Mill Fever GBA Remix/Remake - Donkey Kong Country 3

[@notpulp]

Glad to see the GBA soundtrack getting some love, great job!

[@gobbleguk]

I really think this captures the industrial theme of the game better than the SNES

[@Culex64]

Absolutely amazing remake, it really does the original its justice. Would love to hear more!

[@Conellossus]

This is my favorite song from the GBA ost. The intro is so fucking awesome, and the rest of the song is amazing as well.

[@NightMourningDove]

Might honestly be my favorite DKC song... it's just something about it that is so damn cathartic and emotional, makes me wish more video game music would have this level of energy. I think this is better than Fear Factory for being more diverse in the sound, tho that one was really damn nice too!

[@NightMourningDove]

This, GB Stilt Village, GB Waterfall & Harvest Hazards might be my favorite DKC songs

[@ThemePark_Nerdo]

Id love to see a remix of the GBA Frosty Frolics theme, it’s so catchy and nostalgic!

[@westonkenyonmusic]

1:29 forward sounds like Yanni. I love it.

[@KDeds21]

These DKC3 remixes are so good. I hope you'll make more.

[@elgeeie]

THANK YOU YOU'RE A LEGEND FOR DOING THIS

[@iinjaneno]

Great work!!! I love your remake=3

[@NightMourningDove]

Ikr these synths are just fuckin amazing :)

[@DespyCL]

Respects to you man, you did a beautiful job there! It sounds extremely close to the original, and you made a good track justice. It sounds beautiful in higher quality, especially the ending section at 1:40 and onwards before the music loops. Will definitely donate in a near future so you can keep these coming! The gba soundtrack of dkc3 needed you, somebody who could make them in higher quality, the treathment they deserved from long ago :D

[@riggles]

Oh wow! I appreciate that so much! Thanks for the comment too, it really amps me up to continue to hear that people like it. Can't thank you enough. Right now I'm working on Stilt Village, FINALLY after days of searching for metallic pot lid kinda sounding samples and some marimbas I found some fitting stuff I could layer together, and chopped up a guitar funk rhythm with a wahwah chickawow sounding filter. The guitar is made with DSK guitar which is a free plugin but does the job I think. instaud.io/3kaM ( still not put in the time to mix it so idk if audio levels are whack, so take it as an in progress snippet )

[@DespyCL]

@@riggles It's looking extremelly well so far! i think the first guitar note (before the six next ones follows) needs to be a little bit stronger, and hearing the minigsf file of the track, that same note is a also a little bit shorter (its too long in the wip).

[@riggles]

@@DespyCL Yeah true, it needs to hit harder, as for shorter I'm not sure if I'll mess too much with that and let it breathe+reverb a bit, sure not exact but not necessarily in a bad way, I think it's really short and more choppy sounding on the GBA due to sample space so it's fair to correct that a bit I feel. But adding that change :D Thanks

[@DespyCL]

@@riggles Ah in that case that sounds neat! You are the expert in the matter here after all :P

[@riggles]

@@DespyCL Trying my best to find middle grounds between what an unfiltered original would've been like and a studio version where David Wise didn't have to think about GBA limitations would be like. It's tricky for sure. ( btw, its punchier now :D )

[@Kevillion]

One of my favorite tracks restored 🙌 ❤️

[@donnythedingo]

Now that's a remix

[@osets2117]

Dude are you still working on this? The GBA OST needs this kind of love

[@riggles]

Haven't replied to anyone in a while, I got a start on rockface rumble. But haven't continued since for now, started last year, but have since always either been abroad, or had some medical complications. Doing well now though, so once I'm free from classes again I'll try to make a couple more tracks. It's still a dream of mine to play the SNES version of DKC3 with CD quality David Wise music, so it will happen for sure sooner or later.

[@osets2117]

@@riggles perfection takes time, I'm patient I can wait

[@SB2749]

Yo this actually nice

[@broomdudu8089]

Xcellent !

[@MakotoTsuguri]

Hope to see your take on Cascade Capers. Its my favorite next to Pokey Pipes. Also, is it possible you can give us an example of your pieces in game?

[@riggles]

Yep will get around to making more soon ( school stuff has been in the way, though I've gotten more rockface rumble progress and it's sounding so good ) Won't be doing the MSU1 conversions until I'm done with all the songs though so gameplay will come much later on, my guess is that I might be done early next year possibly, I will sadly be gone for the whole summer visiting family abroad so that will lose me some time.

