ReMix:Street Fighter II: The World Warrior "Советский Космонавт" 3:26

Admit it - at least once, and perhaps habitually, you've deeply contemplated just how awesome it would be if Zangief was flying around in outer space, doing rad shit like bodyslamming asteroids. It's a natural thought, a profoundly human thought, and there should be no shame in acknowledgement. Perhaps he would use the centrifugal force from a double lariat to disseminate Soviet propaganda throughout the galaxy, or watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, but either way, his ample chest hair would provide complete insulation from the heat of atmospheric re-entry; I think that's a given...

I'm going to let Sir_NutS (Paul Michael Molina) take over now, for more relevant information:

"Sup, guys. Here you have another track from me. This is a remix of Zangief's theme (Street Fighter 2). This is also a spacesynth remix.

This is my first remix made in Bitwig. I had already messed around a couple of times with the DAW, but I hadn't made anything past a beat. My usual tool is Reason, but I usually go to Reaper for these kind of tracks because I need my VST vintage synth emulations. The transition was incredibly easy, as BW's routing and instrument layering tools are very much like Reason's combinators and CV cable routing, plus everything else is pretty intuitive and easy to set up.

Regarding the production, this was made mostly with free VST instruments and effects. The usual great free synths like Synth1, TAL-U-NO, the GTG series of synths, Nabla, deputy Mark II, and a couple others. I recommend those for people who are looking for a vintage sound (or just plain great sound) on a budget. Also, this has a touch of Serum, which is a commercial, yet affordable and insanely powerful wavetable synth. Drums are a mix of E-mu SP-12, Roland 707, LinnDrum, Casio RZ-1, and other assorted drums -- most of these are downloadable in BW's libraries.

There's tons of processing in pretty much everything here. It is actually not easy to get an authentic-sounding remix in this genre when all the tools used to define the genre were hardware and had such a unique sound that you can't find anywhere now, unless you fork the cash for the original hardware itself. Too much processing also ruins the illusion, as most tools nowadays aim to get a modern sound. It's a fine balance between keeping things dirty/vintage-sounding while also not completely butchering the mix. I find it easier to get a good mix on modern tracks because you are mostly aiming for a clean mix, while in these kind of songs you're aiming to get the imperfections that define it.

Regarding the idea behind the song, I was inspired by listening to the 3DO version of SF2's soundtrack. The 3DO had such kickass versions of soundtracks found on other consoles/PC (Star Control 2 comes to mind). I asked my friend F4T4L (another spacesynth enthusiast) the question: "Zangief + Italo?" to which he answered "Well, duh," so I knew I had a winner.

I based my arrangement on the SF2 SNES version of the track, as I didn't want the 3DO version influencing my work much. One thing I love about spacesynth is that it is a very melody-based electronic music genre, so I got to add tons of melodic content, as well as modifying the structure of the original. Rolling basslines, call and response, rhythmic stabs, retrofuturistic space ambiance, and silly vocoded quips are staples in the genre and they can be found here as well. The stabs are mostly progression-based, but the melodies are heavy variations/expansions on the original motifs.

About altering the core groove, with these spacesynth songs there isn't much room to do so. I do stray off sometimes in other tracks in the same style, but, to make everything as authentic as possible, I gotta stick to that four on the floor groove for the most part, except for the breaks, where it does change a bit and it's a bit more sparse and the percussion elements usually take place to shine. I could've added more variation, but this works too, IMO.

About the soundscape, clean soundscapes don't work that well in this, trust me! In fact, a lot of modern "synthwave" artists do have that "not exactly perfect" mixdown because it sounds a bit off if the track is clean as modern EDM. There are exceptions out there, of course! But the imperfect "dirty" mix is what I find sounds closer to classics like Laserdance.

About the lyrics, well those are just vocals snippets I recorded, not really lyrics, and I wanted them to be like that as well. Believe me, I know how to make clear vocoded vocals! But this is just what fits the style. I just want to share my love for this genre anytime I can, and raise the authenticity bar with each offering."

Very cool; as a sidenote, NutS convinced me to buy Bitwig, which is awesome. My main DAW is still Studio One, but I love how agile Bitwig is, and the fact that the core of it is written in Java is really quite impressive; wish I could decompile it just to see how they're doing things, but the jars are all obfuscated. I also dig the sandboxing of plugins - plugin crashes, DAW barely flinches. As for the mix, PMM has been killing it lately; seems like he's renewed his enthusiasm/mojo AND improved his workflow, which is a one-two combo that even the 'Gief has to respect. Definite old-school synthesizer vibe, plenty of rhythmic alteration to the melody, and a feel that I would have described as Italo-disco if I wasn't more accurately informed; reminds me of Akumajo's classic DarXide ReMix from days of yore. Larry lays it out:

"Fun stuff, and good energy overall, Mike. The notes used at :57 & 2:59 with that melodic variation were odd, but they resolve OK, so I've got no problem with it. Very cool to hear Zangief's theme taken in this direction! I think Shael Riley and The Grammar Club helped demonstrate the flexibility of the theme for a wildly different style like garage rock, and you really did the same with the Italo disco style. Nice! :-)"

I agree on the odd intonation Larry cites, but it's fleeting; you could almost chalk it up to "character," since the overall aesthetic is one of unhinged exuberance for all things science-fiction & synthesizery. The world has been silently asking itself what type of music would best accompany the adventurous exploration of outer space by a large Russian wrestler, and Sir_NutS has answered, definitively!