Aaron Freed’s Discography

  1. Table of Contents
  2. Introduction
  3. Solo Discography
  4. Multi-Artist Releases
  5. Compilations
  6. As Mastering/Remastering Engineer
    1. Official
    2. Unofficial
  7. Endnotes

Introduction

I compose primarily instrumental game music⁽¹⁾ with inspirations as disparate as the Beatles, ’70s progressive rock, ’80s pop, ’90s game music, metal, jazz, Motown, disco, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Brian Eno, and Johann Sebastian Bach (the single greatest composer ever to walk this Earth). I discuss many of my influences in my latest album’s acknowledgements. I’m told my music sounds like an amalgamation of them, which checks out – but while countless composers try to sound like Bach, no one else offers as many surprises as Bach does. Legendary jazz fusion guitarist Pat Metheny perhaps put it best: “Compared to Bach… man, we all suck.”

Some highlights of my recent/current output, roughly in reverse chronological order:

Release dates are ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd, the objectively correct format) when I know the full date. Releases’ names are followed by their length (expressed as h:mm:ss) and TT Dynamic Range Meter scores (expressions of a piece’s overall dynamic range in decibels; higher numbers correlate to higher dynamic range); multi-artist releases also list their contributors (where they don’t number past about thirteen or so).

If what you’re looking for isn’t here, perhaps it’s on one of these related pages:

Please contact me if you have any questions/praise/constructive criticism/job offers.

Lastly, note that most of my discography is in a Dropbox folder, but it provides little info about each release and has an impossible-to-remember URL – hence this page.

Solo Discography

Date Title Type Length DR
1997 Compositions 1993-1997 Album 1:05:17 13
original compositions
These are juvenilia, but I’m still proud of parts of them. Saying that this has a 1997 release date might not be strictly accurate, since I went back and revised parts of the arrangements in 2008, but the vast majority of this material dates to the years listed in the title, and all of it was previously released (albeit among a small circle of friends and family members). Most tracks are original compositions, but a few are arrangements of traditional songs, and one, ‘The Colour of Night’, was cowritten with a school friend, Austin Shoemaker.
1997 Marathon Remixes (QuickTime) Remix album 39:35 12
remixes of music by Alexander Seropian
My first remixes of Marathon’s OST are extremely faithful in sound and style, adding only reverb, panning, instrument doubling, and occasional other flourishes.
1997 Theme from Marathon Chronicles Single 2:58 12
original compositions
Two different remixes of a Compositions 1993-1997 track called ‘The Tempest’, the first of which is my still-unfinished scenario Marathon Chronicles’ title theme (see YouTube for info).
2014-11-24 Demos 2014 Demo album 52:30 15
original compositions & covers of music by Genesis, Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫), & Johann Pachelbel
Competent piano demos of an original song (‘Love’), covers of an excerpt of Genesis’ ‘Supper’s Ready’ and two Nobuo Uematsu tracks called ‘Terra’ (one from Final Fantasy VI, another from Final Fantasy IX⁽²⁾), and two improvisations. (The original song and covers also contain plenty of improvisation, for that matter.)
2021-01-28 Cadence of Hyrule Future Sound Remixes Remix album 1:31:50 12
remixes of music by Kōji Kondō (近藤 浩治), Danny Baranowsky, FamilyJules7x (Jules Conroy), A_Rival (Alex Esquivel), & Chipzel (Niamh Houston)
Counting DLC, Cadence of Hyrule has up to six different versions of its songs, all with identical tempi and melodies. These remixes weave 17 of its songs into dense, psychedelic listening experiences that are radically different from their sources.
2021-02-03 Marathon QuickTime 2.0 & 2.5 stereo remix Remix album 41:00 12
remixes of music by Alexander Seropian
Marathon’s soundtrack was originally in mono, and the instrument voices changed slightly between QuickTime 2.0 and 2.5. I put 2.0 in the left channel and 2.5 in the right. The result is better than you’d expect. The stereo phasing helps.
2022-12-05 Marathon: Pistol Starts
(See You Starside First Drafts) 		Remix album 40:37 12
remixes of music by Alexander Seropian

The first Marathon remixes I did in GarageBand. They’re less sonically faithful than any of my earlier remixes (I used tons of retro synth voices and Mellotron samples), but more stylistically faithful than any of my following mixes, for which these still serve as prototypes.

