ReMix:Mega Man X5 "Zero's Plight" 5:30

More album tracks from newcomers, which has got to be THE dominant trend of 2012 - and a good one, in my opinion. I do hope all this new blood follows up their album contributions with some individual, non-album submissions, to balance things out & increase variety, but either way it's great seeing so many new names. DJ SymBiotiX (Fernando Chorney) continues the trend with his own OCR debut of his MMX5 arrangement from Maverick Rising:

"This remix is mostly a remix of Zero Stage 1. I wanted to take the original arp and breakdown and expand it in to something more. Adding a bunch of layers and expanding on the idea. The first breakdown is really the only part that is completely original and the rest uses the source material and adds on to it, and rearranges it. The second breakdown is where I used a bit of Opening Stage Zero. The breakdown uses one of the melodies from that track, and the part right after it (the 4 on the floor trance part) is basically a rearrangement of that breakdown. I had so much fun making this track, and received tons of great tips and suggestions from Bahamut and Blind on how to bring more of the core out. This track is a nice lush energetic trance track with some awesome melodies and soundscapes, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do."

Chock full o' synth textures, this one is - from gated trance synths to mono leads to ring-modulated arpeggios to plucked, cross-panned staccato patches, Fernando's got a lot going on. The beat's a little traditional/dated, i.e. not glitched or tricked out as is popular these days, but attention to panning & balance keeps the stereo field full of interesting, discernible characters. halc writes:

"I wasn't crazy about the sound design, but the balancing is pretty good and the mastering is nice and punchy. I like the way you meshed the two sources.. they actually have somewhat similar intros despite being in different keys. the drums were kinda on autopilot until the breakdown, so the four on the floor section that came after was a welcome change. could have used some more variation in the actual percussion sounds used throughout the track as well. the intro was pretty long, but there was a lot of good evolution and build up to the first melody, so it wasn't a big deal to me. solid production+arrangement gets my vote."

Nice; SBX has some room for improvement, specifically w/ the drums, but after some mixing advice & remastering, this track shows what he's capable of, makes ample use of the melodic ingredients from the source tunes, and was another great contribution to a ginormous, awesome album.