Apex 2016: I Got Next Comments from album director Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) and ReMixers Album freely available at http://apex.ocremix.org When you play fighting games, you either lose or you win. When you lose, you get back up again and get ready for the next opportunity to prove yourself. When you win, you stand your ground and take on the next challenger. When you play fighting games, you're either going to hear or say the classic refrain we all remember: "I got next!" Apex is under new management this year, and they're getting us ready for the next era of incredible Smash tournaments. We're proud to continue the tradition of providing a killer album of tracks covering the games at the event. Hope you enjoy. - Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Garrett Williamson, Yungtown - Main Theme of Apex 2016 - Super Smash Bros. "APEX" Source: "Character Select" Original Composer: Hirokazu Ando Garrett Williamson: This was one of those tracks where I could hear the super-hype potential, in this case the source being the "Character Select" music from Smash 64. However, just as most artists often deal with, I had tremendous writer's block and had no clue what to do with such a simple track. After thinking about it for some time though, I realized how the simplicity of the composition could be used to my advantage. I decided to go for more of a gritty hip-hop style, and almost immediately heard Yungtown in my head. I pretty quickly contacted him and shared my idea, he dug the idea and we worked together on it, and so here's the result. One of the most important things to me when working on this track was to depict the excitement of the speed and aggression of competitive Smash, something in which I absolutely love watching. You're watching these two guys basically showing off this amazing art form and the entire audience is screaming and freaking out. I wanted this track to sound like that. I wanted it to sound like what I hear when a ton of people who all just have the same love for these amazing games watch two people make this aggressive -- yet beautiful -- art form out of it. That's about it. Yungtown, of course, did all the rapping, and I did the music and backing vocals/chorus vocals. Hope you guys enjoy it and get that epic, hype Smash Bros. feeling. :) Yungtown: Garrett and I worked really hard on this track. It felt good to come together and make something we were both equally excited about. We had a lot of fun and I think you can hear it in the song. 2. Neblix - Street Fighter V "The Path of Heaven" Sources: Street Fighter II - "Ryu (Japan)," Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - "Ryu Stage ~ Kobu" Original Composers: Yoko Shimomura, Hideki Okugawa DarkeSword: Nabeel and I played a lot of Street Fighter back in the day; mostly a lot of 3rd Strike on our Dreamcast. Street Fighter's evolved and changed a lot since then, but the core remains. The same can be said for Nabeel's music. Lots of strong ideas that have become more and more refined over the years. "The Path of Heaven" is just the latest in Nabeel's evolution as an artist; a fantastic tribute to the evolution of the FGC's most beloved franchise. Neblix: I've been doing the Street Fighter Apex remixes every single year. Street Fighter V came out this year and I really like it. I feel like they've really honed in on making the game as deep as it is accessible, with tons of mechanical improvements over the last games. I saw a video that cut between across all of the Street Fighter games, splicing the same exact fight across the footage from different games (for example, Ryu would start his super in Street Fighter III footage and finish it in Street Fighter IV footage) to create a sort of unified montage that shows the growth of the game over the years. I wanted to honor that growth this year and do more of a general Apex Street Fighter tribute. I chose Ryu's theme (I see him as the face of Street Fighter) and pulled from both his original theme and 3rd Strike theme. I also worked in my Apex motif from my last Apex remix ("Girl from Another World" at 1:29), which was a set of melodic string lines that I reorchestrated and developed further for this mix. Apex is under new management this year, and it continues to grow as well. In parallel, this mix also shows how far I've come as a composer/arranger, pulling from different styles and really starting to hone in on a voice. So this tribute works in a lot of ways, the growth of Street Fighter, the growth of Apex, and the growth of myself. I hope it's as evident to everyone else as it is to me! 3. WillRock - Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 "Have a Nice Death" Source: "Ghost Rider" Original Composer: Hideyuki Fukasawa WillRock: I ended up claiming this track quite late on, so I only had about 2 days to make it! As a result, I had to cut a few corners, the most problematic being not having a guitar on hand for a rock/metal arrangement. As a result, ended up using Shreddage. I think considering, it turned out pretty good, and actually allowed some very tight-sounding guitar rhythms I'd have had trouble with otherwise. 