ReMix:Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky "The True Final Fight!" 3:46

timaeus222 and Pokémon go together like peas & carrots, he's just that good when it comes to catching 'em all! timaeus's seventh featured franchise ReMix effortlessly trades off between a pair of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky themes, and it sounds gorgeous. As he shared with us, we're lucky timaeus heard the main source tune randomly come up on shuffle and set off the chain of events:

"Something I had been meaning to do for a while was to load some good music into my phone, and among those included the Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky OST. One night, I had that on shuffle and randomly came across "Vast Ice Mountain Peak" and started jamming to it (this is the theme that plays during the 5th Special Episode dungeon). I also recently have been watching videos from 8-bit Music Theory, and the one about how Octopath Traveler music changes keys was on my mind (I highly recommend you check that out!), so I latched onto that aspect of "Vast Ice Mountain Peak" (0:36-1:11), and the gears were turning (see what I did there?).

From what I gathered, "Vast Ice Mountain Peak" seems to dance between two keys that are a perfect 4th apart (something Octopath Traveler does a lot), and bounces two different motifs off of each other (one that rises and one that falls), which both maintain their intervals in the new key. There were also cool descending chord progressions which still manage to return to the original key.

So, the main thing I did at 0:35-1:10 is riff on those two motifs, but in a different sequence/structure than in the original. I also used the "Time Gear" motif from "Dialga's Fight to the Finish!" as a hook (1:11-1:28, 2:31-2:48) that was layered with the chorus (1:28-1:46, 2:48-3:06), mixing in a few other lines from that song (EX: 1:06-1:10). I kept the general structure from the original for the most part, at the climax (1:46-2:31), because it was just too good.

Among the tools I used were the usual culprits -- Zebra2 primarily (pads, bass, arps, leads), with accomplices being Super Audio Cart (flute), Resonance: Emotional Mallets (pipeharp), Juggernaut: Cinematic Electronic Scoring Tools (sweeps/risers), and Black Octopus Leviathan (drums/sweeps). I also utilized stuff from kiloHearts Essentials (Bitcrush + Ring Modulation on the drums), as well as SNESVerb (on the snare). One of the notable things I did from the sound design side was automate the ring modulation frequency on a snare to create that sweep at 0:26, something I picked up from zircon's Arcology livestream in Mar. 2023.

In a way, this immersive take actually hearkens back to an old submission I sent in to OCR regarding "Dialga's Fight to the Finish", wayyy back in 2010, but dramatically improves upon it in a harmonically-striking fashion. This now became probably one of my personal favorite ReMixes I've ever done! With that, I hope you enjoy, Pokémon fans!"

Software geeks rejoice! timaeus often lays out his tools of the trade, and you'd be remiss in not exploring them yourself. :-) Judge prophetik music's been killing it with insightful (and quotable) feedback & reactions, and it turns out timaeus's work has now introduced him to these source tunes as well, continuing a virtuous cycle that hopefully goes on with many of YOU (!):

"what excellent originals these are! i've never listened to this OST, clearly i need to now.

neat opening. the downbeat isn't immediately clear which is neat, it requires active listening to catch where it's going. bass tone is great. there's some call and response going on with the lead elements which is a neat idea. the tinkling synths behind the section at 1:11 were also really delicate, i liked the nuance that provided.

there's a break around 2:05 that shifts the vibe significantly. with no beat, it's all around rhythmic elements in the lead and pads, and it does a nice job driving it forward still. we get some filtro drums at 2:31 and that builds back to the melodic content of FttF at 2:49. after once through there, there's an outro fade-out.

what a great track. i love the variety of synths used to represent the different tracks, and particularly like the attention paid to the excellent melodic material for both and how you interweaved them. the mastering is of course crystal-clear as is expected, and everything's mixed well so it's easy to hear what's what without anything getting covered up. excellent job"

Chimpazilla summarized it more succinctly but the sentiment was the same -- this one's funky, dreamy, groovy -- impeccably produced:

"Great intro, the bass does sound awesome, solid and huge right away! Lovely lead sounds, bells and plucks, and I'm loving the off-beat drum groove. The mix has a luscious, full feel. [...] Great mix of the two sources, totally seamless. [...] Fun listen!"

Seamless is right, with all of us who voted co-signing on timaeus's perfect meshing & blending of the two themes, with the tradeoffs providing some good textural and dynamic contrast (not to mention the SFX- & effects-based ear candy). Good meat to the beats here and a spacious soundscape throughout. You can just chill out to this, so that's what I'm gonna do! Or keep your head in the clouds and miss out, that's your loss, not mine! :-)