Well, I nearly didn't make it but here we are. I cried, I was frustrated, and I was mad at myself for many things. I didn't make music for a long while, I couldn't make music like I wanted to and I felt like the musician in me had died. Then, after trying to come back...my literal music did die. Felt like I hit rock bottom until that hard drive span back up and began to breathe life. I could have gotten my VSTs back from the maker thankfully (though I'd need a new hard drive for the space) but the files...the music...my life's blood gone. Then I cried again haha. But how does one who is dead cry? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? That is the inspiration for this song. Chaotic, unworldly, and yet...familiar. Not something you could imagine living but not exactly...dead either. A being stuck between two worlds. And a bit disturbing. Fitting seeing as my word was Macabre and the story that this song comes from tells us that when dealing with death...things aren't always as we think they'd seem. Often, those surprises can be quite troubling. So is this song.

From a technical standpoint I think the mix is both too loud and there are some EQ issues. Unfortunately I've run out of time to fix them, but I think if you lower the volume its very much tolerable. It just can't be too loud. Probably perfect for YouTube though LOL. Anyway, here is "A Cry After Death" and hopefully the first of a few more songs before years end.

Remixing the source I chose, Black Ops Zombies. The title is improper latin, but it rhymes, and kinda means something to the effect of Eternal Hell.

I composed this to reflect the cycle experience of playing the original black ops zombies, based off my teenage years of playing it with my brother (good times!) I also wanted to try a new guitar amp plugin for this to get a more atmospheric electric guitar. I kept the piano as the main melody for much of the song to recapture the original's haunting atmosphere, bolstered with strings and pads. As the song goes on, I introduced more percussion and rhythm, culminating with a climactic meltdown of sorts. And authentic zombie sounds from the game!

It begins gentle and ominous as the horror and zombies stir out of the darkness, hungry for your blood. More instruments, rhythm, and intensity reflect the growing might of the undead horde that presses upon and drains your body, soul, and ammo. Another round begins, and another... Until you're running for your life as nearly invincible undead monsters hound you across the map. "Maybe I can drop a few with my last pack-a-punch gun's magazine?!" You dare to try. But you fail, torn apart by the ravening swarm...

And we begin, all over again, at round 1... Again....

Happy Halloween!

[BTW--had a massive ear infection in my right ear for the past 2 weeks now...still ongoing, so if the sound quality / EQing / mixing is a bit hit-and-miss this time around, it's because I literally cannot hear much out of my right ear and am effectively half-deaf. :'( ]

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Genre(s): Some Weird Void between EDM, New Wave and Synth Funk

BPM: 130

Key: Dm

Tracks/Channels Used: 16

Mood: Halloween Dance Party!

Focuses This Round:

* Nothing But Havin' Some Fun :D

Notes:

- Wanted to do something that was full-on more-so a dance number for a spiked-punch Halloween fest, rather than super eerie and spooky. It's got the facets and trappings of creepiness and a terrifying sense of being "stalked by a creature of the night through the dark, back alleys" in the back of one's mind, but hell--maybe that monster just wants to have a good time with ya' on the dance floor. ;)

- This has some good ol' fun, memorable lines from the movie The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chaney, Jr! Along with some spooky SFX, and 'The Wolfman' poem read by Paul Albertson, for good measure.

- The general vibe I was going with this were songs like: Somebody's Watching Me, Maniac, Ghostbusters, Thriller and a bunch of the stuff I love from the group Dance with the Dead.

- Enjoy! :3

"Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to

use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground

with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Delacroix selected a stone so large she

had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."

Mr. Dunbar had large stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. "I can't run at all. You'll

have to go ahead, and I'll catch up with you."

The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles."

-- from "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

according to some "secret of mana" wiki entry i must've seen a month ago, the japanese title also translates to "ritual." i had "The Lottery" in mind and all the speculated pomp and circumstance that used to go on pre-stoning when arranging this.

really wanted to feature a children's choir in there and wanted to support it with instruments that were equal parts "cute" and "unnerving:" celesta, glockenspiel, and pizzicato strings. i added some adult choir bits for extra meat. i also added a little bit of timpani that turned into a whole lot more timpani than i had anticipated.

Attempted something more atmospheric than usual with far more automations and effects than I tend to use. I wanted to touch on the unearthly mood this song accompanies, an ancient ruin haunted by a force from the underworld, drawing local townsfolk into it under a possessive curse. Used Tibetan singing bowls to create a ceremony or ritual feeling along with the koto and shakuhachi. And I had to add a gamelan to match the original sound. The chanting is a favor from my sister, who speaks Japanese and was willing to recite a haiku by the ancient Japanese poet Bashu:

Getting sick on the journey,

my dream runs about

the desolate field.

Hence the name.

