Composer Spotlight on Mirby

Taylor Brown aka Mirby is perhaps best known in the video game music community for her journalistic pursuits. She has written numerous articles reviewing arrangement albums as well as interviews with remixers. Mirby has also collaborated with members of the community for original material and for VG-based fan works. More recently she is heading the Final Fantasy remix project Audio Engineering, covering all the Cid themes from the series. I asked Mirby a few questions about her influences, her creative goals, and her short-lived ReMixing Bout compo.

Mirby revealed that her earliest exposure to music was probably as soon as she came into the world. She explained that, “My dad was a bassist in a band, so music has always been a big part in my life. The band was disbanded before I was born, and due to a drunken mishap they weren't signed. That said, my brother and all his friends (henceforth referred to as my brothers) are musicians, so through them I learned all sorts of things. In fact, if it weren't for them I might not have any interest in making music at all.” She felt that this early experience influenced her current work: “Since all my brothers did was jam sessions, all my music is basically just made as I go. Adding in what sounds good, tweaking things to make it just right... they definitely influenced me as a musician.”

It's been noted that Mirby’s solo work carries a heavily improvised style, sometimes implementing on-the-fly keyboard riffing. She elaborated that, “When I can, I like to mess around with whatever music-making thing I can; keyboards are usually what I use, but I did recently make a nice rhythm via the ocarina in Ocarina of Time 3D, and have since figured out how to play it on a keyboard. When I'm actually recording, I stick to FL Studio and soundfonts. I've found quite a few good ones, and am slowly getting more familiar with the track. I also have a friend who is willing to record live violin, so that's cool too.”

Mirby has participated in a number of compos, and eventually organized her own, Mirby's ReMixing Bout. When asked what her motivation for joining compos had been, she said, “I think I first learned about them because of JHCompo. I'd never really made music in a short time frame before, so having that restriction really inspired me. One Hour Compo is also great fun because it's half the time and thus double the rush.” She also explained why she started her own competition: “I just have a lot of tracks I want remixes for. That's literally the main inspiration for it. But thanks to my Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story remix of Plack Beach, I have been inspired to make my own remixes now instead of purely original stuff.”

She is currently organizing a Final Fantasy Cid tribute project, and described the experience of bringing artists together for collaboration: “I have a few WIPs so far, so it's going well. Considering I got all the main Cid tracks claimed in just ten days, I'm rather amazed. I guess that everyone likes Cid, so that's good.” At the time of the interview, the album was simply known as the Cid Tribute Project. She joking mentioned she had an idea for a fake cover: “Everybody Loves Cidolfus with FF12 Cid on the front.” It was later given the title Audio Engineering: A Cid Tribute Project.

Mirby revealed some of her current plans for her outlets, known collectively as Mirby Studios. “I'm always up for an interview with a remixer. Other projects include the numerous games I've been working on and have never finished. Whether I do finish those someday or not is still up in the air.” She noted that her collaboration with Wildfire remixing Subrosia’s theme from Oracle of Seasons is coming together. Regarding composition competitions, Mirby concluded that, “Basically, compos are good. If you're looking to improve on your skills, find a compo and participate. I didn't learn as much in FL Studio just messing around as when I had time restrictions. There are plenty of competitions, so it's not hard to find one.”

Sing Gently

This week was a double dose of nostalgia for Punchfest 17, since it required that participants remix tunes from games they each received on their respective birthdays. As a result, the round brought about five entries from a variety of titles. The tracks covered a wide range of approaches, from Rexy’s frantic koto work, to PoD’s fart tribute of Snappleman, to Obtuse's plucked bass, and Plank's acoustic soloing. The World Warrior Remix Royale also began the voting stage for round 1 of the Shoryuken Bracket, releasing a slew of Street Fighter remixes into the wild. This past Sunday saw LLCompo celebrate its tenth round by setting its theme to “Yourself” and asked contestants to “look inside” for the answer.
 

JHCompo on Tuesday was put in a forbidding chamber with its “Torture” theme. After my music-backed introduction, dusthillguy admitted that he was not at his best and thus put up a brief, familiar riff. liquid wind’s atonal sonorities evoked the sense of “tortured phantoms” including piano, scratching effect and a steady kick. bjkmenu's funky pop got a thumbs up from superjoe when the music stuck closely to the written description of the night’s round. Clockwerk expressed the torture that a lot of composers go through: “Daw Crash Freeze”, in his case an ambient electronic piece ending with an unintentional recording of my intro. Finally SonicThHedgog worked out some acoustic strumming, electric shreds and searing lead to wrap things up. 

