Posted 2011-01-10, evaluated by djpretzel


No, not THAT answer, or that other one, or even him... today at least we're focusing on THIS one. While the answer to life, the universe, and everything may be 42, Mattias Häggström Gerdt has today answered the specific question of "What would a badass album of Armored Core ReMixes made by Mattias Häggström Gerdt sound like?," and I dare say he was the perfect man for the job.

This is our FIRST PSP ReMix (!!), an accomplishment I really wanted all to myself, but you snooze, you lose, and I snost, and I lost. Fair play to the Swede, who writes:

"'Hyper Monkey Likes the Dancefloor' worked really well so I decided to do something a bit similar to keep the album cohesive but not so similar that it felt dull. Out of the blue, Jill stepped up to do her second vocal performance for THE ANSWER, something I wasn't expecting but accepted with open arms! Considering Larry was originally planned to appear on this track, I think I (and everyone else) was very lucky that Jill came on to lend her voice talent.

Once again I had almost too much fun fiddling around with the vocal stems I got. With a little help from Propellerhead Record's Neptune (I know, I mention this a lot, but it's awesome) I decided to give poor Jill a certain Vocaloid character. Maybe I'm a crowd pleaser since this album was aimed for release in Japan but there's also something about the sound I find very pleasing. Some pitching, formant shifting, distortion, compression, EQ, filtering, reverb, delay and harmonies later I had completely transformed Jill into a crazy robot. Luckily she was somewhat okay with this! Or at least after I changed the original settings which made her sound like she was around 10 years old, something that was probably for the better. I went on to slap some bass, play some keys and side-chain some synths and PRESTO, REMIX! I hope you enjoy this track as much as I do!"

SERIOUSLY funky; Mattias really blended a lot of funk/disco into these tracks, and the bass that intros the mix alone is a thick, delicious chunk of funk that sets the stage for the cosmic, bootalicious breakdown that ensues. This is probably my favorite track off the album, because it's a got a power-chorus with a strong pop melodic hook that breaks up the straight groove bits with some anthemic robo-Jill refrains. Mattias almost sounds apologetic about the vocal FX, which I suppose some might feel are trite or overused at this juncture in musical history, but I've always maintained that you should do what's right for the song, ignore the peanut gallery, etc., and I think the overall package here is a sweet bundle of space disco that holds nothing back. Awesome, completely enjoyable gem off of THE ANSWER!

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 10 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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Bahamut
on 2012-07-15 22:31:43

Oh man I love that grooving bass here. Strangely, that bass reminds me of the Mega Man Zero boss song Crash.

That bassline seriously makes the song for me, and everything else is icing on the cake. Solid song from Mattias - hell, the whole ANSWER album is probably underappreciated, it's good stuff.

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Crulex
on 2011-12-16 11:43:06

Whoo, dance time! Oh, that is an awesome beat, and I think DJP and OA nailed it calling it space disco. Very catchy electronica and it is so good for perking up. Yeah, a few more sentences in the lyrics could have helped add a bit of variety to the ReMix, but the different ways it was filtered and changed up when it was said made it last a little longer than it would have otherwise. So while I can see why some wouldn't like it, I actually loved it and it worked well for this ReMix. This kind of ReMix is one of my favorite as far as genres go

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Rexy
on 2011-12-15 02:54:54

You were originally going to have Larry on this?!

Well, it may be something since both he and Jillian represented OCR at Tokyo earlier this year, but that to me would take Larry's humorous side to a whole new level. :razz:

Of course, it's fine enough with Jillian involved given a familiarity with the Japanese audience beyond the TGS2011 booth babes (I'm sorry again Larry!!), and as a result we've managed to get a track that can be seen as a melodic fusion of the two sources while depending on the silly yet repetitive lyrics of "I Can See All" in a neatly programmed vocal stem that can be compared to Daft Punk's vocoder work. I swear that thing is crazy - with all the major pitch shifts, autotuning and the occasional half-speed thrown in, the idea of turning Jill into a vocaloid for this purpose has shown itself to be a clever and well-executed idea.

So you can see I dig the idea well. People may not get it due to the restrictive lyrical nature, but that's what the source material implied. I'm just blown away by a lot of the production work especially behind the transformation behind Jill's voice, so I consider it a very neat addition to the Armored Core album - plus a neat way to provide first honors to the PSP! Nice work, Anosou :)

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OA
on 2011-12-12 15:40:49

Space disco all up ons!

Jill sounds great as a crazy dance robot, and the track is super funkified, which is a wonderful treat for all. This is a good song, you should download it.

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Crono3of3time
on 2011-01-31 18:53:43

I really like this song but.. uh..

I'd say the over-excessive application of a single sentence probably did it in for me. This song does need vocals to spice it up yes... Trying 3 or 5 different sentences probably would have sounded better, as the repetition tends to get on the annoying side after a while.

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Coucou
on 2011-01-21 06:52:18

This mix enters my favorite collections : it is a pure jewel.

The perfect bass sound makes me dance.

The voice effects introduce -surprisingly??- a lot of emotion.

Thanks for that.

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Rozovian
on 2011-01-12 20:40:42

Without totally random lyrics I can listen and enjoy Jill's screwed up voice here. It amazes me how much variety you can get out of the same voice sample with all these crazy effects. The compression bothers me somewhat, but not enough to prevent this from being one of my favorites on the album. Sweet groove, which is one of the things I like about your style, dude.

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Joshua Morse
on 2011-01-10 17:30:26

This is in my top 3 fav Mattias tracks. This could very well be at number 1; can't decide! Sounds great!

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NegimaSonic
on 2011-01-10 16:03:37

I hope no one saw me listening to this for the last thirty minutes...

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djpretzel
on 2011-01-10 11:58:35

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

Sources Arranged (2 Songs, 2 Games)


Primary Game:
Armored Core: Formula Front - Extreme Battle (Agetec , 2004, PSP)
Music by Ayako Minami,Daisuke Matsumoto (II),Hideyuki Eto,Tsukasa Saitoh,Yukinori Takada
Songs:
"iśaku-No.373"
Additional Game:
Armored Core: For Answer (From Software , 2008, XB360)
Music by Hideyuki Eto,Kota Hoshino
Songs:
"I Can See All"

Tags (6)


Genre:
Mood:
Funky
Instrumentation:
Electronic,Synth,Vocals: Female
Additional:
Lyrics > Lyrics: Existing
Lyrics > Lyrics: Original

File Information


Name:
Armored_Core_Formula_Front_Extreme_Battle_We_Can_See_No-373_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
6,389,449 bytes
MD5:
9d5d52f9780c5f9cde7520d7a54e878d
Bitrate:
234Kbps
Duration:
3:35

We're the masters, we can see all

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