Rize

Sup Nemo. I was looking for a download link to this song to pass to someone else and here it is. I always loved this thing. I can't believe you did it in Fruity Loops Honestly, it still holds up today and I think it would probably get accepted on OCR as is. You ever heard of Dwelling of Duels? It is where a lot of the vgmix community vanished to... http://www.dwellingofduels.net/ Discussion generally occurs on the MiniBosses message board: http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/forum/8-minibosses-message-board/

One day I may redo this (and even expand it). The "over-distorted" guitar sound comes from using a direct line from the effects box I was using rather than miking a speaker (the microphone and speaker especially cut out the really high harmonics and result in a more proper sound). For my later two Castlevania mixes I used a Line 6 Pod Pro. For my next mix (whenever that may be) I intend to use a real amp with a microphone in front of it.

Thanks again everyone. I appreciate the comments. In fact, once a year or so I even check old songs for new comments, so feel free to leave them, even unto the end of time. <-- shameless attention whore I only wish I could get a song out there more often. Actually, in time I hope to simplify my life so that I can do just that... but I'll probably just recomplicate it after a short period. What can you do?

All this attention makes me want to do another track.

You want a good RPG on the DS? Go play Etrian Odyssey (or the forthcoming sequel). That game will grow hairs on your chest. And don't blame the changes to Castlevania on the DS, that's SotN's fault.

Thanks everyone. About the snare drum... on second thought, it does sound a tad loud on this pair of headphones I have, but fine on all normal speakers I've tried it on. I really need to get ahold of some good monitors.

I fool myself sometimes. On my 2nd and 3rd mixes, the mixing was so bad and the drums so muffled that they can sound like a bad live recording. In fact, only the guitars are live. The bass is a mixture of two soundfonts of decent quality and the drums are the popular goldrums soundfont. Unfortunately, that bass only sound as good as it does in this song. Probably because I don't have much rhythm guitar in the song (only the ending). I've got some work to do on my production. I'm still very happy with the way this turned out though, especially considering it was my second mix ever.

This is easily my favorite Chrono Trigger mix.

Hah, I've done the loop thing before with other mixes.

Joseph, I can hear the iron sword influences. They are quite strong (even if the melodies themselves are relatively buried).

I think the production on this mix is considerably better than that shown in my work at OCR. The guitars are around the same I think. They definitely doesn't sound like a direct feed with bad amp simulation (Legendary Strings). The drums sound a good deal better as well (in terms of production) though I think the snare has way too much in the high ranges. And the overall equalization is much better than in Rude Awakening. My next mix will feature major changes in the way I produce though, so as to how accurate this comparison is, I don't intend for it to be accurate for very long! In terms of the composition itself, I'm not enjoying this all that much. I just don't think I'm a very big fan of the Iron Sword melodies. There is a lot of originality and heavy interpretation on the original theme which is generally a cool thing, but there's nothing here that just grabs ahold of me.

I just thought I would mention that Harry Gregson Williams did not compose the original version of this song. It was played in most of the demo videos of MGS 1 for the PSX , HGW "REMIXED" it for MGS2 so this is a remix of a remix. I like both of the originals (not sure which I like more). I can't say I like this mix very much (the style doesn't really suit my tastes), but at least the authors taste in source material is good

Gemini Salsa is just too damn cool. It's just what I like in a remix. The original song followed by some soloing.

Surely you noticed the solo near the end? But you're right, I try to leave the original music unharmed until I've at least looped it all once. Then I solo