I wanted to remix Shadow Man to have a more complex sound while still trying to capture the feeling of the original. The problem is that I already considered the original version perfect as it was, so how could I build on perfection? I discarded many drafts before this one...finally grew on me.
• The first thing I needed to keep in mind is that Shadow Man's theme is jazz with some blues scale, giving it some soul, and I didn't want to do anything to diminish that soul.
• I reimagined the vaguely piano-like notes as actual piano-like halflife fade contours, though this makes the vibrato portions a bit softer.
• The bass is the same riff as the original, but done in sawtooth and 5/8 square wave as fifth chords. I preserved the portamento of the original bass where it existed.
• I considered giving nearly all the instruments an echo like in the Megadrive/Genesis Battletoads music, but I used restraint and only used echo in a few select places.
• There are parts of melody where I add an extra harmony voice to backup the main voices, but these backups are always softer and try not to impose too much.
• I generally expanded the use of legato, so that a new note of melody doesn't completely interrupt the previous note but allows it to fade naturally.
• The percussion is a little busier, but mostly softer beats filling the space between the main beats to create a sense of continuous rhythm.
• I borrowed the hihat from The Wily Wars remix (and nothing else from it).
• I also borrowed the simpler beat-beat-hihat pattern from the Game Boy version to enhance the few bars that had originally simple 4/4 beats.

Sequenced in 0CC-FamiTracker using the Konami VRC6 and Nintendo MMC5 chips.

Click here to download the 0CC and NSF files.