“Whether I’m writing an original or remixing something from a video game, my inspirations never change. My music listening history is one big collage, and I try to pull on all of that.”
- Dain Olsen, OC ReMix Interview
June 21, 2008
Fairfax, VA — OverClocked ReMix today published an interview with OC ReMixer & Dance Dance Revolution musician Dain “Beatdrop” Olsen, in addition to posting a brand new ReMix of his from the soundtrack to Capcom’s Mega Man X3 for the SNES. Dain talks about the creation of his latest mix, his approach to mixing game music, and his involvement with Konami’s DDR competition, which landed him a spot on the soundtrack to Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2.
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring hundreds of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.
“A good tune is a good tune. That’s basically it! If a melody can stand the test of time when it’s being played with a one channel sine wave, then it can stand being a fully orchestrated piece of music. I guess really it’s substance over style.”
- Tim Wright, OC ReMix Interview
June 5, 2008
Fairfax, VA — OverClocked ReMix today published its first video game composer interview, with pioneering British VGM composer Tim “CoLD SToRAGE” Wright. Wright helped usher electronica into professional game scores with his work on the landmark racing title Wipeout, released in 1995 by Psygnosis for the then-emerging Sony PlayStation. The interview touches on other career highlights such as Wright’s days composing for the Commodore Amiga, his development of popular music creation programs eJay and MUSIC (a.k.a. MTV Music Generator), and his upcoming original album, CoLD SToRAGE HD, which functions as an unofficial soundtrack to Sony’s latest title in the Wipeout franchise, Wipeout HD for the PlayStation 3.
Conducted by site staff, OC ReMix interviews cover major aspects of a composer’s career, featuring targeted questions unique to each subject, as well a standard list of questions that specifically delve into a musician’s formative years, creative inspirations, and views on the current state of the game music industry. This unique format presents both a contemporary look at a composer’s recent activities as well as more comprehensive questions about the nature of video game music composition.
About OverClocked ReMix
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring hundreds of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.
Composers Christian Marcussen, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan were joined by audio lead Graeme Norgate for an all-encompassing look at the creative process behind the game’s soundtrack. Norgate mentioned that if you’d like to see a soundtrack release, you can help by beating down Ubisoft’s door, so be sure to let the company know if you like what you hear!
Shawn Galway, the Nostalgiaholic (and I’ll guess Martin Galway’s lost lost cousin), conducted an interview with me at Nostalgiaholic.com! I really enjoyed it, so of course I’m gonna share it with you guys.
We discussed what game soundtracks roped me into video game music, my responsibilities at OverClocked ReMix, and how game music connects with its fans. There’s also a mention of how OC ReMixers are now bringing it to video games as professional musicians, including a pimp of the upcoming Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. All that, AND I poop on Captain N!
Do me a favor a rate the article at the bottom of the page and/or throw Shawn a comment just to let him know you stopped by! Let’s get nostalgic, y’all.
Marino also shed light on the tools used to create the soundtrack, as well as the unorthodox (yet somewhat refreshing) scenario of composing the music before the game was significantly completed, analogous to the creative process to some spaghetti western film scores. Certainly an interesting comparison, one I can safely say I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere else before. Did Marino feel any benefit from the situation he was placed in? You’ve gotta visit M4G to find out. (Side note: I’d actually love to find out which VGM composers have directly been influenced by spaghetti western scores.)
Jayson and Gerard also got into the very interesting debate on whether it’s more effective for the the games and game music industries to digitally release soundtracks for free rather than physical releases. Based on all of that, along with Marino’s thoughts on his musical growth, and a quick mention of OC ReMix, you’ve definitely got another great read from Music 4 Games.
Check out the interview in full for basics like Frank’s musical influences, insight into his gear for the music techies among you, and whatgameshe’splaying, as well as deeper topics like how the job of scoring for games could be made easier, and his outlook on video game scores of the future. Per M4G’s usual, you’re gonna get a great read.
