set out for when playing the mix. There are many songs on this site that I just don't like listening to. They may follow the guidelines, but as far as music goes, they're not that interesting, or I simply am not interested in listening to a remix of a song I've never heard. Hehe.

Likewise, I get hugely annoyed by tiny details like how the bass in this mix is offset, or how the melody is "wrong" in the 2:10-2:20 section (and in some other places, such as in 4:35) in McVaffe's otherwise wonderful Zelda 3 "TheDarknessAndTheLight" mix. Sometimes, a song contains obvious misinterpretations as well as reinterpretations, and they make me want to scream "Do not want! That's not how it goes!" But that's just me. I know Schnabubula used to point out details like this when he was a judge.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that if you want to stick with just making sound upgrades, that's fine in my book. Not all good music has a place on OCR. And of course adding techno drums isn't the only way to make it a "remix". Just poke around the site a bit and listen to some mixes, there are even songs to remix rock or techno themes into an orchestral style. Or listen to my wip.

[Sam Dillard]

Well I wasn't trying to make a 'sound upgrade' or anything, it was just a spur of the moment song as I always do original stuff and I just felt like making a super metroid track, lol.

I understand all sides of the issue, though. Right now I am working on a new one based on the Galactic Warrior track which hopefully turns out okay.

[Dafydd]

Awesome! Can't wait to hear it.

[Blackwinged Saron]

God couldn't remix this. So A+B= is telling me that you're better than God.

[SSB]

out of curiosity, what brass sounds are you using for this?

and any other VSTs that you feel like sharing.

[HoboKa]

Yeah Sam, just improvise a bit at certain parts (put in a bluegrass/techno thingy in the middle or something, and put in fillers that sound VAGUELY like the original composition, that's what gets you on OC (I think)