4. timaeus222 - Pokkén Tournament "Iron-Headed Pursuit" Source: "Ferrum Stadium" Original Composer: Shota Kageyama DarkeSword: I was working on a Pokkén remix that I'll finish eventually, but timaeus dropped this gem on me and I had to step aside. Fantastic beats, great synth work, solid all around. Love it. timaeus222: So... funny story time. You guys ready? Originally, I was planning to do a SFV track with Neblix for Apex 2016, and plans changed between the both of us, probably three times, so instead of either of us spending the second half of April working on the mix, I finished my senior thesis for computational chemistry (WHOO!), and he was either programming for Impact Soundworks or working on other projects. Ultimately, it ended up that on May 18, Shariq announced he needed finished tracks by the end of the weekend. I decided to give a shot at a Pokkén Tournament track. Unbeknownst to me, Sharique [sic] was working on something for Pokkén Tournament at the same time. WHOOPS! :P We both worked on our tracks anyways; I started Thursday morning and finished Friday night. Might actually be a new record on my part (about 16 hours in FL!). The source usage on this is fairly straightforward; if there's any ambiguity, it's more "Does this count?" than "What the heck was used?" (There's about 58% overt content.) Basically, I occasionally infused some of my own melodies to emulate the hype + uplifting vibe of the original Pokkén track, and just went all-out when it came to the guitar solo. I really liked the chord progressions I ended up using in this as well. Definitely had a heck of a lot of fun making this! Super Rough Source Breakdown: 0:00-0:33 = Source 0:36-0:42 = Source 0:48-1:36 = Source 1:58-2:12 = Source 2:22-2:25, 2:42-2:44 = Source 2:45-2:57 = Source 3:09-3:32 = Source 5. Chernabogue, Tuberz McGee, Furilas - Super Smash Bros. Brawl "You Only Live to Smash" Source: "Super Smash Bros. Brawl Main Theme" Original Composer: Nobuo Uematsu Chernabogue: I spent countless hours on SSBB, and on the overall SSB series. With Apex coming up, it was about time to pay tribute to this beloved series. The theme was energetic remixes, so I decided to go with hard rock/metal with a touch of blues with the organ. As always, Tuberz and Furilas answered my call and delivered another epic performance -- killer! I hope this will play on loop at Apex and in combo videos -- it's time to Smash (no pun intended)! 6. Sir_NutS - Killer Instinct "Werewolf Transformation" Source: Killer Instinct (SNES) - "Tooth & Claw (Sabrewulf)" Original Composer: Robin Beanland Sir_NutS: I love KI and Sabrewulf's theme is one of my favorites. I wanted to do a high-energy EDM remix but while also keeping the spooky feel of the original stage and theme, and this was the result. 7. DJ RoboRob - Mortal Kombat "Technical Disorder" Source: Mortal Kombat (Sega CD) - "Techno Syndrome" Original Composer: Oliver Adams DJ RoboRob: I kept looking online to find a good remix of this classic track and nothing fit my tastes so I figured, hey, I'll just remix this how I want to hear it. I wanted to keep some of those old school-sounding house synths present to keep it representative of its time, and push the bass in your face so it felt like you just got a spear to the face. 8. ladyWildfire - Super Smash Bros. Melee "SMASHDANCE" Source: "Menu 1" Original Composer: Hirokazu Ando ladyWildfire: After some unfortunate news that another remixer had to drop their track claim, Shariq/DarkeSword approached me to fill in. I have extensive experience in the OCR compo circuit, so this was an awesome challenge: complete a Super Smash Bros. Melee remix in a week for an official OC ReMix album. I'm a huge fan of the compo style of producing a remix, since I tend to not finish a song unless I'm given a hard deadline. I definitely felt the pressure to come up with something catchy and well-produced in such a short time, but the pressure is part of the fun of compos, in my opinion. I played a ton of Melee in high school and the main menu theme and sound effects bring me back to that time in my life, so I hope that this remix is as nostalgic for you as it is for me! 9. DjjD - Super Smash Bros. for Wii U "Incognito" Source: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - "Menu" Original Composer: Junichi Nakatsuru DarkeSword: I remixed this theme last year for our CEO album, so I'm pretty partial to it. DjjD gets in there with funky syncopated lines that really get you pumped for some Smash matches. Great remix! DjjD: The newest Smash Bros. is friggin' amazing and the music even moreso. As orchestral as the original is, I figured I'd take a more electronic focus for the remix. Throw in a few breaks here and there, add a synth guitar, couple that with some chip-inspired plucks, and this is what I ended up with!