[@yunolikemypie]

Hey man, you did a fantastic job! I just wanted to reach out to you and tell you a bit of stuff that might interest you regarding this soundtrack. Wise used a still-unknown sample library for a lot of this soundtrack. For instance, the harmonica melody that dominates the incredible Rockface Rumble soundtrack is used in a non-compressed form in the documentary called The Rise of Black Wolf for National Geographic. www.dkvine.com/interactive/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=14029&view=findpost&p=494902 this is a break down of what we know of DKC 3 GBA's soundtrack and the samples used within. My moniker is Famikong but the other two chaps who know a decent amount are Lighthouse (who helped spearhead the wonderful DKC3 OC Remix project) and StiltVillage. EDIT: just found your topic on Zeldix as per your comment below. You do a damn fine job of recreating the sounds from the GBA. It's eerily accurate without using the libraries that Wise used. And I agree, that weird filtered vibrophone part of Stilt Village is really weird and hard to figure out, but from what I've heard you've done it. You have a talent, my friend.

[@riggles]

Thanks a ton! Checked out the thread, not sure why the backlash, it was clear from the beginning that a lot of the songs were using simple sample loops, the melodies and overall structures, mood and feel of the songs themselves are clearly Davids work, you can listen to the ROM samples and without context they're really just generic boring loops from some library, which he then turned into music that actually works and includes some of my favorite songs in the series, the chord progression and key change for Mill Fever is clearly Wises signature sound, atmospheric and moody tracks. I'm doubtful all synthwork were sample loops though around the same time he also did another take on Mill Fever for E3 2005 which sounds drastically different. It's easy to make out the 50% or whatever that are his own ideas. The harmonica part of Rockface isn't particularly good and is not what makes the song good (though I've always thought it was one of the weaker tracks). It's not like he hasn't shown similar styles in all his other compositions for other games. With the strict time limit it just makes sense to assume this was the case. Some songs have unnecessarily long empty sections while others rely solely on some sample library instrument loop for the majority of the song. It's not like that for the whole soundtrack though. Really appreciate that you liked my take on the track, doing some finishing touches to Stilt Village currently. Please keep me updated in case I miss any major news regarding finding what the hell this sample library he used for DKC3 even was, I've been downloading as many 90s early 2000s sample CD stuff I can just in case I stumble on something.

[@yunolikemypie]

@@riggles For sure, man. You're doing excellent work and bringing some much needed justice to this soundtrack. We have tried to contact David and he's often prone to answer but so far we haven't gotten word about his samples. If I could offer some critiques, as someone who loves this soundtrack, there is a moment here (and you may have done it purposefully) before the main riff kicks in where the measure goes on a beat more than it should. Also around 1:13, the little swell that comes in has a wee bit more echo/delay in the original piece (which also may just be an artistic choice and that's fine.) Other than that it's practically identical to the source track.

[@riggles]

@@yunolikemypie Yeah, wanted that part to last a bit longer before the sitar sounding instrument kicks in just to have the good stuff not end so soon :D As for the complimentary arpeggiated synth part at 1:13 it's a bit different than the previous sections mainly because I wanted it to transform into a piano, it did go into a very tinny high res state on the GBA though, but mainly it was just to change up things the tiniest bit, like with the growing bass for the parts after the key change, small changes that sort of seem like they were supposed to be there. Nothing too crazy, with Water World I added a bunch of strings and choirs at parts to fill the sound out. So expect some more subtle additions like that since I also want it to feel like what these songs would've been made like at the time without the GBA limitations, really want it to sound genuine though of course, rather than just only "clean" versions, which can be a bit empty like Stilt Village without the added percussion like you mentioned. Since in the end we don't have access to whatever sample library he used so whatever I make will never sound 100% anyway.

[@riggles]

Another big change was adding low end humming notes to certain parts ( like the temple levels in the original DKC ) which is something the GBA couldn't do, so in the GBA track it has this like an octave or two, I can't remember, rhythmically oscillating sound instead which isn't that pleasant to listen to at higher volumes.

[@riggles]

@@yunolikemypie I actually found the Harmonica samples for Brothers Bear and Rockface Rumble after a lot of digging! They're from a big Zero G Harmonica sample pack from 2002. They weren't straight ripped for DKC3 but altered actually, there's tons of phrases and single notes etc in that pack. Wonder what other Zero G libraries he used, sadly it's not easy to obtain stuff from around that time.

[@PigDan]

Awesome!

