Download (MP3)
Download (End care acoustic short: Bright Sound …for Dry Lagoon)

TAILS SONG!

I’ll be real with you: I don’t think I’ve ever referred to this song as On the Edge, I always call it Eternal Engine.

I first did this song in the 2013 Sonic Fan Medley as the opening tune, and since learning it from that, I’ve always really dug all of the guitar riffs and felt this is a really under-appreciated SA2 jam. Lately this one’s been popping up in my head a lot, so I felt it was time to bring back something I haven’t officially done in 3 years: doing a song as my personal birthday (July 1st) song choice!

I had a blast doing this one. On to the next song!

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Beloved Tomboyish Girl)

It’s Touhou song #2 this year, this time we’re throwing it back to the PC-98 era with Sleeping Terror from Lotus Land Story!

This one came from the Patreon request list, and I always thought it was a cool song since the first time I heard it there. When it won a drawing, I was more than happy to take this one on. It’s probably the most ‘simple’ Touhou song I’ve done so far, but I really like the main melodies.

There are still a lot of Touhou songs I want to get to eventually, so more will definitely be coming in the future!

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Objection! 2009)

Hold it!

I didn’t do an Ace Attorney song last year, breaking a 3 year streak of covering Pursuit themes. I didn’t want to repeat an AA no show this year, so here’s the next most requested Pursuit theme: Lying Coldly from AAI: Miles Edgeworth.

Honestly, this wasn’t exactly one of my favorite Pursuit themes that I’ve heard, but it grew on me a lot the more I worked on it. I’m really happy with how this remix turned out.

I think I said this before but, next time I get to AA, maybe it won’t be a Pursuit theme. 🙂

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Tigrex)

Almost 4 years later… I’ve FINALLY gotten back to Monster Hunter!

Every time I do a live-stream Q&A/News session, I get a lot of questions about if and when I’ll do more Monster Hunter songs. I’ve had Zinogre in my sights for a while, since it’s been the most requested song over the years. With his recent (sort of) inclusion in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion, I felt like we had to get to it’s theme as soon as I could.

This theme has has a few different iterations throughout the series. This remix is based on the versions from Iceborne. The first half is based on the normal version of the theme, while the second half is more influenced by the Mount version (which really, aside from some mixing differences, just adds a drum kit).

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I’m sure I’ll get back to some more MH in the future!

Download (MP3) (Vocal Version)
Download (MP3) (Instrumental Version)
Download (End card acoustic short: Waiting Room)

It may be June, but there’s one final remake I wanted to get to before we moved back on to new stuff: let’s bring back the Main Theme from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and throw in the amazing vocal stylings of Marie-Ève Ermel and our newest GaMetal Dream Friend, Nicolas Daoust!

Daoust is well known for his great Crypt of the Necrodancer ‘Real Voice Shopkeeper’ covers (so much so that his voice was later officially added as an option in the actual game!) and he’s also the one that connected me with Marie-Ève Ermel for the Daughter of the Dark God cover we did last year.

We’ve been talking about some ideas for a little while now, and one song Nicolas brought up that he and Marie-Ève had an idea to cover was the Brawl theme. This has been a song I’ve been kicking around remaking for May for the past few years, but the idea of having 2 badass operatic vocalists on the track instantly had me sold. So much so, you may have noticed I didn’t include it in the 2020 May Madness Eligible Song List.

Since this is such a short song, clocking in at just under 2 minutes, I decided to go ahead and also provide you all with an instrumental arrangement as well! This one’s far more reminiscent of my old 2010 version, which, back in my Newgrounds days, was one of my most popular old remixes.

Eventually we have to show Smash 64 some love…

Download (MP3)
Download (End card Acoustic Short: Goldenrod City)

And finally(?), the number 1 most requested song to return for this year’s May Madness: Deoxys!

This was the song that I cut from last year’s line up that I felt the worst about. It had a lot of votes… but I just wanted to get to the others that I ended up doing. This year, it came back and took the #1 spot in both the public vote and the Patreon vote, making it a shoe-in to be included this year.

