ReMix:Super Mario Bros. 2 "Shiitake Kingdom" 2:32

By Fxsnowy

Arranging the music of one song...

"Player Select"

Primary Game: Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo , 1988, NES), music by Koji Kondo

Posted 2015-09-14, evaluated by the judges panel


MARIO, MARIO, MARIO, MARIO, MARIO!!

We hope you're enjoying Worlds Apart, and of course we already kicked off our flood month celebrations with a sweet five-mix run of Nintendo arrangements, but it's not every year we get to celebrate Mario's 30th anniversary, Mario Maker just came out, and thus we've got an amazing FIVE-MIX MARIO FLOOD!! After all, any memorable flood is going to involve at least a few plumbers, right? Five different Mario games, nine artists (including three newcomers), and a diverse range of styles make this a GREAT flood that serves as a pretty good microcosm for the diversity & creativity OCR encourages!

We start with newcomer Fxsnowy (Adrian Bureu), who doki-dokis it up with a playful world/jazz SMB2 arrangement that employs a wide gamut of Asian instrumentation:

"I think this is the first ReMix I ever tried making, about 3 or 4 years ago. Decided to rework on it and resubmit with great help from the forums. I decided to remix a really catchy Mario Bros. song that, interestingly, only one person has covered. I mixed some Asian instruments like the erhu, the Chinese guzheng, the Japanese koto, and the Chinese ruan moon guitar to give it an Oriental feel. Hope you guys like it!"

I love the Pan-Asian musical cooperation going here; if only China-Japan relations were so harmonious IRL. At a hair over two & a half minutes, this is a brief, upbeat, & plucky (in more ways than one) piece that retains the tone & charm of the source while not only swapping out the instrumentation but (critically important) altering the arrangement to SUIT said instrumentation. It might seem obvious, but if you just take a source tune and swap the instruments out for Asian, African, Latin, etc. instrumentation, you do NOT get something that evokes those regions.... at all. Articulations, intonations, techniques - these are all key to making things click, and incidentally also key to making the most of sample libraries in general. Liontamer writes:

"Some of the instrumentation would never pass as real (e.g. pizz strings, koto articulations), but the samples were used very well and came off very expressive. Some could say the soundscape was thin, but I thought it was more delicate than thin and the background was filled out nicely. Nice work, Adrian! Welcome aboard! :-)"

While this doesn't end up sounding "OMG Super Authentic!!," as if a group of Chinese & Japanese session musicians got together and just started jamming to the source, there's enough attention to detail paid to each part that the various playing techniques come through and create a fun, respectful, & musical vibe. Congrats to Adrian on a distinct & enjoyable debut - it's a neat concept, it's developed enough in 2'31" to provide a satisfying experience with direction, it's a lesser-mixed but still (for everyone but Larry) a pretty recognizable source, and it's just plain old fun!

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 9 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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Crulex
on 2017-09-08 02:37:04

SMB2 has always had one of my favorite player select themes (one of the few memorable to me actually), and hearing it get this nice, short and sweet Oriental as hell ReMix is pretty terrific. Gotta love that raun moon guitar and the koto, I really do like hearing those instruments. It's just fun and super enjoyable all around. Authentic sounding or not, it's clear what the direction of this mix was and it achieved it's goal 100% in my opinion. Awesome arrangement, definitely adding to my mp3.

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Necrox
on 2015-12-30 20:15:10

Interesting stuff. The sound choices are exotic and keep things fresh. Not much to say but solid mix.

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Chernabogue
on 2015-12-30 04:09:07

That's an interesting track to tackle! Love for what kind of sound you went, it's quite good! The samples are of great quality, and the arrangement is really fun -- the Asiatic atmosphere you create is really cool. Nice production, and nice job! :)

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MrKyle
on 2015-09-23 10:00:50

Great final execution from when it was bouncing on the WIP Forums. I actually really like that it wasn't trying to be super realistic. It makes it innately fun and blends nicely into a genre of Japanese TV/Commercial/spot music that is done nigh identical to this. "Authentic" instruments in a more playful, engineered way. In that sense, it's actually super authentic!

Fxsnowy, well done.

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Ramify
on 2015-09-20 19:38:19

Great theme and absolutely fantastic rendition. The koto is sublime and fits the theme perfectly.

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CyberSkull
on 2015-09-14 20:48:28

This is my favorite of this flood. It really makes me think of the original.

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Anorax
on 2015-09-14 19:27:28

I remember hearing this in the workshop forums. This really has evolved well since I first heard it, and it's become a fun little ditty that I love listening to. Congrats on making it to OCR!

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evktalo
on 2015-09-14 15:24:39

Been digging Fxsnowy's tunes on SFRG lately, and this one too is a delight. What Liontamer said - soundscape more delicate than thin - resonates with me. I like the tempo alterations, the sample retriggery-jiggery and the playfulness here in general. Good fun!

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Liontamer
on 2015-09-14 02:10:36

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Sources Arranged (1 Song)


Primary Game:
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo , 1988, NES)
Music by Koji Kondo
Songs:
"Player Select"

Tags (12)


Genre:
Folk,Jazz
Mood:
Happy,Jazzy
Instrumentation:
Koto,Piano,Strings,Woodwinds
Additional:
Origin > Resubmission
Regional > Chinese
Regional > Japanese
Time > 4/4 Time Signature

File Information


Name:
Super_Mario_Bros_2_Shiitake_Kingdom_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
3,724,211 bytes
MD5:
94e00cbf382ca44fe0b51571e0a94433
Bitrate:
192Kbps
Duration:
2:32

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