‘Pistol Start’ refers to a form of challenge run done by hitting ⌘+⌥+New Game (Ctrl+Shift+New Game on Windows or Linux); a player must complete a level with the starting loadout of a pistol and three clips, usually on the hardest difficulty.
2023-01-20 See You Starside: Interim Revisions
Violins Again: Rough Drafts 		Remix/arrangement
anthology 		4:23:42 12
remixes & expanded interpretations of music by Alexander Seropian

Rather than remove old mixes entirely as I superseded them, I simply moved them to this folder so that people can trace their evolution. Dates are listed in ISO format, followed by 24-hour time (00.00 to 23.59). My lack of anything even charitably describable as a sleep schedule may be apparent from these filenames.

On 2023-01-17, I also began to add drafts of my orchestral arrangement album Violins Again and its companion …And Beyond – I don’t think there are enough of either to make it worthwhile to separate them.
2023-02-04 See You Starside:
The Marathon Soundtrack Reimagined 		Arrangement album 1:18:17 13
expanded interpretations of music by Alexander Seropian

What began as an endeavour to remix Marathon’s OST grew into something closer to an arranged album, with 38 minutes of new material. These intricate, dense, yet dynamic mixes are brimming with retro synths, arpeggiation, musical cross-references, reverb, and entirely new instrument parts. See You Starside is Marathon’s OST by way of ’70s progressive rock songwriting and arrangement, ’80s pop production, and ’90s Japanese games’ atmosphere, with secondary influences from genres as disparate as jazz, blues, disco, ambient, post-rock, classical, electronic music, Krautrock, and metal.

YouTube video here. However, I strongly encourage people to use an adblocker for any and all videos on my channel, since YouTube has decided to start running ads that I emphatically do not want on my videos and make absolutely no money from. uBlock Origin seems to work well for this purpose, but I’m sure it’s not the only viable option.
2023-02-04 Violins Again:
An Orchestral Marathon Soundtrack 		Arrangement album 1:18:17 13
expanded interpretations of music by Alexander Seropian
While working on See You Starside, I came up with an orchestral version of ‘Rushing’ that didn’t fit into the project, but it was too good to throw aside. There was nothing for it but to make symphonic versions of all sixteen of my arrangements. Some of these are more orchestral than others, but I think they all work pretty well, and it was a fun project. I never really came up with a title for this collection that I actually liked, even after changing it from Ultraviolins (which would’ve been better suited for Doom).
2023-02-04 …And Beyond:
The Marathon Future Symphonic Mixes 		Arrangement album 1:18:17 13
expanded interpretations of music by Alexander Seropian
Effectively the Future Sound remixes (see above) of my own arrangements: merge See You Starside with Violins Again, and this is the result. I never came up with a name I liked for this collection either – this one’s an equally feeble pun on Marathon Infinity and Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase.
2023 (WIP) Marathon ComposerCloud+ Mixes Arrangement album 2:59:47 14
expanded interpretations of music by Alexander Seropian

Work-in-progress re-instrumentations of See You Starside, Violins Again, & …And Beyond using Logic Pro and EastWest ComposerCloud+ instruments. On the original releases of those albums, only Violins Again and …And Beyond’s versions of ‘Aliens Again’ and ‘Chomber’ used ComposerCloud+ instruments, and none used Logic Pro. I plan to redo all sixteen tracks of both See You Starside and Violins Again using the ComposerCloud+ instruments, since they have such phenomenal quality, and as powerful as GarageBand is by the standards of a free DAW, Logic Pro is way more powerful.

I’ve also made an ‘Eastern’ version of ‘What About Bob?’. I’ve been considering creating world music-inspired versions of all sixteen tracks, but I’d want to know a lot more about the traditions I’d be working in before committing to it fully.