Lately when I’ve been remaking my old songs, I’ve been changing the keys back to their original state, but I think Deoxys actually sounds really good in B. Not much is changed from my 2014 arrangement, mostly just a performance/mixing thing. I did slightly alter the brass line during the intro to sound less like One-Winged Angel, though.

I honestly have no idea what the #1 most requested remake will be in 2021, but I’m excited to see. Until then, let’s get back to some new stuff!

 

…or will we?

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: SMB3 Ending)

This year’s hottest ‘song that was previously in a GaMetal medley that you’d like to hear a full version of’ (I tried to think of a shorter name, but that’s all I could come up with) is none other than King Bowser from Super Mario Bros. 3!

I’ve actually done this song in 2 different medleys, both a very long time ago: in the second ever GaMetal song Bowser Medley back in 2009, and in the 2012 Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars mega medley. Both of these times, as well as this time, I’ve drawn the most influence from the Super Mario RPG version Fight Against Koopa, which added a short new intro, extended the main melody in a nice way, and added a new small section at the end of the loop. There’s really nothing in Fight Against Koopa that wasn’t in the original, so I’ve given this remix the original name and game source.

The SMRPG version is the version I’m most familiar with, and I actually heard it before I ever heard the SMB3 version (I didn’t actually beat SMB3 till later in life). It was one of my favorite songs from the game, so I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this song. I was thrilled to hear it return in Smash Bros. Ultimate.

While this remix, as mentioned, draws the most influence from Fight Against Koopa, I threw in a few more nods with a little bit of the Airship theme, and some of the Smash Ultimate version (which includes the World 8 map theme).

Still waiting on Geno to be revealed for Smash so I have an excuse to remake that SMRPG medley…

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: The Roost)

With the success and craze of Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently, I felt like I should do a K.K. Slider sometime soon for all of the AC fans out there, so I went with one of my personal favorites: K.K. Rock. You might have been expecting K.K. Metal, but there are a lot of great K.K. Metal covers out there already, so I felt like we should visit a K.K. song a feel like is a lot more underappreciated!

I actually heard K.K. Rock long before I ever heard K.K. Metal or most other K.K. songs for that matter, so it’s always had a special place in my heart as far as K.K. Slider songs go. This song is mostly just a slow groove, but it’s incredibly cool and catchy.

I’ll eventually get back to more Animal Crossing songs sometime later, there are already a couple I’ve been considering. It’s a good thing you’re a follower/subscriber so you can be around for when I do get to it! 🙂

Download (MP3)
Download (End card Piano short: Plantera)

Let’s take a break from all of the remakes from this month for a few new songs, starting with the #2 most requested song from this year’s GaMetal Song Ballot: Plantera from Terraria!

Because of Terraria’s Final Fantasy influenced style, there have been quite a few people that mistakingly assumed the GaMetal Bard was a Terraria character. To set the record straight one last time, for those that aren’t aware, he’s originally a recolor of the Final Fantasy I Red Mage. After the GaMetal reboot (the GaMetal album), he’s been slightly redesigned to have his own custom appearance, rather than being a straight up recolor.

Plantera is originally somewhat… strange, so this was an interesting song to work on. I wasn’t sure how it’d turn out, but once I was finished with everything, it ended up all coming together exactly how I wanted.

Also fun to point out: I lack a 7 string, so I instead tuned my old Jackson RR3 to the bizarre tuning of A#FA#FAD for the rhythms. It also looks incredibly similar to ‘The Axe’, a red flying V guitar weapon dropped by Plantera.

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Spinning Tower)

The classic Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest song Bloody Tears is back!

Bloody Tears was the first ever GaMetal Halloween Special, all the way back in 2013. It was also the first Castlevania song I covered.

I’m quite fond of my old arrangement, so not a whole lot has been changed here aside from the usual “not as sucky playing and mixing” aspect. I did sneak in a quick Monster Dance reference, though.

