ReMix:EarthBound "Bus!" 1:39

Ah, if only it were a little longer. Nice beat. c:

Not a huge fan of the bass, but I do like everything else. I'm sort of glad to see this be a remake and not a mix with a lot of liberties taken. One because I think the theme benefits a lot from its straightforward design and length. And had this mix been 4 minutes, my attention span would not be very leniant.

There's some nice surf jammin' sounds here, but not a whole lot more. If that's the sort of stuff you enjoy, and I do, then there are much worse ways to spend 1 minute 45. Plus, the title is one of my favourites on the site. Exclamation points are coming back in a big way!

A little too heavy on the repeating riff, I'd have loved to hear more organ.

Short, but sweet. Much like this review.

ok, first off, I've always loved this song, one of the first remixes I downloaded when I came here a cpl years ago.

But also, has anyone noticed that in The Strokes' song- "Juice Box", their baseline is exActly the same as the intro to the bus theme! I wonder if any of the Strokes have ever played Earthbound...

This sounds more like just an updated cover, which I love about it. The ska rythum is excellent and this shows that shadow is the mastermind behind playing EB tracks with his gitter.

If only the organ solo was longer and there were some original melodic sections and I wish the song would keep going twice without fading out since the groove is excellent. But shadow's more a man that says "quality first, and novelty second." Explains why he didn't like my Battle 8 Remix.

This song reminds me of Peter Gunn. And I do so ever like Peter Gunn...w00t!

Jakob: omgplz man, like stfu ;D

omfg no way d00d. And I just realized that we haven't spoken much on AIM lately. I need the SHADOW UPDATE.

Anyway, that's a hell of a lot of text up there...:0

Kinda sounds like Booker T. and the MGs, to me! Something like Soul Dressing, maybe.

Bus! GROOVY! Earthbound was one of my favorite games back in the day... Shadow did this tune justice here.

This is exactly what the Bus theme in Earthbound would have sounded like on a system with a better soundchip.

-Klondike

I was thinking the EXACT same thing as I listened to it. Everyone's saying it's true to the original... and I think all those comments are dead-on! Keep in mind that this song wasn't meant to be a standalone work of epic proportions when they put it in the game. While someone like Russell Cox might have turned it into one and made it sound damn good, this is one instance in which I'd go with shadow's call and just leave it as the novelty tune that keeps you occupied from Onett to Fourside. =)

As for the controversial bass... I thought it was just a little overpowering. Maybe it's just my huge freakin' subwoofer, but at 0:12 when it enters, it gives the song a much heavier feel that disrupts the initial impression that it's going to be primarily light and bouncy. Oh, it was perky and bouncy, but if the rest of the song had kept just the /light/ peppiness of those first 12 seconds... it would have been different, for sure. The guitar is jammin' though... and I appreciated the good quality of all the instrument sounds too. I drooled over that snare when it's nice and exposed at the beginning. The guitar is live? I thought it was just a really good sample, as others apparently did too! Nothing wrong with that though.

Bravo!

k, first of all, thanks for all the criticism and what-not.

now to address everyone's replies or something.

Israfel: Undeveloped, okay. I guess I could've added more variation and progression through variation with the percussion, though I tried to do a small bit of progression with the percussion, it isn't completely noticable.

skulkrusha: I'm a fan of heavy bass, and I think others have said it should've been more punchy and picky and stuff, dunno though. Also, it isn't BooBass, it's a really nice soundfont, though through the entire mix it's noticable qualities do get drowned out. I tried to up the treble a bit to give focus on the unique timbre and quality of the bass soundfont. The guitar might've been out of tune cause I usually play very hard and go nuts...I did tune it with my keyboard though and my ear is pretty good... though next time I'll use my electronic tuner if this dissatisfies you. And the percussion that you like so much is free akai samples from ftp://ftp.akaipro.co.jp (very hard to get into, and when you do it's VERY slow.)

Starblaze: I tried to put as much work into it as possible, perhaps people could've given me better input in the WIP forum when I posted it there :PPP. And actually, I feel the guitar feels a little drowned out with the very defined bass and the source material is repetitive, and I wasn't exactly thrilled about adding a solo or anything, I don't like to do live stuff all the time cause I feel that machines can be more accurate and consistent. Yeah.

