ReMix:Super Mario Bros. 3 "Jump and Flare" 3:41

Oh HO, I see what you did there. Arranging the game franchise that inspired his handle, minusworld's rocking out a pair of Super Mario Bros. 3's stressful songs in a stylistic tribute to fellow OC ReMixer -- and now composer legend -- Mick Gordon! minusworld walks us through, though I've got my doubts that you're ready for it:

"This was my submission for Dwelling of Duels' 20th anniversary (Sept. 2023).

I was originally planning something very different but a key collaborator had to back out, so I pivoted quickly and, in the interest of trying to make something special for the 20th, decided to go full mad scientist on this entry.

Obviously, this track is inspired by Mick Gordon's DOOM soundtracks, but I was limited on time and didn't watch any "How to mix like..." videos, instead opting to spend time doing a bunch of weird experiments with effects and plugins. It's not exactly like DOOM, but I think it ended up having its own *ahem* flare *ahem* that I like. :)

I'm really happy with the guitar sound, which is a 7-string pitch shifted down an octave before running through any other effects. Initial effect chain was: Guitar -> Pitch Down Octave -> Darkglass B7K -> amp sim at low gain. In the mix, I blended in guitar DI signals through a clean amp sim to help add clarity.

The synth lead is three instances of Massive stacked with different presets into copious amounts of saturation and distortion.

NI's Kinetic Metal provided a lot of the ambient sounds, often augmented with a bitcrush or comb filter effect. Wavesfactory's SnareBuzz added some extra noise on top of various pads. OTT was used liberally on the drums and bass, along with copious amounts of the Analog Obsession compressors, particularly FETish and dbComp. TDR's Koletnikov also makes many appearances on buses. Occasionally I ran a softsynth through an amp sim -- that's the big crunch in the beginning before the real guitars kick in. Some glitch effects were done with an effect called FRACTURE. Airwindows plugins are sprinkled throughout, often doing who knows what! Slew2, SubTight, OrbitKick, Inflamer, Sweeten, Tape, and more make appearances.

Arrangement-wise, I learned something called "kishotenketsu" from Joe Newman (aka newmajoe) which is a narrative structure consisting of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion. Joe uses it as an arrangement tool sometimes, and I followed it for this track and liked the result. This track is arranged: "Airship" theme (ABA'), "Airship" theme ambient variation, "Koopa Kid Battle", "Airship" theme again (BA)."

We can appreciate minusworld going for more of a style influence rather than trying to slavishly recreate the instrumentation, because the end result is him putting together some grimy, gritty, LOUD metal, learning a lot in the process, and even being kind enough to share the creative wealth by rattling off his tools for the curious. Loved seeing prophetik music consistently get impressed by minusworld's musicianship:

"interesting concept. opening is drums and then an unholy scream from the depths of hell, which is apparently a guitar? i see where the doom influence showed up. the synth lead is huge and i love it, just a big mass of sound with this eldritch abomination under it playing 'chords'. the ambient section is a creative way to use the melodic material. it's tenuous but i'm tying the background kick and the octave jumps in the bass to the A elements of the airship theme.

there's a big build through 2:13, and then we get to the koopa kid theme. this is again a more tenuous relationship but it's also metal af so i'm good here. the more rhythmic elements are great contrast to the beginning and the ambient section, and the goofy transition at 2:55 into the triple section at 2:58 is great. speaking of which, the recap of the airship theme is superb. what an incredible moment that is. after some more A theme from airship, we get some more drum bangs and it's done.

this is really interesting! the connection to the originals is certainly there, although it takes some listening to wipe all the dirt off your windshield before it's obvious. the extra time spend fooling with the guitar tone certainly paid off as well as it sounds ridiculous. this is a great job. nice work."

There could be even more stuff tying to the source themes, though I'd argue it's all pretty straightforward (including the Koopa Kid battle theme), dirt notwithstanding. Granted, I grew up on this game (9th birthday present AND with the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide -- love you, Mom, thanks!), and it's my absolute favorite Mario series entry, so it's very happily seared into my brain. :-D On the production side, Flexstyle was all ears (& horns \m/):

"YO. This is absolutely killer! Love the track. [...] This gets the energy across EFFECTIVELY. [...] In all seriousness, this is a genre that needs to be heard LOUD to be understood. When it's loud, it's actually EASIER to hear the lead synths, since your brain is filtering some of the other sound information out. Not something I recommend for every genre, and even in this one it has to be done well, but this is done pretty well.

Additional notes: Those drums, despite being busy (and clearly sequenced), are sounding great. Everything comes through where it should. Bass is making my subwoofer rumble in (mostly) all the right places. [...] Love the ambient effects you chose to sprinkle throughout. Synth choices are on point. I dig the way you translated these themes to this genre -- the oddball time stuff from the Airship theme screams "METAAAAAAL," and you did it justice. That guitar tone is just pure CRONCH and I am here for it.

Pardon me while I headbang for a few more repeat listens of this one...."

minusworld, jeez... This bro started blasting! :-D The source tunes always had tension, even in chiptune form, but while we'll never hear an official metal Mario soundtrack, minusworld's tribute shows what these compositions are capable of with the right instrumentation, a dark journey of DooM & gloom! ;-)