So, what kind of things have been happening within the week between November 5th and November 11th? Personally I couldn’t really see much excitement going across events in the community, so I can’t really comment much in this opening paragraph. The people of the Dwelling of Duels community are still showing anticipation for the Mana theme this month and the Tornado of Solos results, OCRemix’s near-complete site projects are still not quite ready and other contests are still going about their usual business.

Even VGMix faced a quiet week as far as submissions went, so don’t be surprised if the turnout is a little bit lacking as we head into what happened for this particular week.  We still saw some very good stuff there, however.

So yes, the reactions people have been giving to Bound Together is still shown to be broad, however the material that’s been easing off from Adhesive Boy and Irridalin’s cancelled experimental project are still easing towards the size piece by piece. This week AB showed his interpretation of the Snow Woods music, which in itself showcased much of his ideas on what the project is all about through there. Much of the arrangement shows conservation towards the source material, but to make up for it there’s a very broad amount of musical ideas that were showcased within its just-under-three-minutes duration. Even the musical stylistic traits often shown with the game were maintained through the choice of sounds and overall sound processing throughout, thus making Jack a very well focused musician in the technical department. Mind, because there’s so much going on with the theme’s development I’m not sure if people may get into the track straight away, but over a course of repeated listens I’m sure most if not all will find much to like in the long run. In two words? Nice work.

The music from the recent Dwelling of Duels free month is also steadily coming towards the site too, and from earlier on in the week, CarboHydroM came to the site to upload his alternate entry covering the music from the third chapter of Ikaruga on the Dreamcast and GameCube. Starting off with a chip tune based intro that goes against the time period of the game’s release, it soon transitioned into a full on guitar performance from then onwards. The track managed to follow a good deal of mood-based strengths, developing from a tense performance to start with before diving into his trademark 8/8 rhythms to further add some excitement to the audience. Those who know his music well pretty much know what to see from him, and as one of these people I’m happy with what there is. But as some people can expect the mix does have its similarities to the source material, but as we know Carbo is one of those artists that tends to depend on their strengths and make them just as enjoyable musically as a more liberal arrangement if there ever was one at this point. All in all, there’s much to enjoy in here so be sure to see into it.

It’s actually been a while since I last saw a mix from Belgian arranger Elisha come towards the site, and this week he managed to do just that by adding another file to his established list of Unreal arrangements. His synth driven style is apparent through much of the mix’s duration, and that has been shown to easily match with much of the atmospheric focuses that the original managed to leave behind. What managed to surprise me even more so was that he managed to break out from the realms of the source material a little bit more as the track managed to draw itself on, thus in effect doing well to further broaden his skills as an arranger. The sounds are mainly good, I can admit that, but personally I would have looked for some more realistic programming on some of his more "realistic" instrumentation like the piano, violin and panpipes; nonetheless, what we have as a result is a very powerful mix that stays true to the original’s feel while doing enough to grab a little bit more of his audience. Not bad stuff, I’m sure.

Don’t let neither the user name nor the song title put you off (even though the title gets credit as "funniest of the week" from me); this is actually a very sweet Santana-esque variation on "Moon Over the Castle", as heard in the opening sequences of the Japanese version of Gran Turismo. Starting out with some interesting shifting panning movements before diving into a well shifted around incarnation of the source material (melody intact, backing music being given a moderate overhaul) and a major key vibraphone portion before shifting towards another close rendition of the melody for the ending, the user can easily adapt well to the user’s creative instincts that were layered out right in front of them. The tech work, while not the sharpest in the shed due to some light clips and a fair amount of backing noise, has been given some strong foundations in terms of sound warmth that would transition well to the ease of the listener. Some may not quite understand the rhythms much, but that didn’t really bother me; what I see as the biggest qualm even for my own personal tastes is the sudden ending sequence. I can feel that even after listening to this the audience will more than likely want to hear more, but whichever is the case I hope that ilp0 comes forth with some more material in the future. I see some damn good potential.

Most people at the site have known Koelsch1 during his stay at VGMix, but as a result didn’t associate with him too fondly. Fortunately for this submission near the end of the week, the reactions were barely towards any grudges against said artist, but rather allowing for the music behind this jazz-based variation on F-Zero’s "Mute City" theme to speak for itself. What we saw as the strengths in this were the live performances between our opposing instruments, as well as a broad theme expansion while retaining much of the roots of the source material and traits left behind within the genre. Through my own self-critical analysis of the track, I have felt that the track is hindered from some repetitive drum programming and some lightly synthetic sound processes here and there, but when it comes to getting ideas together and putting the mix forward I think we both managed to work well with the material that was cast away in front of us. That said, it was nice to cooperate with Koelsch on this one in spite of any hinders he left behind to the site, and it’ll be interesting to see what else he could do in the DoD competitions.

And now that we've seen what we can from this week, what are we expecting for the next? The closest thing we'd see that would come close to a big event are the final results for the Tornado of Solos getting ready to emerge now that a new third judge is being seeked for.  But when it happens, we will all know together.  We may even see some more project based news down the line, but that may be for another time and another place.  For now, I bid you adieu until next week.

This has been ThaSauce's VGMix Spotlight. All opinions expressed in this article are solely those for Rexy and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site and its administration.

If you have any questions about this article, or want to point at possible entries for next week, send them to bev.wooffATgmail.com