ReMix:Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 "The Simulation" 4:40

Need proof that time is relative? It's time to duel with Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 and a track made in 2014 for your listening pleasure on the OCR front page in 2024! Need proof that life's a simulation? We've got that too, with EAR & Bandit the Raccoon's bountiful breakbeat bonanza bearing a batty, bizarre backstory, courtesy EAR:

"A long, long time ago in 2014 - a friend of mine, Bandit the Raccoon, dropped a song titled "Simulation" on an album of original tunes I thought was amazingly cool. If memory serves - they approached me a while later to remix one of their tunes for an upcoming remix EP they were planning to release. I chose "Simulation", was given stems for their song to work with - and, for whatever reason at the time (because I just can't remember), I decided to remix it in the style of the music from the PS1 2.5D shmup Einhänder. <3. Bandit and I are both huge Einhänder fans and I think it was kind of a show-offy thing I wanted to do. So, I experimented with some sub-bass I could only really test in my car and some fun breaks and rave stabs - and threw in a couple of vocal samples from the game's enemies and the *ahem* companion satellite that provides your mission updates between stages (and a siren!) - mostly because I had been a very clever boy and found a way to rip the audio files from my disc. (I think I shared them with a few other fans later and they are now much more widespread around the internet, LOL. Suffice to say, I got the "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" I was looking for at the time. ^_^)

Fast-forward to yesterday (2023): Bandit is reworking their albums and "Simulation" - and asks me if I still have the original project files and can do a new edit of the track with some newly re-worked stems and arrangements. As it turns out, "Simulation" was from a GBA Yu-Gi-Oh! game and less "inspired by", more... "cover". They wanted to re-work the tune and breathe some more originality into it.

So - while I'm happy to hand Bandit the newer rework with modern mastering and a much more experienced me's understanding of EQ and ways to improve the original track, I asked how they would feel of my submitting the older 2014 version to OCR now that I know it's from a game - and they had no problems with that at all. <3 (I still enjoy it quite a bit, so I don't think it's losing much.)

As far as who did what: The opening arpeggio loop that plays throughout is from Bandit's stems. A synth loop at 1:07 is from Bandit's stems. A piano melody at 4:01 is from Bandit's stems. Everything else is my own design. And all the stems have been tweaked a bit with some FX & EQ to fit my remix.

The EDM producer in me felt the original title of "Bandit - Simulation (EAR's Remix)" was pretty accurate to conventional song titles since I thought it was a remix of their (now apparently COVER) "Simulation" - but in this instance - since I don't know how OCR would handle something like that, I'm proposing "EAR - The Simulation" to differentiate this song from the new, less-Yu-Gi-Oh! version I reworked for Bandit. This 2014 remix is still a significant deviation from not only their song, "Simulation" - but also the ACTUAL source on the GBA.

Yes, very confusing, have fun with that? ^_^

Even if not accepted, this has been a fun couple of paragraphs to write and a fun story to tell."

Such a strange and unique case of accidentally backwards parking into realizing you made a VGM arrangement, which is fun! The Einhänder inspiration's an added perk, so maybe EAR can fully scratch that itch with a future ReMix. :-) Judge Chimpazilla praised EAR's dynamics and mixing, plucking out several hard-hitting highlights:

"Ooooh, DnB breakbeat time! I love that, and the vocals are cool. What is this bass doing, wow! I love the completely varied breaks being used, they sound so different from each other in a good way. The main breakbeat is mixed well, as the shuffle is completely audible and with great presence. Everything is mixed well in fact. I'm loving that 303 that starts at 1:49 and again at 3:12, nice and squelchy.

This track is mastered extremely loudly, hitting -5.7db RMS, but I don't hear any artifacts. I think it would be easier to master if the sub-30Hz frequencies were cut out (I'm looking at you, pitchbend bass). It's a busy mix, but I hear everything just fine. Lots of fun ear candy and textural variations. I hear the piano at 4:02 just fine, mostly because the tone of it is so different from the buzzy sounds making up the rest of the soundscape. I find this mix weird and cool and fun!"

This is certainly a loud and proud piece! Man, the bass drops here never get old, by the way; always a good, weighty sound. Judge Emunator's summary? Well-organized mayhem:

"Damn, the rhythms on this thing are nuts across the board. The sound design here *feels* very Yu-Gi-Oh! to me before even listening to the source. The 2:55 changeup will be YMMV for listeners but I for one loved it. The piano at the very end serves as a great coda to wind things down after 4 minutes of insanity.

I love this, it's a fantastic showcase of a lot of ideas that are neatly tied together despite a very chaotic presentation."

Thanks a lot to EAR for telling me about this one. Whenever someone reaches out to me about a weird track situation, I recommend submitting it and letting the judges suss it out, so I'm very glad he sent this over! If you like your EDM intense, it's here in spades, with potent bass, breaks, warbles, SFX, vox - this is all that and a deck of cards, the whole DnB shebang. :-) Good old gold from surprise Yu-Gi-Oh! dark magicians Bandit the Raccoon & EAR; enjoy big early 2000s energy that packs a LOT of power!