Although I’ve been improving on the size of the GaMetal Castlevania catalog recently, there’s still a lot more CV that I need to get to. I’ve only managed to do 4 CV songs since 2017, and before that, Bloody Tears and Beginning / Vampire Killer had come out 3+ years prior.

In time…

Download (MP3)

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know a whole lot about the actual Silver Surfer, aside from him being silver and also using a surfboard.

But what I do know, is that the Level 1 theme from Silver Surfer NES is one of if not the most bangin’ tunes from the NES era. It’s another song, and soundtrack, composed by the amazing Tim Follin, known for making some of the best NES soundtracks around. Unfortunately, those soundtracks were usually a part of some rather mediocre games, so his genius wasn’t as well known, as it is now, until a lot later.

I first covered this track back in 2014, and have been dying to re-record it for the past few years. It was far from the most requested remake for the year, but being from an old, not very popular game, that wasn’t unexpected. It did have a lot of votes among GaMetal Patrons, however, so I used my powers of ‘hey I can really do what I want’ to make this an official remake for the year.

I don’t think I really made any changes to the arrangement from 2014, it’s just performed a lot better this time around… this song is hard! In fact, I’d say, in it’s entirety, it’s the toughest GaMetal song for guitar.

Usually I talk about doing more songs from a certain game or series at this point, but instead I’ll say: I gotta do more Follin stuff!

 

Side note: I have to find the old Silver Surfer acoustic I made in 2014, so it’s not yet available for download, but will be as soon as I can find it! The one played in the video was ripped from the old video.

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Credits)

Song number #3 from the ‘missed the cut from the last few May Madness events’ is our old 2011 GaMetal friend Sandopolis Zone from Sonic & Knuckles!

This has always been a personal favorite Sonic song of mine. In a sea of funky, upbeat, and fast paced songs, Sandopolis sticks out because it has a much slower pace than the other music it’s surrounded by. Then it gets even slower in the Act 2 arrangement!

This remake features more backup guitar lead harmonies, a sludgier Act 2, and a few changes to which instrument is leading the melody on certain parts (keyboard/lead guitar, mostly during Act 2). I cut the cheesy reverse/speedup effect I did in 2011 that transitioned Act 2 into the ‘fast Sandopolis’ (let’s call it Act 3) that I end the song with. I also completely changed the final guitar solo in Act 3. I heard my original once, said ‘nah’, and just wrote a new one.

That last sentence is pretty much GaMetal May Madness in a nutshell.

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Onett)

After Pokey Means Business (or Cease to Exist, whichever you want to call it, this one doesn’t have an actual non-fan-given name) was revealed to be part of the May Madness line-up on the GaMetal Patreon which you should totally become a supporter of, one question loomed over the GaMetal Patreon community: will the swing intro return?

In my opinion, it had to! The swing intro is what made it the GaMetal version back in 2013. Changing it would have been changing an important piece of GaMetal history.

I often forget this was a 2013 song (I keep typing 2014 but have to go back and fix it), so it was one of the first songs I released at the beginning of the ‘Atma Era‘. Possibly because of this, I have a lot of people tell me this was the song that introduced them to GaMetal. This made keeping the swing intro even more important to me, because for some people it was their gateway into the world of GaMetal.

I didn’t make a whole lot of changes to this remake. I cleaned up the intro a lot (which I feel gives the metal portion more of an impact when it hits), changed the bass ‘solo’ section to reflect the original more, and made the Giygas section after the sludge/doom part near the end more dissonant sounding (on purpose, as the original is just straight up weird as heck).

I was pretty fond of the guitar solos I originally made in the 2013 version, so the solo (aside from being performed better) is mostly the same with a few minor tweaks.

Alright, I’m aware my Earthbound/Mother lineup is weak and, outside of medleys, only consists of 2 songs (the other being Natural Killer Cyborg). Next time I return to the series, we’ll do something different!

