Classical Midi Remix

Being tasked with remixing a classical piece was an exciting new venture for me. I've done plenty of MIDI remixes before, but classical music is much more complex than the stuff I'm used to. Right off the bat, I knew which piece I wanted to rework: Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns.

This is my favorite classical piece ever, and for the longest time, I've had an idea in my head for how I could remix it, but the task always felt too daunting. I used this as an opportunity to get that idea off the ground and actually create the remix I had always envisioned. The main concept for this remix was that I wanted Danse Macabre to sound like it belonged in ULTRAKILL. You don't need to know what that is, only that it's a game I like. The specific inspiration for my remix came from the song "Castle Vein" from the soundtrack, which I have linked below.:

The instrumentation in this track was very influential to my own and is the main reason why I leaned so heavily into the harpsichord in my remix. Other parts of the track, like the tempo and drums, were very inspirational as well. I've made music in the style of the game before, so I've become acquainted with the general genre conventions of Breakcore (the genre present in the game). Breakcore is a sort of drum and bass subgenre that is largely reliant on a specific drum sample called the Amen break.

An early setback I had, however, was that Danse Macabre was in the time signature of 3/4, and the Amen break is not. So, I had to dissect the original sample and reformat it to be in 3/4. After that, the main issue was keeping the high energy consistent throughout the whole piece. As with many classical pieces, Danse Macabre has a plethora of tempo and dynamic changes throughout. Both of these were present in the MIDI I was using, which wasn't ideal for what I was planning to create. Changing the dynamics wasn't hard; I just had to adjust the velocity accordingly, but the tempo was a bit different since I hadn't needed to know how to remove tempo changes in MIDI before. But after some searches online, I figured it out, and the rest of the composition went fairly smoothly.

Though, for my initial plan with the remix, the main idea I had centered around the opening melody. When that began to change later on, I didn't have a firm grasp on how to fit it into Breakcore and ended up getting completely carried away, switching the style halfway through. There was this little arpeggio that comes in later in the original song for a much calmer and more melodic section, but when I heard it, I immediately thought it would make a great Future Bass section and did that instead. The original melody does get reintroduced in the latter third of the piece, and as such, so does my idea, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Here is my remix:

I'm personally very proud of how this turned out, and I think that, for the most part, I accurately articulated what I had in mind. The most notable part right away is probably the timbral difference, since I don't use any orchestral instruments, save for maybe the piano. The tempo is slightly faster, but it's also consistent all the way through, and the dynamics and articulations are completely different due to electronic music basically being in forte nonstop. The form is largely unchanged; some sections are ever so slightly longer (like a measure or two), but the slow melodic section right at the very end was removed since it didn't really fit what I was going for. Obviously, the style and genre are different, but I didn't really touch the rhythm—at least not in the original melodies. I just added additional rhythm on top of them with my drums.

Speaking of melodies, those and the harmonies are pretty much untouched from the original, since that is the most notable part for me; I wanted to keep it intact. On the other hand, I do some weird things with pitch. Some melodies are higher or lower than they were, and there is a lot of octave layering with the harpsichord that I added to fill up space, which wouldn't have been possible in the original. It's very texturally different as well, but you probably don't need me to tell you that. All in all, I think I successfully accomplished what I set out to do, and I might even try something like this again in the future.