Michael Gluck, more commonly known as Piano Squall (www.pianosquall.com), spoke with Andrew Aversa (zircon) recently about his album GAME and some of the logistics involved in licensing and royalties when it comes to selling game music arrangement albums:
“If you decide to release your own album, remember that royalties are only one of the many expenses involved. You also need to consider retailer margins, production costs, advertising costs, website development, photography, packing, shipping, inventory space, PayPal/merchant fees, and manufacturing costs. And of course, an album can take months to create, so you need to prepare for a substantial time investment.”
Now that Uematsu works freelance, unencumbered by interviewing through Square Enix, the discussion features Uematsu at his Yamanakako, Yamanashi home speaking his mind at length on a host of topics with 1UP.com’s James Mielke and crew. Standard questions such as musical influences, the humble origins of his career, dealing with technological advances in music programming, the creation of his band The Black Mages, and the worldwide acclaim his music has achieved are all in full force with all the candid details you need.
But getting to even meatier topics were Uematsu’s thoughts on attending the American debut of the Dear Friends concert series in Los Angeles, criticism of Square Enix and the direction of the Final Fantasy franchise after the departure of series creator and Square co-founder Hironobu Sakaguchi, how he wishes he had control over the music he wrote for Square, and the real deal on why he chose to leave Square Enix. All fascinating stuff as far as I was concerned.
A couple of issues I would have loved to have heard addressed are his thoughts on the amateur VGM arrangement community and theirownmusicaltributes to his work (Peter Griffin: “C’MON!”), as well as his point of view on the gradual phasing out of his role in scoring the FF series with Final Fantasy X and XI. Nonetheless, a groundbreaking interview, at the very least for the English-speaking side of VGM fandom, it’s a must-read affair.
1UP.com recently conducted an extensive interview with legendary game composer Yasunori Mitsuda, covering his career, his creative process, who he’d like to work with in the future, and even his surprising thoughts on how Japanese companies compare to American ones in their respect for video game music. (Here’s a hint: not favorably.) You’ll even learn which of Mitsuda’s trademark compositions came to him in his dreams.
I keep waiting for someone at 1UP to ask questions about the fan arrangement community; I’m biased, but then again OC ReMix did just release the Radical Dreamers arrangement album Thieves of Fate. Otherwise, this was a solid and informative read, so be sure to check it out.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released today in Japan, although final copies made it out before the release date. Advance screenshots have been making their way like wildfire across the internet, as have gameplay videos on YouTube.
One enterprising fellow by the name of ShadowHero1991 is one of those chaps who has been supplying YouTube with videos of the game in action, but he has also uploaded eight videos solely featuring music from the game. As stated in a recent interview between Nintendo Co., Ltd. president Satoru Iwata and SSBB director Masahiro Sakurai, Brawl has “thirty games worth of music.” On the 29th, Sakurai revealed a list of every single song available from the beginning, a list that contains a staggering 101 tracks. And who knows how many more tracks remain to be unlocked.
So, ShadowHero1991’s measly eight videos don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the music contained in SSBB, but they’re our first glimpse at whole tracks from the game, as opposed to the samples Sakurai has posted. In addition, only three of the videos contain full versions of samples from the site; the other five are completely new. Here’s my personal favorite and links to the other seven:
“Meta Knight’s Revenge”
Original pieces: “Revenge of Meta-Knight: Stage” and “Taking Over the Halberd” from Kirby Super Star (SNES)
Composed by Jun Ishikawa and Dan Miyakawa
Arranged by Noriyuki Iwadare
“Boss Theme Medley” (from Kirby’s Adventure [NES], Kirby’s Dream Land 2 [GB], and Kirby Super Star [SNES], composed by Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando, and Dan Miyakawa and arranged by Kentaro Ishizaka)
“Butter Building” (from Kirby’s Adventure [NES], composed by Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando and arranged by Jun Fukuda)
“The Dark World” (from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past [SNES], composed by Koji Kondo and arranged by Arata Iiyoshi)
“Gourmet Race” (from Kirby Super Star [SNES], composed by Jun Ishikawa and Dan Miyakawa and arranged by Motoi Sakuraba)
“Hyrule Field Theme” (from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [N64], composed by Koji Kondo and arranged by Yutaka Iraha)
“Ocarina of Time Medley” (from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [N64], composed by Koji Kondo and arranged by Michiko Naruke)
“Fire Emblem Theme” (from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light [NES], composed by Hirokazu Tanaka and Yuka Tsujioko, arranged by Shogo Sakai, and performed by Oriko Takahashi and Ken Nishikiori)
Industry mover-and-shaker Tommy Tallarico follows up last month’s Electronic Musician spotlight on entering the video game audio production with his own appearance in the magazine describing the evolution and challenges of scoring games, as well as his own advice on the importance of networking in order to help the other important aspect of an artist, talent, shine through.