Side note: the name “Pokey Means Business” always makes me imagine Pokey in a business suit adjusting his tie, about to cut a mean deal on Wallstreet.

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Game Over)

It’s May, so you know what time it is… time for some remakes!

First up for this year’s GaMetal May Madness event is a song I’ve actually done twice before: the Punch-Out!! medley, now with even more Punch for your Out!!ing.

Punch-Out!! was a game I played a lot of as a child, so later in life, Punch-Out!! music was among the first games that I covered songs from. I first put together this medley, which featured (and some of these names might be wrong considering they’re from the NES days, so my apologies) the Little Mac Down theme, the Fight Theme, the Jogging Theme, and ended with the Lost Match theme.

In 2014, I rerecorded the song, and thanks largely in part to being featured in Smash Youtuber LittleZ’s “Little Mac is OP” video, it became one of my most popular songs from that time period.

For the past few years, I’ve been considering remaking this one for a May Madness event, but it’s always missed the cut in favor of other songs. It was among my top prospects for this year, and its stellar performance in the May Madness request forms, where it placed #4 overall, made this an easy choice for this year’s lineup.

This time around, I’ve made some new additions to the medley, mostly coming after the Jogging section. Rather than going back into the normal Fight Theme, I instead transitioned into a hybrid of both the original Fight Theme as well as the ‘new’ arrangement from the Wii version of Punch-Out!!, which I then followed up with the Wii versions variation of Little Mac Down and Opponent Down.

This medley also has a different ending: rather than Little Mac losing, this time, he wins! So instead of closing with Lost Match, this time we close with Won Match.

The only other major difference I made to my old arrangement is that I overhauled the keyboard solo that comes after the guitar solo. I think I’ve gotten a bit better at writing synth solos since 2014, so this new one sounds a whole lot better to me.

Maybe I should consider a Super Punch-Out!! song sometime?

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Jason’s Resolution)

We haven’t had any classic NES songs yet this year, so let’s get to it with this Area 1 remix from Blaster Master!

Blaster Master was a Metroidvania game before ‘Metroidvania’ was even the name of a genre. It was produced by Sunsoft which meant, under normal circumstances, that it would both be good and have an awesome soundtrack with those sweet signature Sunsoft bass and drums.

I didn’t listen to the Zero version for reference much because I wanted this one to be based more on the original. I did, however, borrow a little bit of the speed from the Zero version. I ended up at about a halfway point in tempo between the original and the remake.

Years and years and years ago, I had this song on my ‘do someday’ list, as I’m a big fan of NES soundtracks, but it sort of fell to the wayside over the years. Now, thanks to the magic of the GaMetal Patreon and the Patreon request list, along with some drawing luck for Emile A., we’ve finally made this one a reality.

To the next song!

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Reflection [Center of the Earth Mix])

HEEEEEEEEYA

That’s the most important part of the song you know. That’s why I absolutely could not do this song with the ‘heya’ section.

I don’t actually have any synths that can produce a good ‘hey’ sound, so I had to do it myself, recording a multitude of takes and applying a variety of effects. The ‘ya!’ shout was the trickiest part. In the original, it sounds something like… a shouted whisper, if I had to describe it in simplest terms, rather than straight shouting ‘ya!’. I had to try several different approaches till I figured it out.

The other most important part of the song is what people call the ‘glitching’ that occurs during the ‘heya’ sections after the first loop, as well as the very end. This was done but cutting the volume completely on the lead guitar and vocal tracks at ‘random’ intervals (the intervals here mostly match those in the original) with the occasional sound of static (also mostly matching the original).

Celeste mountain (or Mount Celeste?) has some really strange and mysterious powers. You might have noticed in the video, did you spot any familiar friends… or foes? :O

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: The Days When My Mother Was There)

Alright, alright, I know: I’ve neglected Persona music for far too long.