Just a little Undercity ditty...

I had some other ideas I wanted to try and expand on, but I definitely wouldn't meet the deadline.

Its halloween, and as the resident Rare fanboy I picked Spinal's theme. I think at this juncture I'm just gonna do Polka remixes because why not? Here's my attempt at a polkafied version of Spinals theme from KI Gold. I added some cartoon sound effects, and kept it in a minor key because it was pretty difficult to make it sound merry. As an added bonus, I threw in the theme of Grabbed by the Ghoulies at the end because A) it was short enough plus, I couldn't think of a proper ending and B) its also made by Rare. There's some weird Al inspiration to this as well. Enjoy and remember, STAY DEMENTED!

My submission is a bit on the unusual side of things. Think of it more like an audio short story rather than a MnP thing directly. It is Halloween after all, I had to do something...unique.

Before I go any further, due to limitations with ThaSauce I am unable to this track here in its full quality. If you want a HQ version the links for a high quality MP3 and FLAC will be directly following this. I did try for as high of a VBR MP3 as I could manage, but it is 96kbps on ThaSauce.

MP3: https://www.mediafire.com/file/jkxd6hj4cqh2ryf/The_Mandela_Effect_HQ.mp3/file

FLAC: https://www.mediafire.com/file/96n10rq2txf77kg/The_Mandela_Effect.flac/file

And if folks want to listen to the tracks on their own I can upload those separately and provide links if desired ;)

So, what I have done? I have lost my mind, that is what I have done. Most of the remixes are really just redoing the originals, all of them, rather than working out a full remix. I did try and add my little bit of special color here and there, but overall they are all pretty close to the original. Though I would be remiss if I did not mention the addition of the spooky elements. That is right though, this 28 and half minute BEHEMOTH has all the sources in it with a general spooky factor to each one in some capacity. To add even more spookiness to this is a Creepypasta! The entirety of this Creepypasta is spread throughout and as the piece progresses more and more lucidity to the spookiness comes into play and more of a story is told as one comes to pay attention. So, without further delay get on your horses, get something to drink, and bring your popcorn because this is a long one. The sequence of the tracks also sorta plays into the overall story as well.

Sources in order and kind of what I was thinking for each.

• Ghosts n' Goblins: All right lets be fair for a minute. The game is brutally hard, but that music just BEGS to be made sorta old timey like from a terrible record player with comically cheesy instrumentation and total jank.
• Spinals Theme: This is where I start to introduce some of the spookiness to the entire thing. Remix really isnt anything special other than just trying to make it harder hitting and a bit more aggressive in terms of overall sound. But there are plenty of evil laughs here to make you wonder if something bigger is going on, or maybe it is hinting at something...
• Damned: I really did not do a whole to this other than play with some additional instruments and just trying to make it a bit more ominous. Thematically it is really meant to serve as a bridge and kind of be a bit of a ride down in energy before the next track. And it really did not sit right with me to add any spooky elements to it. The piece on its own is quite unsettling.
• Mad Forest: I love the old school Castlevania soundtracks because you just slap on an organ and youre grooving. In reality this is a slight remix, but with pretty much everything turned up to 11. It has an organ, it has bass, it has drums, it has some spook, I even have it pushing the poor master compressor enough to make it pump purely because I like the sound of it doing so! 11 indeed.
• Dead Sea: This one is pretty low key, but I really tried to bring out some of that inherent uneasiness underlying the piece a bit to really start the story off...
• Ceremony: This one is meant to be both beautiful and at the same time scary. The spook-factor does not really come from the music as much as the implications of the additional elements. It makes one wonder if there is more to this than meets the ear...
• Concrete Cave: This is sort of like Castlevania in the sense that I could not think of a good way to integrate this properly into the overall story arch. So, it is sort of done in this faux 90's style, but with werewolves. Perhaps the supernaturals among us are having some fun...
• Gothic Neclord: I sort of tried to pull a second Castlevania on this one because it is just so much fun! Everything is not turned up to 11 though. The biggest change here is that I opted to keep the drums out until the second half. Or maybe it was a vampire who felt that they were starting to get into their groove. Again it seems the supernaturals among us have maybe started to notice that things are not quite as they seem...
• Haunted House: All right, I just tried to make this one as creepy as possible. It is almost like the first attempt to summon the evil originally did not work out too well, but some folks who know what they're doing got it right...
• Undercity: This piece just begged to be the last one. It is almost comically over the top perfect for this. It is just too much fun. It is almost like something is waking up...

The Creepypasta is Candle Cove, and was recited by me. What you're hearing is some lo-fi processing to make it sound like it is a found recording from some dubious source. Also, to give the different characters some differentiation I also did some pitch shifting. But I really wanted those parts to have a bit of character on its own.

Happy Halloween folks!