[@Gavman_Gaming_09_79]

This is epic

[@NightMourningDove]

This sounds way more SNES than the original SNES version lmao..

[@felipevergararubio]

Please, do "Rockface rumble" :)

[@TrustedMind]

Hi, this is really spectacular, however, please the main theme is barely earable, I cannot distinguish from the supposed to be lower audio at 1:46

[@riggles]

Yeah I'm aware, I already have a version with that adjusted, though it's also depending on your audio setup that it sounds lower or higher (earbuds, studio monitors, earphones, then all the different qualities and sound settings.) Here's a link to the final version Wav drive.google.com/open?id=1-ld_Xk6RguHI3OP3rK_jM7uu81BNluOu Hopefully will be able to get some time to make at least 2 more tracks this October, really hope so, been away on vacation for the whole summer and just started studying again, so free time has been a bit slim.

[@TrustedMind]

@@riggles Just perfect O_O ! Thanks for that! I've also seen that you plan to add them to an MSU-1 pack! I am digging all the possible remixes that are on the net, I've seen that someone done an MSU1 with remixes from OCR, but that is simply awful, it's not fitting the game at all, the tracks on OCR are mean only to remember the songs in a different way, not for a remake. They are also other channels that are doing remixes but this time faithfully to the OST, like yours for GBA, so finger crossed :-) Again, perfect work!

[@deatsbybre7162]

This track weirdly reminds me of Half-Life 2.

[@markussmedhus9717]

Reminds me of Jazz Jackrabbit 2

[@guaskoqizz]

Please make a remix of Rockface Rumble, Waterfall, Nuts n' Bolts and Pokey Pipes. GBA versions. Please. :)

[@Schwarzorn]

Sounds awesome! By the way, have you heard heard the studio versions of Arich's Ambush (GBA), Ripcurl Reef, and Squeals on Wheels (GBA)? It would be a shame if you hadn't, so just in case, here you go: www.dkvine.com/?p=games&page=dkc3gba&section=e32005remixes

[@riggles]

Thanks! I actually haven't heard those, gonna be using Arich's Ambush and Ripcurl Reef as a base, because they're still mono and pretty bad quality sadly, so going to have to recreate a bunch regardless, but having something better quality than GBA is so helpful. Out of those 3 songs that were released Squals on Wheels (Mill Fever) sounds totally different from the game with a techno sort of beat to it, so my take on it was well worth it then as it aims to be like the original, not to mention much higher audio quality.

[@MrJerp850]

@@riggles please come back we mess u

[@toddspace1494]

Hey I love these remixes so much! Any chance you'll be returning to this project? I was thinking about using these tracks for an MSU-1 project myself (with permission) and was hoping to see the rest of the soundtrack one day. Either way, take care and thanks for the songs :]

[@Seiko180]

reminds the Airport level from Toy Story 2

[@LordExor]

Are you resequencing these from scratch?

[@riggles]

Yep, there's no midi files or anything that could be gotten for this game, and the sound samples on the ROM are so poor that I've had to recreate sounds in synths ( mainly FM8 and Massive ), I also took the liberty of adding effects or sounds not present in the GBA like the growing filtered sawtooths or piano for production qualities sake. With Water World there luckily exists an E3 Demo, which is only mono and has really poor quality. So with that one I combined certain sounds from that and redid all the instrumentation+percussion as well as added some of my own stuff (choir+strings).

[@ICUP321]

Wait, so when you say you could've used the game audio samples, do you mean the compressed GBA sounds, or do you mean that you actually know where the original uncompressed audio sources for DKC3 GBA come from but prefer not to use them?

[@riggles]

I used a few of the compressed from ROM samples for Stilt Village, which is why it didn't turn out as good as this one, with this I just recreated the sounds in synths ( Massive + FM8 ) since it's a more electronic track, the pluck instrument is a combination of a sitar and guitar from Korg M1 and the drums from various 90's sample CD's. Going to revisit Stilt Village and replace the bad samples used with original sounds that sound similar even if it won't sound super authentic it'll be really good audio quality, will be keeping it as "authentic sounding" as possible though, and just like this one add a few things if they fit ( like the growing sawtooth and piano for instance which weren't part of the original GBA track but fit ). Taken Stilt Village down for now and letting Mill Fever set the standard for my future remakes.

[@ICUP321]

@@riggles Oh okay, thanks for the detailed response, I just discovered this channel from Jammin' Sam Miller so I've never heard your rendition of Stilt Village, but I'm looking forward it!

[@carterjames8829]

I like the SNES version more.