If you’re a composer interested in a very informative Reader’s Digest version of how to break into the business, as well as fun stuff about the premiere video game concert series Video Games Live, then check out the January edition of Electronic Musician this month!
How did you approach the challenge of composing an opera piece?
- It was very interesting, because I had never listened to opera music when I was asked. I didn’t have any knowledge on composing such a piece, so I did it in my own style. When Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama found out about the opera part in Final Fantasy VI he called and asked me why he hadn’t been told about this great idea earlier, so that we could have worked together on it (laughs)!
Ah, but who cares about that. Let’s get to the good stuff:
I know you’re always getting this question, but how is it going with the third Black Mages album?
- Yes, I get that question very often, but I would now like to promise to people that the album will be released in March 2008.
THE BLACK MAGES II The Skies Above, the last Final Fantasy series rock arrangement album by TBM, was released three years ago, so their third album has been a long time in the making. Hopefully it will be released on time.
Online Editor Darryn King conducted the interview for the site’s Lifestyle section, featuring several questions djp typically (and surprisingly) isn’t asked including what makes a good video game soundtrack, when he realized OC ReMix was becoming big, and why he feels the site has been so successful.
In it, Roth went over the reasons for creating Distant Worlds, the possibility of other Final Fantasy series composers besides Nobuo Uematsu having their work arranged for the tour, concerns about saturating the marketplace for VGM concerts, fan reaction during the performances, the substantial amount of brand new material developed for the concerts, the official CD and possible DVD releases, and why (if allowed only one choice) concert-goers should choose to attend Distant Worlds.
Solid questions, with some good insight from Roth, particularly in highlight the breadth of new material Distant Worlds will be showcasing. Audun “AkumuHau” Sørlie of Nitro Game Injection is in attendance tonight and is a friend of Roth’s, so hopefully he’ll share some thoughts on tonight’s performance in the coming days.
Actually gaining his spot with Archie via unsolicited story submissions (typically discouraged in the creative industry), Flynn is currently living out his dream. If you’re a fan of video game-themed comics or are interested in hearing how Flynn views the games and music from the various titles in the Sonic franchise, you’ll pick up a great deal of info from the NGI interview.
I mentioned last month that Super Mario Galaxy’s soundtrack was going to feature some live orchestrated tracks. On November 8, Jayson Napolitano of Music 4 Games scored an interview with the two composers of SMG, Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokota.
M4G: Video footage has been released showing an orchestra recording session for Super Mario Galaxy. How much of the score is being orchestrated? The music itself sounds like it’s from a Zelda game given its epic approach. Was this your aim with the score for Super Mario Galaxy?
Mahito Yokota: 28 tunes have been orchestrated, including the ones performed by smaller sized orchestras. We were not especially conscious of Zelda, but we were making music in order to make them match well with game tempo of Mario Galaxy and image that people explore the magnificent universe. I think you will notice when you play the game that tempo is very much constant, although rhythm of the music may be epic, because we prepared orchestrated tunes that will well suit tempo of the game play. On the other hand, when we create synthesizer music, we were looking toward melodious music for the orchestrated score, while we were putting emphasis on the atmosphere.
Koji Kondo: We created an orchestra score this time, because we wanted to express magnificence of the universe and cool ambiance. We created game music that matches with the game universe, which brought about totally different taste compared with the tropical image of previous Mario music.
Early reports on the music are that it’s quite good. Read the full interview.