Noodleface: Sorry about the length, but it was hard to stretch out the very short, repeating song . The organ, it wasn't a soundfont or the B4 (awesome organ synth,) it was another free Akai sample that I thought completely fit the song. The bass... I dunno, it was my favorite bass soundfont at the time and stuff. Glad ya liked the guiro, it's from the free e-lab samples of their sample CD's (heh;) it's in one of the 100bpm packs. I think I sliced it up or something or granulized it, to fit tempo. As for there being more, I guess you're right but I have no idea what I could've added or changed.

Mustin: Heh, if anyone was wondering how he got this song, he popped up in #earthbound on dynastynet (starmen.net's official channel... ) and I saw him in #ocremix before so I thought I'd get his opinion on things. Anyway, yeah, hey Mustin. I see what you mean about the whammy bar, I can imagine that being in there because of the whole mood the song sets, but I'm not very enthusiastic about solos, though I have done some... somewhere, heh.

HalfShadow: You're only half the shadow that I am, hohoho!

Spacecow: I might've submitted Funky Bookas, but it still needs some production work, e.g., the second big crash where everything plays near the end is dampened by the B4 organ or something, anyway, that's for another topic.

Dj Orange: When I made this I only had soundfonts at my dispense, so that's what you're gonna get. I have Spectrasonics Trilogy now though, it has amazing Upright Bass sounds and decent electric bass sounds which would sound superb through amplitube. Maybe I should do a rehash of this song sometime in the future with all of your suggestions? I could be "HOLY CRAP I CREAMED MY PANTS ON THAT BUS!!@" Tee hee.

bartkusa: Heh, I never thought of the name/length in that way, heheh.

Al: yeah, the bass might've drowned out the middle/low-middle frequencies, but I just loved that bass sound at the time so much, and I felt that the guitar didn't need focus in that area, it sounded fine to me at the frequencies it occupies.

bonerdude: lost on ideas for variation and making it longer, etc. k?

Jakob: omgplz man, like stfu ;D

Okay, that's about it, I think. If you have any comments or criticism that you'd like some answers on, just email, IM, or PM me. kthxbye.

Update: After re-reading the Guidelines for this board, I might as well tell you what I used and why I made this.

I used Fruityloops, free Akai samples, free e-lab samples, miscellaneous soundfonts scattered across the web (you can find my favorites at http://shad.starmen.net/storage/soundfonts ... ) tons of VST(i/2)/DX effects (Waves Platinum Bundle [TrueVerb, RVerb, C4 Compressor,] BBE Sonic Maximizer, Fruity Parametric EQ's , and Amplitube [!!!],) and my crappy Crate guitar directly plugged into the line in on my soundcard and processed with amplitube (don't laugh, got it for my birthday when I was little and haven't had the time or money or resources to upgrade to a decent guitar.) I also may have used T-RackS 24 standalone in post-production mastering (though I now have T-RackS VST.) Dunno what else I used, k.

I started working on this remix while looking through Earthbound SPC's, reviewing my favorites and memorables. I happen to stumble upon the Bus theme again and found it very damn catchy and thought the SNES audio-chip just didn't do it enough justice. So I set out to do my own rendition with a badass "Ohhhh Yeah..." feel to it. And after a little hard work and brooding, I released this remix.

Yeah, okay, that's about it, I think.

I like this remix. Yes, it's short and sticks closely to the original, but that's what makes this a perfect remake of the original song. The instrument samples are nice quality too. I was thinking the exact same thing as djpretzel, it really does sound like it came out of Pulp Fiction. Nice work, Shadow.

Great stuffage, but Shadow has done better. He's very talented and that's only going to improve with time. Cool.

As soon as this tarted I was like "Awesome... SURF!"

It definitely has a very good surf-like sound that we don't hear on OCR too often. I wish it was longer, with a little more variation..... but oh well. It still rocks.

It's called "Bus!" And it's short.

Short Bus!

clevar

Awesome freaking song too. This is really faithful to Earthbound in theme.