Many of these tracks are still very much unfinished – in particular, several have major instrument balance problems. I currently plan to create drafts of all three versions of all sixteen tracks, then return and fix imperfections with a less emotionally invested ear. A few tracks (e.g., the ‘Pfhor Trilogy’) are already almost finished, though.
2023 (WIP) Bearing Gifts: Trojan Remixes Arrangement album 1:07:40 14
remixes & expanded interpretations of music by Tom Worth
Arrangements of Tom Worth, John Carlo Maffei, Jason Aguiar, Steve Campbell, & Hamish Sanderson’s OST for the Marathon mod Trojan (1997). I can’t promise that I’ll attempt to do new arrangements of all twenty proper songs from the OST, but I’ll certainly at least do new arrangements of Tom’s ten tracks. As of 2023-04-29, many of these are currently still very early works in progress; only the first two tracks and the last track are really further along than being instrument swaps. The name comes from – what else? – the proverb ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ which of course refers to the Trojan horse. This one, at least, is unlikely to change, as I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking of a better one.
2024 (WIP) Compositions 2023-2024 Album 2:35:27 15
original compositions, featuring brief interpolations of “Diēs Īrae” & works by:
Johann Sebastian Bach, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Genesis, Edvard Grieg, King Crimson, Kōji Kondō (近藤 浩治), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Nine Inch Nails, Rush, Alexander Seropian, Britney Spears, & Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫)
and a song cowritten with Chris Christodoulou

Fifteen tracks I wrote from 2022-12-29 to 2024-11-22 that I’ve compiled into an ad hoc album of sorts. (By the time I realized I’d started writing its first track in 2022, I had far too many links to its current name.) I intended all of these tracks to appear on hellpak vol. 2 & Tempus Irae Redux, though we ultimately wound up replacing over half of the latter, mostly with new tracks I wrote at the eleventh hour that, due to this album’s length, will appear on my next album, tentatively titled Mūsica ex tempore cladis (see immediately below).

Ultimately, since these mixes are so dense, the in-game mixes of songs that do appear both here and in Tempus Irae Redux will also likely vary substantially: in short, this album’s mixes will be more complex (i.e., more suited for active listening) than the in-game and/or OST mixes (as befits a game soundtrack).

This album is by no means finished, mind you; I’m still revising it (so ironically, its title will likely end up a misnomer at both ends), though I’m done adding tracks to it (as mentioned, my recent songs appear on Mūsica ex tempore cladis). It’s roughly chronological, and it includes detailed commentary, credits, & lyrics.
2025 (WIP) Mūsica ex tempore cladis An anthology of loose ends 1:41:56 13
(mostly) original compositions

Recent works in progress in varying stages of completion, including sketches that haven’t yet coalesced into actual songs, one-off demonstrations for a page I’m writing about music theory, actual songs that haven’t yet found homes, and several Tempus Irae Redux songs I wrote after the fifteen songs on Compositions 2023-2024. I also included two variants of a track I wrote for Endless Sky, despite it also appearing in the eponymous collection (again, see immediately below), mostly because this one didn’t feel complete without it.

The album name (Latin for Music from the Time of the Disaster) is tentative. In fact, this isn’t really an album yet – I won’t have time to think about making it into a proper album until at least next year.
202? (WIP) Endless Sky Soundtrack album 21:14 13
Original compositions

Early soundtrack sketches for the open-source spiritual successor to Ambrosia Software’s beloved Macintosh franchise Escape Velocity. This is very early in the planning stages, and I almost certainly won’t be the only person working on it – moreover, the in-game music will be a lot less through-composed than what you hear in these early tracks. At the moment, I’m just sketching out sound palettes, melodic and harmonic ideas, and overall atmospheres that (hopefully) will eventually be built into a functional dynamic soundtrack.

