ReMix:Super Smash Bros. Brawl "With a Little Help from My Friends" 5:29

Entering the VGM arrangement battle with his 10th OC ReMix, TheManPF often gets by thanks to... a slight assist from their collaborators. ;-P Meshing together Super Smash Bros. Brawl & Ultimate with some lyrical glue, TheMan once again partners up for DoD with one old friend and two new ones when it comes to OCR:

• TheManPF - arrangement, lyrics (pre-chorus, chorus, bridge), sequencing, guitars, keyboards, vocals (intro, pre-chorus, bridge)
• ShinobiSyntax - mix, lyrics (rap verses), vocals (rap verses)
• Zach Chapman - bass
• NiKo Vargas - vocals (hook/chorus)

TheMan decided to concoct something special for DoD's birthday a little ways back, so he had a ton to say, and we have a ton of space to give 'em, a great coincidence(!):

"Not really a Beatles reference, this song was arranged for the 20th Anniversary of Dwelling of Duels, as my way to commemorate the support and friendship from everyone in the community of VGM and, more importantly, DoD, in a similar way to "wily theme" but in a much more direct, intimate way.

I've always wanted to cover the main theme from Brawl, it's one of my favorite VGM tracks of all time, but I never had any idea how to tackle it. It's such a rich and powerful song already that I felt I never would be able to properly do it justice, so I didn't really have plans for it for a long time. However, as the 20th Anniversary of Dwelling of Duels was getting closer and closer, I tried to stop and think what I would like to do to celebrate such an occasion. When I was trying to think of what to do earlier this year, since the beginning I was already set on doing something hip-hop/R&B-ish.

I was super inspired by "House Party", by DakotaCityRag, from the August 2022 Free Month duel:

I was also listening to the first ending of SPYxFAMILY "Comedy" an awful lot.

I was like "Damn, I want to do something like this", the anniversary was a good opportunity for it, I wasn't really thinking of "competing" for the anniversary, I didn't want to stress myself over doing something super impressive that would get me the top spot, but I wanted to do something I felt was meaningful.

I was looking at a list of games I played and trying to decide which one of them could fit an R&B sound, and also which one would fit thematically for the anniversary, and landed in Smash, and thought "WTF, of course, it's such an obvious idea", I'm actually surprised nobody else thought of it. It represents the coming together of all of these people from different walks of life in an epic duel to see who's the best, the Brawl theme also speaks a lot of friendship and meeting your heroes and deadly enemies (or rivals). It also has always been a celebration of gaming as a whole, which fits our VGM community so well, especially since, in the anniversary, we were expecting a lot of old names coming back. The phrase "everyone is here" kept repeating in my head over and over, it was a no-brainer. Also, it was finally a good opportunity to try to cover Brawl's main theme like I always wanted.

For this track, I wanted to specifically bring people that I have personally invited to DoD at some point. Obviously, Zach had to be there, but the other two people were ShinobiSyntax (also known as Sketch the Conductor), who I did a Subnautica track with for DoD 2 years ago, and NiKo Vargas, who sang for "My Dear", a NieR cover that I did in that same month. Both of these people fit the R&B/hip-hop style very well, and Sketch is particularly REALLY, REALLY GOOD at this style. He's extremely gifted at putting pen to paper and writing extremely catchy and meaningful lyrics, it was something that I really wanted to show everyone. I just gave him the concept "I want to do a song that celebrates friendship, collaboration, friends being there for you in tough times, and our love for music", and he just did his thing, all the rap verses were written by him.

Most of the sound of the track was inspired by the two tracks I mentioned earlier, "House Party" and "Comedy", I wanted something lo-fi-ish but with a lot of groove, live bass and clean guitars, live keyboards (I played them myself - I'm not a keyboardist, but this was relatively simple and I wanted it to feel live), and have the vocalists go wild, and everyone knocked it out of the park. I sent Sketch all the stems I could and he did the final mix, including a lot of the SFX and sound design that really gives it that delicious sound (including the cinematic toms you hear throughout). He goes more in-depth about his process in this document.

At the 20th Anniversary, this track ended up ranking FOURTH out of FIFTY-NINE TRACKS, even beating PuD (!!!!!) by one spot. Looking at it now, it's super wild to me that this ended up ranking so high, I never went in with that intention, the last few months have been extremely tough for me, I have been EXTREMELY depressed, losing most of my ability to feel pleasure from things that I liked doing, just sitting and recording this has been super hard, and I feel things like the guitar solo could've been worked a lot better, but I did put a lot of heart into it. I wanted to make a tribute to all my friends in the community, I wanted to show everyone in the anniversary how much this community means to me and how much the help of these people has made me able to push through, even after doing something like hip hop, which I never tried before (and I almost never hear in DoD ever!), and I'm super happy that that love came through. :-)"

Just missed that DoD podium by a whisker, but stomped a mudhole in PuD despite a state of creative ennui, so the pride's deserved. (OK, so no bragging happened.) Humble as ever, yet is there a genre that genuinely DOES pose a true challenge for TheManPF? Because it feels like they can dabble in whatever the hell they want and it'll work. One has to wonder the next genre to get crossed off the bucket list. As mentioned by TheManPF, ShinobiSyntax has extensive mixing notes for reference if you want the fullest picture of the technical side here. We'll just note his kind words for his friends (who he got by with a little aid from):

"Thank you, TheManPF, for inviting me, it's been amazing every time, but working with Zach the AMAZING bassist and NiKo the INSANELY talented vocalist, in addition was just an even more amazing experience. Also, thanks to everyone who voted. I didn't expect to get that high up because of my verses, but I'm glad that I was able to make something people connected with on some level, whether that be musical, technical, lyrical, or just feeling like the song was dope. Thank you!"

No matter what, lengthy notes or not, this was pretty well mixed. In the opening section, the vinyl static quietly added a little something to help fill out a relatively thin texture, which was a nice understated touch used here and there as the track went on. Uematsu's Brawl main theme was creatively used throughout, with nice lyrics as well for both the Brawl and Ultimate parts of the arrangement. Loved when NiKo's vocals first got layered at 2:54; awesome stuff there.

Understated but effective dynamics, with some low-key areas like 3:18-4:00 to help break things up, which prevented anything from getting monotonous or plodding. The sampled strings at 3:40 were at least quietly mixed enough that they didn't stick out like a sore thumb, and they were used effectively from 4:55-on in the final section thanks to the delay effects.

Inspired stuff that earned a strong place for the 20th anniversary DoD. Very nice work, y'all. As previously cited around here, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go as a team. AND get by with a little help from... BAH, you get it! /shakes fist