ReMix:Super Mario Galaxy "To the Stars" 5:06

MOAR MARIO, as newcomer Stephan Wells, with Laura Intravia on flute, sends us a stirring & triumphant chip/orchestral arrangement of several tunes from the inspiring Super Mario Galaxy OST, off of Harmony of Heroes: Final Smash:

"Hi, I'd like to make a submission to OC ReMix. It's a Super Mario Galaxy medley, made entirely by myself, with the exception of a fantastic flute performance by Laura Intravia, done under very short notice! In fact, this whole track was done under short notice. I decided to take on the crazy task of finishing this track in a couple of days.

Super Mario Galaxy is not only up there in my favourite games list, but it also has hands-down my favourite video game soundtrack ever. The Smash Bros. fan arrangement album expansion Harmony of Heroes: Final Smash was nearing the end of development, and when I realised that there was a need for Super Mario Galaxy music in there, I took it as an opportunity to create a large medley as tribute to the soundtrack, which just about made it into the album with hours to spare.

I tried experimenting a little for this. Instead of going for a straight-up orchestral medley, I decided to spice things up a little, making it a chiptune/orchestral hybrid. There are sections which are purely chiptune, sections which are purely orchestral, and sections where both genres play together. I had a hard time making it, owing to the facts that it was my first time ever playing around with chiptune, and that it was made in 30 hours spread across just over 2 days, due to a harsh deadline. So, yep, basically non-stop work to get this done. Didn't get much sleep, but it was WORTH IT.

Of course, it was also difficult getting a medley of various different tracks to sound cohesive, but the good news is that Super Mario Galaxy's soundtrack fits naturally well together, and with a bit of thought and playing around with key/tempo, I think I did a good job of making the medley sound like one big arrangement, rather than six little ones.

I hope that, above all, it gets received well, as I'm sure there are a lot of fans out there who, like me, hold Super Mario Galaxy's soundtrack in high regard.

It was made using Image-Line FL Studio 11, with the following plugins:

• EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Silver
• EastWest Hollywood Brass Gold
• EastWest Hollywood Strings Gold
• EastWest Stormdrum 2
• Spectrasonics Omnisphere
• Versilian Studios Marimba
• Virtual Guitarist
• mda ePiano
• BiT BOX
• Bleep'
• Magical 8bit
• Sytrus
• 3xOsc
• Vengeance Drum Samples
• Fruity Parametric EQ 2
• Fruity Reeverb
• Fruity Delay
• Fruity Compressor
• Fruity Chorus
• CMT Bitcrusher 1

Also, those aren't the original Mario sound effects you're hearing in the background at some points. The Mario sound effects in the arrangement were recreated from scratch using the following video: http://youtu.be/mnSjJUC7z38
Hope I got them to sound like the real thing!

Here's a list of the times in which each track appears in the medley:

0:00 - "Stardust Road"
0:45 - "Into the Galaxy"
1:23 - "Good Egg Galaxy"
2:43 - "Starbit Festival"
3:02 - "Gusty Garden Galaxy"
4:52 - "Power Star Get!"

Hope you enjoy it. :) I worked very hard on this and consider it one of my best tracks to date. I hope you agree! Thanks for listening and comments would be much appreciated!"

Fantastic debut; Shinesparkers' "Harmony of" albums have resulted in a ton of mindblowing VGM arrangements, and we're always happy to see them submitted to OCR, especially when they're as exciting & well-executed as this energetic journey across several SMG soundtrack highlights. I also appreciate the level of detail & background info the artist provided on the production & arrangement of the mix; very illuminating. Larry writes:

"I enjoy hearing Mahito Yokota get his due in the VGM scene, as he's done a spectacular job carrying the banner as the Mario series' main composer since starting off with Super Mario Galaxy. This keeps things melodically conservative while personalizing the orchestration approach and adding in some good, subtle chiptune touches. While I thought some of the transitions here weren't smooth enough, overall this was nice work by Stephan combining this group of Yokota's themes together and giving them his own spin. In a good move by Final Smash's assistant director, getting Laura involved always makes a good thing even better. Hearing the "Star Festival" melody at 3:08 in a chiptune style was my personal highlight, along with a flawless transition of the theme back into orchestral at 3:34. Nothing but a fun first impression from Stephan. :-)"

The louder, more anthemic ensemble passages really convey that sense of adventure & grand scope that made the original score so amazing (also one of my favorites!), while the introduction of chiptune & other electronic components is seamless. Awesome stuff, a highlight-among-highlights on Final Smash, and a fantastic OCR debut from Stephan - highly recommended!