ReMix:F-Zero "When Your Mom Mistakes Captain Falcon for Captain America Again" 4:27

Happy 4th of July from BOTH Captains, as Falcon meets America in this epic MCU-inspired symphonic take on F-Zero's iconic "Mute City," our second featured mix from Vijay van der Weijden:

"So, I've noticed that it's common for mothers to think that Captain Falcon is Captain America. In those YouTube videos where people let their parents guess the names of Smash Bros. characters, oftentimes they'll say "Captain America" when Captain Falcon is being shown.

That made me think about "What if they made a movie about Captain Falcon with the same tone and production budget as Captain America?" This cover is an impression of how the soundtrack to that Hollywood superhero movie would sound like. It's sort of a suite with an introduction, impending doom, confrontation, losing that confrontation, finding new motivation to try again, and a final climax. All the while using "Mute City" as source material.

Yeah, the rejection stung quite a bit, but I was actually very thrilled to read that the panel really seemed to like my concept!

I've extracted all of the feedback from the panel and tried to adhere to every bit, at least to some extent. (Except for Liontamer's note on the abrupt ending, sorry.)

Notes on what I mainly tweaked: The biggest aggressor, I think, was the mud in the low end. After reading your feedback, I was able to hear it too and the balance was terrible! This should be cleaned up now for the most part. Furthermore, I've done my best to make better use of the samples I have. The timing should be much tighter, I've switched out some odd registers with instruments that better fit those and some timbres should sound better now as well. The master has less volume fluctuation between the loud and the quiet parts. It's also able to breathe more now as it's only compressed by about 2db on average. I couldn't quite understand what MindWanderer meant about the weird drum timing in the climax so I also haven't tweaked that. I'm assuming they're referring to the fact that the final climax is in 6/8 and they were still listening with a 4/4 mindset, maybe?

Thank you for your time, I'm stoked to hear what you think about it! I really hope you guys like it a lot more now!"

The panel was unanimous on this resubmission, and I think you'll hear why: Vijay had a great concept right from the start, and now he's revised the production to maximize on that concept and really make it sing. I played quite a bit of F-Zero back in the day, I love this theme, and I love what the mixer has done with it; there's a narrative arc and effective transitions from ominous suspense to dramatic battle to interlude and then to triumphant resolution, all in four & a half minutes. The submission/feedback process doesn't result in successful revisions like this 100% of the time, sure, but when everything clicks it's very rewarding to see the judges' recommendations incorporated for the better. Emunator sums it up well:

"This was always a fantastic concept but the execution is now quite comfortably up-to-par in my book. The samples are utilized well and the timing issues appear to be fully mitigated. The drums sound particularly nice throughout.

On the production side, it's amazing what a little remastering can do. It's incredibly evident when A/B'ing with the original version - now that the sub bass isn't hogging so much space in the mix, your mids/highs sound so much richer. The revamped master compression chain also helps your extended breakdowns have a little more volume without compromising the dynamic range, letting moments like 2:13 and 4:03 still sound impactful and full.

This is a textbook example of a great resubmission in my opinion, I'm glad you came back around to this!"

A secular "amen" to all of that; prophetik music adds:

"oh man, the initial hit with the orchestral taikos sounds so much better without the mud. there's a lot of energy in these parts that i simply couldn't hear before. i really like the section from 3:20 to 3:40 now. ending being in 6/8 is a great way to use the same material in a new way."

Really, really glad that the revision & resubmission process worked out for this one; it's been almost 13 years since we had a featured mix from the F-Zero series, for one, but I also really dig the idea and very much *wanted* to hear a version that lived up to that initial potential. Mission accomplished; whether your mom actively confuses captains Falcon & America, thinks both of them are Homelander, or has no idea who any of these characters are, this is a satisfying, anthemic symphonic/orchestral romp. Happy 4th to those celebrating America's Day of Independence, and congrats/respect to Vijay for an epic sophomore mix - enjoy!