It’s time!
We had a really cool turnout for the contest – seven submissions! It was really tough to decide a winner, as every submission was awesome in its own little individual way, but nonetheless – 14 days after the contest closed – here they are. (Admittedly that two weeks wasn’t just me deciding, I’ve had a whole heap of other quite demanding projects going on concurrently. :P)
See the tunes for yourself!
Download all submissions – 92MB
The winner is below, but first the runners-up:
7. supermarioultra – “Hate Machine”
A dead-straightforward soundfont render. The balancing of instruments here is fairly beginner-ish, with the drums all but having essentially vanished. The solo guitar has been octave-shifted so it now fights for harmonic space with the rhythm guitar. The net wasn’t cast too wide here. Note: An additional orchestral remix was provided alongside this submission, one which unfortunately suffers all of the same problems, on top of many more that come with the complete reinstrumentation of the track’s parts.
2/10
6. Blackfish – “Hate Machine”
Another entry with untweaked MIDI data. A pretty “raw” sound overall – only pseudo-realistic guitars, bass and choir (tenor only, strangely) are used here. I think it’s missing some bottom end, possibly because the sawtooth wave seems to be an octave higher than normal. The guitar solo is heavily processed with a metric ton of delay applied, and the piece doesn’t carry much more “sparkle” beyond that. In a sense this is less a “remix” and more of a reorchestration. Certain tones seem to hang longer than they should, though, and overall things could stand to be a little clearer and brighter. A fair enough go, though.
4/10
5. _sink – “big moods”
Music found at the airport lounge. I dig it. Muffled vaporwave-y underwater pads and crunchy grooved drums, with brighter 80s synths overlaid. The carefree bass guitar seems to be freestylin’ it. Placid, and paces itself – feels like it should give way to something, but doesn’t quite get there. Roughly a minute in, it loses some of its harmonic stability before we return up for air again about a minute later. The source material is all but unrecognisable here due to the creative method with which it was remixed, according to _sink: “my approach was pulling out stems with sekaiju, then rendering them. then i flipped those samples and added drums. everything was pulled out of Big Guns except for the drums.” A novel approach! This track is very much its own beast as a result. I like it.
6/10
4. Reav – “Adrenaline in the Blood (Reav remix)”
Not as weird as the creator insists. Different! Quite chaotic – thick and chunky hip-hop beats dominate this track, along with detuned, chirpy synths and videogame-y square leads, and bright, shiny marimba (I think), all drowning in reverb and delay, while the main melody has been chopped up and edited, seemingly to make room for that stomping kick drum. I was fully expecting a rap vocal. Lots of interweaving ideas all crashing together and vying for attention here – at times the tonality and rhythmic variation is all over the place – the use of the bII chord is certainly cool – but I think in a few spots the major and minor seventh tones both try to compete in the same measure, resulting in some confusion over what should be the leading tone. Overall a decently energetic and harmonious sound.
6/10
3. Tuzmusicz – “Hate Machine”
Actual guitars and bass, oh my! Decently recorded, too. The overarching structure has been extended and embellished slightly, although the MIDI drums and choir have been left intact here. The choruses are a little muddy, mix-wise, with the lead instrument being a bit unclear – something needs to stand out there. Unexpected low piano interlude in the middle – a curious choice, I wonder if that was a “default patch left in” type of deal. The solo is played on an 80s-ish synth for its first part and a hammond organ for its second. The final guitar solo shreds though, and is definitely the highlight for me. Almost-brand-new material enters at the 2:00 mark for a powerful B-section-like outro, serving as a fine way to close a blistering cover and bring us back down from orbit.
8/10
2. Cardboard Marty – “Big Guns (NEOSigil remix)”
A synthwave extravganza, replete with velvety lead synths, grinding guitars and an incessant helicopter bassline. The main melody has been made to fit the new tonality. The song structure has been transformed quite heavily, and the solo is on the surface brand-new, perhaps taking a few tonal cues from the original with its smooth slides and glides. The ending feels a trifle rushed, lets it down marginally, I feel, but otherwise really freakin’ solid. This stuff is right up my street.
8/10
AND THE WINNER IS…
1. zan-zan – “hoof mashing”
Sign of Evil-ish. Deathly low bass and heavily-filtered off-kilter drums introduce this piece, immediately setting the stage. Spooky string swells play bastardisations of the original chord structure. Wirey, scream-like ambience (knowing zan, it’s probably a screwed-up Telephone Ring) and fearsome clattering dissonance together create an intense sense of claustrophobia. Halfway through, phrygian guitars and synths play in unison to add a completely different flavor to the original, all while things in the background gradually lose sanity, from the tonality of the underlying material to the maddening drum pattern. The spirit of the original is certainly here in some loose way, but something is dreadfully not right, and I mean that in a good way. Certainly a fine composition in its own right on top of being a cool remix, and I found myself continuously coming back to it to explore all its little nuances. That says a lot, I think.
9/10 – I wish it was longer.
Congratulations zan-zan! The money and channel feature are yours. Though those top three in particular are certainly worthy of sharing elsewhere, so you may see those coming soon to a YouTube channel near you.