It was the #1 most requested new series from both the 2019 and 2020 GaMetal Song Ballots, both times having almost (and in 2020, more than) double the amount of the #2 most requested new (to GaMetal) series (Hollow Knight in ’19, and… we’ll keep this year’s under wraps for now!). To add fuel to the Persona fire, multiple songs from the series are highly requested, with 3 of them showing up in the top 15 most requested songs from this year’s ballot (all 3 tied). Life Will Change is one of those songs.

This song was requested by a GaMetal Patron (Smithy!), and upon its official reveal on Patreon, while I was talking about vocalist options, I was messaged by said Patron to consider Sapphire. I checked out her channel and was immediately blown away: I haven’t heard anyone that can match (and even exceed) the Persona vocal style in their covers as well as her, so I absolutely had to reach out to her to see if she’d be interested. Coincidentally, she was already working on a Life Will Change cover, but was still down to join in!

When I was putting this track together, I was really feeling some sort or organ solo or similar during the break part before the second verse. In one of my past conversations with Sax Dragon, who recently joined in with us in The Battle of Award 42 alongside InsaneInTheRainMusic, he had mentioned Persona being a personal favorite of his, so I asked if he also wanted to join in for some crazy aerophone soloing, to which he gladly obliged.

And that’s the story of Life Will Change, we’ll return to Persona someday!

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Way Down the Line)

HEY HEY! COME ON OVER HAVE SOME FUN WITH THIS CRAAAAAAAAAZY TAXI REMIX!

Every April Fools day, I cover songs that have more of a unique aspect to them, such as songs from ‘licensed’ games that were actually really good (IE: McBoss, SpongeBot SteelPants, Pepsiman), great music from terrible games (Theme of the Cheetahmen), and even songs that are known just for being bad (1942). This year, I thought we could change it up a bit, with a great song from a great game that isn’t a cartoon of fast food franchise.

But the twist is… the song itself isn’t originally a game song. All I Want is a song by The Offspring, from their Ixnay on the Hombre album.

HOWEVER!

If you’ve played Crazy Taxi, and you hear this song outside of it later on, I’m 99% sure Crazy Taxi is one of the first things that comes to your mind. This is the first song that plays in the game, both on the title screen and also in-game, if I recall correctly. The game itself also only had a handful of songs, so it’s also a song you would hear several times while playing.

Later renditions/ports of Crazy Taxi dropped the original soundtrack because apparently relicensing songs for ports is one of the most difficult things of all time, but All I Want will live on in the hearts of Crazy Taxi fans as ‘the song that reminds us of Crazy Taxi’.

 

I can’t lie: I was a bit biased with this song pick. I’m a huge fan of The Offspring. Smash was the first album that got me into rock music. When I started learning guitar, one of the first things I tried to learn was all of the songs from that album. There are a lot of rhythm strumming patterns that I first learned in Offspring songs that I still use today.

I’m sure I’ll record another Offspring song someday, but probably not under the guise of GaMetal, so if you were a fan of this, expect another one from me sometime in the future, but for now, back to the game jams!

(This was still technically a game jam!)

Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: Bayou Boogie)

We’re going the distance with King Krusha K. Rool for this remix of DK64’s K. Rool Duel!

There’s a specific reason I decided to do this song. Remember the Nintendo 64 Medley? It was a composition of half chosen-by-Patron songs, and half songs of my own choosing. I was originally only going to add like 2 or 3… but then that became 4… then that become 5… and it just kept growing. In fact, I ended up with over 20 songs total, but decided it was already really huge so cut it down to a nice round 20 song count.

I wanted to hit up most of the well known N64 games/soundtracks in that medley, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do them ALL. So… some sacrifices had to be made, and the biggest of those sacrifices was Donkey Kong 64.

I had listed K. Rool Duel as a possible song option, but it’s such a great final boss theme with a million sections (classic Kirkhope final boss theme structure), that I both felt that it didn’t deserve to be cut down to shortened medley form, and deserved it’s own cover eventually.

Well eventually is now. For those of you who were disappointed DK64 missed the N64 Medley cut… this one’s for you!