Thursday’s OHC spoke of its audience not making progress by way of its theme, “Wasting Time”. The listening party began with an introduction by The Stuff of Legends, reading the theme description with a mellow musical backing. dusthillguy followed with a series of noodled guitar arpeggios set to no particular tempo. DucksUnlimited had fittingly “Totally Forgot” about the compo and put together a patchwork of twangs, clanks, piano, and synth bass. CJthemusicdude pondered a brief history of time, and then whipped out his Theremin to rock. General Mumble used a catchy hook to sing about wasting time to a tuplet-centric, swingy electro beat. sci sampled “The Rockefeller Skank” as the basis of his epic mashup, using all manner of elements including wub-wubs. HarryNilsson'sGhost feared entering the chat because of the perceived quality of his improvised piano-and-vocals entry. 

analoq stated that “hemo is over” and settled in chilled-out Rhodes for the “socal sunset”. Forty-Two soared above the clouds in a flurry of electronic harmonies, sweeps and pads. DDRKirby(ISQ) collaborated with Acuity and set about a bunch of experiments whilst getting nothing done, per the theme. A-zu-ra inserted his vintage cartridge Procrastination Fighters and thus raged against the chips. Misael.K traveled to a “Sunny Park” and decided to burn daylight in 3/4 time. scibot9000 transmitted its entry for CJthemusicdude by sampling his pre-flatulatory grunt and colliding into dubstep. OMGitslewis wrote his entry description in all caps to emphasize the rise of Ultra Nintenga, the world’s most advanced time waster. Fusion2004 busted out his percussion for a freewheeling acoustic entry with dollops of flute and guitar. Trancient settled on a trip hop rhythm dotted by 8-bit blips “Wasting Happily Away”. 

Kaxon revealed that he attended a Zelda-themed concert the previous night, perhaps influencing the mood for the strings and piano of his composition. MandraSigma woke up at an inopportune time and maneuvered around a gauntlet of glitch effects before reaching his workspace. Arcana established a tense, dancey tune, waiting until just the right moment to realize time wasted. Toward the end of the night dusthillguy and Destroid suffered a teleporter accident to become the freak of nature known as desthillroid; the violent clash of chord progressions and nostalgic instrument sets may be too much for the average listener to bear. Finally the night ended with a second entry from DDRKirbyISQ thanking OHC for being host to his many productions. 

As a personal note I’d like to thank OHC myself as an entrant and follower for many years. Although my behavior and mindset had taken a regretful turn, I nevertheless enjoyed being a part of the community. The feedback and advice I received for my music I uploaded each week was invaluable, and is part of my workflow to this day. I grew as a musician thanks to the positive reinforcement of my peers. For a long while I took my connection to this community for granted, but now I see the situation with clearer eyes. My experience in compo-ing and interacting with others has made an indelible mark on my creative life. I hope that others continue to discover this experience too, and benefit from it as I had.

Made of Pieces

People’s Remixing Competition 214 started off with its chosen source material, Castlevania III available for participants to remix. A trio of entries came about as the round wrapped up: Zerothemaster worked out some reverb-heavy piano interpretation, surrounded by deep synths and lo-fi high end. chroxic’s drum and bass has perhaps too much sub-bass as well as a half-rhythm indicative of dubstep influence. Yami rounded things out with his first entry for PRC mainly out of love of the source, beginning soft and tearing a hole in the soundscape for a trance-y take. The World Warrior Remix Royale also began the voting stage for round one of the Hadouken Bracket, which brought about seven entries. LLCompo: Battle 9 followed shortly thereafter with 15 compositions related to its theme of “The Sea”.

JHCompo on Tuesday invited entrants to ascend “The Throne” and compose in a royal manner. After my Conker’s Bad Fur Day-sampling introduction, a wild dusthillguy appeared for a session of bass playing. Jakesnke17 came back to JHCompo after some time away, serving up his usual tribal percussion, strings and horns. ShinnyMetal similarly returned and made his “Contemplation of the Throne” by way of somber solo piano. Obtuse took his present drum beat and made a competent dance tune despite not being fully sober. Both he and Jarski admitted that their music were unrelated to the theme and made some untz for the sake of untz. Kay Faraday broke out of the cage for a “Battle Royale” of chips that lasts a full minute. skyndileg riled up the orchestra for “Coronation of the Damned” that takes a quiet turn before coming in full force. Listeners noted that oginome’s 8-bit track suffered from an unusually swing beat, but otherwise garnered complements. At the end of the round SonicThHedgog put up his characteristic Sonic-infused rock licks, while MandraSigma set his spaceship coordinates to electro. 

