ReMix:Rockman & Forte "Get Down" 3:06

Our third posted ReMix from DDRKirby(ISQ) (Timothy Wong) is a chip-infused dance/electronic jam arranging Ground Man's theme from R&F:

"Right, so this is another mix out of Jason Covenant's FL Studio Remix Gauntlet. Again, the rules are that you're only allowed to use the basic plugins and samples that come with FL Studio - pretty fun to work around the limitations of just using stock FL stuff. This mix was submitted for round 7, and again, you can download the complete FL project in the forum thread to see exactly what's going on with your own eyes.

Let's face it, Ground Man's theme is awesome. That bassline and chord progression, awww yeah. This one was really fun to make.. .as soon as I had the intro in with the bass and drums, I knew things were gonna go well. Course, I had no idea I was gonna go into trance-land later on at ~1:20, but hey, half the fun of writing a song is seeing what ends up happening to it, at least for me. ^.^ Anyways, hope you enjoy the song, and let it never be said again that you need fancy hardware and expensive sample packs to make cool, groovy music. :)"

Excellent concept for a compo and VERY informative/helpful to anyone learning the ropes w/ FL - plus it's resulted in some great tunes! OA writes:

"I feel that the dominant source is also a bit on the shallow end, but the spirit of the track burns brightly, and when it's there, it's pretty apparent. I really enjoyed the personalization, and the beats and bass themselves could make for a compelling track. Great sequencing, nice production, and a good arrangement and full soundscape, this is really nice."

Flexstyle adds:

"Alright, done listening. Still freakin' love this tune. I agree that the source usage is on the sparse side, but I can definitely tell it's a Ground Man remix. The bassline is always there, and there's plenty of melody line usage for me. Production-wise, my only problem is that it does get a bit crowded in the upper range, especially since the whole thing could stand to be just a bit less treble-y. Obviously, the piano sample isn't great, but I think it's appropriate to overlook that in this case.

Love the attention paid to the snare and other percussion details - having seen the project file first-hand, I'm still amazed that this was pulled off with just the FL defaults. Let's see this get some front-page action!"

The default arsenal that FL offers is a little more limited than Reason's stock sound library, for example, but the built-in synths are actually quite capable, especially when leveraged against chip textures. Timmie does a great job employing them to their utmost here, with an upbeat sound & crisp, clear production. Larry busted out his own stopwatch and actually calculated the source usage a little higher than the rest of the panel, so that might be less of a concern. I especially like the bass writing, which brings the funk in abundance. Overall? Great stuff that embraces the spirit of the compo and shows how much can be done without all dem whirligigs, doodads, and whatchamacallits!