ReMix:F-Zero "Top Gear in Mute City" 3:17

Do artists ever call a track done out of fatigue and give up? Hell yeah, they do! But as long as you don't completely shut the book on it, you can always make it even better. And that was what today's ReMixer did, handling his first panel rejection in stride and retooling it to breeze across the finish line, as Kyaku blended two great tastes of 16-bit racers, F-Zero & Top Gear! Kyaku made it clear he wasn't phased by the challenge of speeding past the judges panel with another attempt:

"A homespun mashup of two favorites, part of a first volume. I can't help myself with these two-song combos, it's kind of a habit at this point, a fun angle to guide remixing for now. Both games are very nostalgic for me and, in my mind's eye, I pictured a Mute City 200 years before F-Zero, where the cars we're much more used to seeing today were racing around. It was fun to spend a little time riffing on guitar samples too for this one.

I hope OCR's standards never lower and in fact only get more stringent as the years continue. I frankly jumped the gun on that previous submission and you were right, it showed. After a few diversions, I tried to incorporate the feedback. Dialed down my inclination to FILL certain frequencies and sounds while trying to better distribute the song in it's sonic space. Simplified some parts, axed the ending (yeah, it's not you, it's me), and created an intro of sorts so it's not so much BAM! That pan was too hard, I agree, softened it a bit. Also dialed down the delay, but only slightly, I'm rather fond (maybe overly so) of delay. Sometimes less is more though! Also added one additional note/measure to the end, and I think that was a good idea! Lastly, listened to it in my beater car and the high frequencies were just too strong so tapered that off in mastering subtly. It's always interesting how songs sound differently on cheap speakers.

So I don't know if this happens to anybody else but I got a little fatigued working on this one and submitted it as a cop out. Thankfully, it was rejected because there was still work to do. After implementing additional feedback and making other changes, I am confident this version is improved. Whether or not it's good enough is your call! I am glad that I had a chance to work on it a bit more though. I was tired of it at the time of first submission, but sometimes it takes a kick in the rear to finish the job. I genuinely appreciate it all, I don't really know how one could improve at this otherwise. Or I can at least say that for me. I work in HR and not even my wife is very interested (beyond the, "that's nice, dear") in my little hobby after the kids go to bed. Where else am I going to learn how to be better? :) No matter the decision, let's keep on jamming! And thank you judges for your feedback. Here's goes nothing!"

All hail the weekend warrior musicians, doing it for the love of the game. :-) Those Js ain't so bad, they were picking up what Kyaku was putting down, including our resident tough customer, MindWanderer:

"Really nice job filling out a soundscape with very few instruments. I wasn't expecting something so chill with a title like that..."

Not only did Flexstyle say the drums "SLAPPP", but he saw success in how Kyaku meshed the source tunes for some effective imagery, another endorsement of the decision to slow things down:

"Melding of themes was done pretty well (I could pick out both sources pretty clearly), with some clever writing to make it work, those drums give me dreams in neon colors, the mixing is adequate, the overall song is a good vibe -- I'm good with passing this one!"

The pair of sources are creatively arranged & enmeshed (Kyaku's specialty), and it was eye-opening hearing the interpretive treatment of both themes combined in a way that worked this effectively, especially with F-Zero in play the entire time. Top Gear for the SNES doesn't get nearly enough coverage in the arrangement scene given how catchy Barry Leitch's compositions are, so it's wonderful to have Top Gear repped here once again, smoothly interwoven with the classic "Mute City" to boot. Wave the checkered flag, it sounds like a first-place finish for Kyaku to me! :-)