Thursday’s OHC once again had a theme presented by an epic introduction by The Stuff of Legends, this time set to a lush orchestral backdrop. AutomaticJack created a four-second track in two minutes, bringing in quality rather than quantity. Misael.K’s clashing harmonies are centered by a synth bass and eventually a chime to “Remember the Future”. DucksUnlimited generated a chorus of pitch vocal clips leading into mellow industrial. JackTHerbert unintentionally continued the vibe of the previous entry by retaining the key, but picked things up with some fast drum and bass. isidor3’s studio hiss established the stirring mood pervaded by acoustic guitar, bass and distant piano. Acuity fell into a deep sleep and entered a “Dreamscape” somewhere within the bowls of a Game Boy. General Mumble pulled the listening party back to the realm of ambience and heavy effects, eventually slamming down drums. OMGitslewis traverse a long tunnel of reverb emphasizing each beat of every measure until finally laying a drop. 

sci pondered the mixture of jazz with brostep, the result sounding like a scratched jungle breaks CD. Fusion2004 stumbled upon a keyboard shortcut activating a quantum leap of blips transitioning to orchestral. Forty-Two’s bell-like pads and minimal structure adequately represented a voyage through “Alien Landscape” punctuated by piano. cyberjet189 deftly experimented with compression to make a hip hop piece with hints trance chords. The clanging of bells rises in CJthemusicdude’s entry and melds with layers upon layers of arpeggios. Arcana lifted the low-pass filter just enough to let the sonorities and dance beats fill the listening party’s ears. A-zu-ra’s sparce intro belies the eventual dense arrangement of 8-bit elements. Foozogz layer together recording of a multitude of musical sounds topped with an incomprehensible song title. jarski began with just bass, and the other pieces of the brass-filled electronic soundscape fell into place. Roseweave's track apparently followed the established bass-plus-reverb pattern of the night.  

Trancient made the plunge from a life of piano to that of boom-pat, and back again. DDRKirby(ISQ) celebrated his 100th OHC entry by incorporating techniques old and new and spanning nearly nine minutes MandraSigma pondered a conspiracy and glitching some lo-bit instruments and ramblings along the way. Jakesnke17 found himself in the Matrix as evidenced by the slow ebb of trip-hop beats and spacey pads. MisaelK put in another track from the future claiming “This Happened Tomorrow” with a compressed musicbox. After dusthillguy’s eight minute loop, munchi discovered that he submitted on time in a parallel universe, thus allowing him to submit it to the party. Duosis entered with a mixture of sampled and pitch-shifted elements, most notably from the Mark Ronson production "A La Modeliste". At the end of the party bjkmenu expressed failure, but delivered his signature quirky humor rock in spades.

Composer Spotlight on Shael Riley

Shael Riley has made waves both as a solo artist and through his various collaborations over the years. From his 2005 debut album Toybox to the seismic Double Ice Backfire release Ultimate Songs from the Pit – not to mention a certain Castlevania arrangement by some guy named Diskmastah Smokabitch – Shael has worked his way into the consciousness of the video game music community and beyond. I asked him a few questions regarding compo, his musical background and the upcoming Grammar Club EP he’s a part of.

He admitted that he had trouble pinpointing the exact moment that music first came into his life. “My dad was in a rock band and my mom was into musical theatre and opera, so there was always music on in my house. It was probably that. Or maybe nursery rhymes.” Regarding his more recent methods of composing, Shael said that, “I used to use a lot of software synths and junk, mainly in Reason, so VSTs were never much of a thing for me. These days I usually just write chiptunes or do MIDI pre-tracking and let Ty Guenley handle the instrumentation. I haven't written full-fledged-DAW music in a couple of years, barring a few experiments with Reaper. I'm happier focusing on the essential elements of songwriting and letting Ty handle the production.”

Shael had first heard about compos in 2003 through Kwakfest, and participated in one sometime later. He expressed the virtues of composition competitions: “Compos can be a valuable exercise and they can be fun. They can give you some needed time-pressure to create something, when you want to create something but don't know what, and don't care if it isn't very refined.” He eventually started his own series of compos called Doubles’ Dash (DDC), in which participants team up in pairs to create songs with at least one team member providing vocals. After a couple of loosely organized rounds, it later returned as part of Compo: ThaSauce and has been run more or less consistently on a monthly basis. One particular round required both team members to sing for their submission, leading to an inspired duet between Shael and diotrans called “Radio Unts Tiss”.

He explained that his interest in DDC faded after the first year or two: “I'm not too big into compos at all these days. An OHC once in a while is fun, but that's all I'm up for. I feel like I'm pretty well self-directed right now, so I have my own projects to work on whenever I feel inspired to make music.” The responsibilities of organizing DDC were transferred over to Level 99, who continues to run it to the present day. Regarding Shael’s solo material, a collection of his compo entries can be found at a site that may or may not contain Russian spyware. One of those compositions, “Rarest of Elements” went on to become a Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire song on their debut album, released in 2011.

Another DDC track, “A Team by Myself” by Ty was reworked as Grammar Club song included on their 2010 EP MC Horse Rides Again. Shael is currently working on new Grammar Club release, out this year. He described his progress and the experience of collaborating with other artists for the EP. “This is our third time around, so everyone pretty much knows how to make a Grammar Club album now. The guest vocalists we're working with are pretty well experienced too.” He also noted that the tone and theme are closer to that of the Grammar Club debut Bremelanotide. Whether through compos or other collaborative efforts, Shael’s work leaves a lasting impression.