As for the music for Metroid Prime 3, we knew we wanted to move in a more orchestral direction, but one that still maintained the game-y and synthetic nature of the previous Prime soundtracks. I sat down and identified some reference game and movie soundtracks and progressive electronic music to present to Yamamoto-san as possible style guides and references. Soon after I compiled my references, we found out that Yamamoto-san was coming to the states and was interested in visiting Retro Studios himself. This allowed me to present to him my musical references and style guide in person and for us to have a face to face dialog. He was very easy to work with and really understood our desired aesthetic. The cool thing was that after we got our musical direction discussion out of the way, we were able to geek out and exchange ideas about audio tools, music in general and even have a quick jam session. It was truly an honor that I got to play drums behind Yamamoto-san’s excellent guitar playing and our CEO Michael Kelbaugh’s kick ass bass playing.
In it, Kikuta discusses his musical influences [editor’s note: Prince!], his recent first (Lost Files), second (Alphabet Planet) and (potentially) third original albums, as well as desired future plans. The interview, also available in its native Japanese, is a quick read that’ll put you in the know of some of Kikuta’s latest developments. If you’re a fan of the Secret of Mana soundtrack or any of Kikuta’s other works, the general buzz on Alphabet Planet (thank you, Babelfish!) is that the hooks and energy evoke the same feelings as listening Kikuta’s game work. And check out those glazed doughnuts.
In the May 2006 issue of the Japanese DTM Magazine, three people were interviewed about the sound of Final Fantasy XII: Hitoshi Sakimoto, the composer, Tomohiro Yajima, the sound effects director, and Keiji Kawamori, the synthesizer programmer. In the interview, Sakimoto revealed the samples he used to compose the game’s orchestral soundtrack:
Released yesterday, the interview discusses Sephfire’s plans to arrange material from Sony’s recent blockbuster hit Shadow of the Colossus. Floyd’s arrangement, entitled “Snowfall on Forbidden Lands,” was also his first released collaboration with his wife Carrie “ceili” Floyd, which made for an excellent pairing, resulting in a whole that, in my opinion, was greater than the sum of its parts.
Floyd also provided background on how he got into video game music arrangement as well as his own take on the artistic merits of the Fumito Udea series of games. It’s a quick but interesting read for fans of all types that you should check out. Let’s hope Alex goes for the OCR trifecta down the line!
SGX was questioned on his love of ICO, as brought to life by his arrangement of the soundtrack’s “heal” and “continue” known as “Save Me”. (”Save Me” is freely available in an edited form at OverClocked ReMix, while a wholly original track comprised of the non-VGM bits of the arrangement called “Saved” is available for purchase on SGX’s fourth album Synesthetic.)
Danny shed light on how arranging video game music was responsible for building his fanbase, and even suggested that he may not be entirely done with video game arrangements. Always good news to me. Check the interview out for a good read.
But yes, the developers of the upcoming Half-Life 2 mod Black Mesa were on episode 5 of Cockbite Radio (there’s that name again) this past Wednesday to discuss all things Black Mesa and how they’re remaking the first Half-Life from the ground up. OC ReMixerKevin “Lorenzo” Sisk, one of the voice actors of the game, intros the podcast. (Check for him also at the 11-minute and 53-minute marks as well.)
Kevin adds: “That screenshot [below], other than the surface tension dam, is a prime example of how the team is trying to bring the original game up to date with today’s graphic standards, while preserving the game’s spirit.” Definitely give it that look.
Also of note for this podcast, 30 seconds in has a hilarious rant from Casey about 12-year-old boys on Xbox Live. Creepy, immature boys on the internet? Never.
VG Frequency #084: Pull the Claado Trigger
Larry Oji - WMRE (Emory University Student Radio; Atlanta, GA)
Saturday, March 25, 2006 / 10:55 PM - 4:08 AM EST
Liontamer f/TCK, Rexy, KyleJCrb, Species8472, Fusion2004, Kevin “Lorenzo” Sisk & Compyfox
Eon_Blue: “I’m pretty sure Larry just called my artwork garbage.” (more…)
Sometimes there’s so much going on that I neglect to give my own homebase, 
In it, Roth went over the reasons for creating Distant Worlds, the possibility of other Final Fantasy series composers besides 
In the 
