Well, oops. We had a lot of coverage of Contra 4: Rocked ‘n’ Loaded on OSV leading up to the album’s release back in March 2010, but it somehow managed to slip through the cracks when it came to a review. Well, after seeing and talking to many of those involved this past week at MAGFest about the status on their Rockman X arrange album and realizing our boo-boo with the Contra 4 album, I was determined to go back and review it.
And here it is! (more…)
On the latest episode of VGMdb’s podcast, Andreas Kotsamanidis (Snappleman) was interviewed about the troubles and triumphs of arranging and producing the album Contra 4: Rocked ‘n’ Loaded. The album which was released on March 5th, is a metal arrangement album of Contra 4 and Jake Kaufman, the original composer even took part in the album. Since release the album has received quite high praise and good sales.
In the interview, Kotsamanidis revealed that most of the team are going to start work on a new album shortly, this time tackling the Mega Man X soundtrack in similar fashion to their first album. That means that we’ll be enjoying some hard metal arrangement from the very best on one of the finest soundtracks on SNES.
For more info on the team and their album, go to RockednLoaded.com.
2 months late but who cares?! It’s finally here and ready to ship out. We’ve done plenty of coverage on this CD in the past, with artist interviews and updates on it’s progress along the way. Originally scheduled for release at MAGFest, the production company did a printing mistake and therefor, the team had to switch pressing companies and find a comparable price range.
In case you aren’t totally up to speed on the project, this is a full arrange album of the Contra 4 soundtrack, featuring Andreas “Snappleman” Kotsamanidis, Tony “Prince of Darkness” Dickinson, Dan Behrens from Metroid Metal and ARMCANNON, Marcos “Braincells” Pascoli and Jake “virt” Kaufman, the original composer of the soundtrack! Other awesome contributors show up as well.
You can order this CD at Rocked N Loaded.com for $12.
We’ve been looking forward to the upcoming Super Mario Kart album from The OneUps as well as the Contra 4: Rocked N’Loaded album leading up to MAGFest. They were both supposed to go on sale at the event, and sadly, neither were available. So, where are they, and when can we expect to see them released?
We caught up with Mustin at MAGFest, and he assured us that with MAGFest out of the way, the Super Mario Kart album is their top priority. The band will apparently be working on it every weekend from here on out until it’s released. He was confident that it’d be available before the end of February. Regarding Contra 4: Rocked N’Loaded, we spoke with Snappleman at great length about the delay. The album is actually complete, but didn’t make it to the press in time for the show. It’s too bad that they missed MAGFest as a market for the album, but pre-sales are supposedly going quite well, so be sure to pre-order your copy soon. It will be out this month.
Are you looking forward to either of these albums? Were there any other MAGFest releases that you were looking forward to?
A few weeks ago we had the first part of our discussion with the Contra 4: Rocked ‘n’ Loaded team about the development and production of these kinds of arrangement albums. It’s easy to take arrangements and remixes for granted, thinking it’s simply a deal of finding a MIDI or listening by ear and replicating it, but in reality, the process is quite a massive undertaking.
In this part, we ventured into the topic of the music production itself, as we last time went into the topic of planning, signing artists and working together. Now get ready to really understand how long it takes to transcribe, learn and record these incredibly detailed melodies, and dealing with being a musical perfectionist.
Come Get Some! (more…)
After two years of the manliest sweating, bleeding and tear-shed you can imagine, the CD is finally here! You might have read our ongoing production roundtable concerning this project, giving you an interesting insight into all the hard work that has goes into planning and producing projects like these, and if you haven’t, well, you have some catching up to do!
The release date is January 1st, at MAGFest, a gaming convention in Virginia that Original Sound Version will be attending. Jake Kaufman, the composer of Contra 4 is featured on the CD arranging his own work and many of the very best artists in the game arrangement community appear on the album and rock out your favorite Contra 4 tunes, and some old favorites as well. The CD will be $12 USD for North America and $18 USD international shipping included.
So come get some at Rocked ‘n Loaded and check back on Saturday for the next production roundtable!
It seems Konami’s classic franchises are everywhere these days. We reviewed Contra Rebirth last month, there was the announcement of Castlevania: The Concert, Castlevania Rebirth is set to whip some ass on WiiWare sometime soon, and even Sparkster is coming back to consoles next year.
But what we are gonna do here concerns a gem that came out in 2007, Contra 4. You see, there is an arrangement project in the works for this game which is wrapping up, and anyone who’s played this game know it has an amazing soundtrack, composed by Jake Kaufman, better known as virt. We thought it would be fun to talk to the guys behind this project about the the process of getting a remix project together and discuss the reasons why they chose this specific game. We are proud to present part 1 of this roundtable, which should be highly interesting to any fan or musician out there.
So please enjoy Part 1 of the Contra 4 roundtable after the jump! (more…)