I’ve explained my plans in exhaustive detail (≈6,000 words) here, but beware of spoilers; I kept my message relatively light on them, but a few replies to my post have some major ones (notably, the post that opens by discussing the Avgi contains major spoilers for the Wanderer campaign).
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Multi-Artist Releases

Note that I have organized these by when the bulk of my work on them occurred rather than by their likely completion dates (all three, as of 2024-12-18, remain works in progress). Funnily enough, there is a nonzero chance that they will end up being completed in the reverse order.

Date Title Type Length DR
2024 (WIP) Eternal X 1.3 OST (for external players)
Eternal X 1.3 Level Music (for in-game use) 		Game soundtrack 7:43:44 12
Aaron Freed, Dr Craig Hardgrove, wowbobwow, Talashar, CKT1138, Solar‑Tron, Dan Storm, Matrix_XV, Tommy T-Bone, Nicholas Singer, Trey J. Anderson, & Eike Steffen
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Martin O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, & Chris Christodoulou

Forthcoming game soundtrack. I constructed dozens of lengthy medleys for it, often including my Marathon arrangements or my collaborations with Dr Craig Hardgrove, Talashar, & wowbobwow on unique new mixes (see Collaborations & Covers below for standalone versions of these). My contributions wound up comprising more of the OST runtime than any other contributor’s. I hadn’t planned for this to happen, but in retrospect, it’s probably the inevitable result of putting a progressive rock fan in charge of a game soundtrack.

Every level includes unique level music as of 1.3 preview 6 (released in March 2024). I also wrote scripting for the levels “Run, Coward!” and “We Met Once in the Garden” to change the soundtrack based on in-game events. Due to this, the OST version of the latter’s level music runs for some thirty-five minutes.

The main differences between the two versions of the soundtrack are as follows:

  • OST (Original Soundtrack): Meant for listening outside the game; the quietest sections are left at their original volume levels, and tracks that loop in-game will loop past the loop point and then fade out. The level music for “We Met Once in the Garden” (which changes over the course of the level dynamically based on in-game events) is combined into a single track. Filenames contain track numbers and spaces.
  • Level Music: For use in-game with 1.3 preview 6. Tracks that loop in-game will cut off suddenly if played in an audio player, and I made the quietest sections of a few tracks louder so they’d be audible over the game sound effects. The level music for “We Met Once in the Garden” is split into three tracks. Tracks are grouped into folders, and the filenames are less useful.
2024 (WIP) dungeons presents hellpak: Vol. 2 –
An Exercise in Questionable Taste 		Game soundtrack 7:12:54 12
Matrix_XV, tbcr, CKT1138, Aaron Freed, & NEFX

Forthcoming game soundtrack for which I made some remixes of hellpak: Vol. 1 tracks and some original material. (My versions of tbcr’s tracks might be more accurately termed remakes, since I reconstructed them by ear from scratch.)

We haven’t even come close to finalizing Vol. 2’s track listing, and since several of our composers have been so prolific (there are a whopping 130 tracks here, though many are present in multiple versions), over half of the tracks currently found here won’t make it onto the final soundtrack; they may end up on Vol. 3 or even Vol. 4’s soundtracks or be repurposed for other projects. I will undoubtedly create a “Vol. 2 Leftovers” collection once we finalize the soundtrack.
2024 (WIP) Tempus Irae Redux OST Game soundtrack 4:09:20 12
Aaron Freed, Alexander Nakarada, Rafael Krux, Kevin MacLeod, Nine Inch Nails, Bryan Teoh, Chris Christodoulou, Brian Boyko, CKT1138, Sean Magee, Rich Wilcox, & Fungus Amongus

Contents remain subject to change. Tempus Irae Redux entered a closed beta test in October 2023; we hope to release it in late 2024. I wrote or cowrote more than three hours of music for it, though we’re only using about half of it. We’ve included the following Compositions 2023-2024 tracks, mostly in somewhat different mixes:

  • «Θῠ́ραι παραλήρησεως» (Ancient Greek: “Gates of Delirium”; romanized: “Thúrai paralírēseōs”) & «Ἡ μεγᾰ́λη σιγή» (Ancient Greek: “The Great Silence”; romanized: “He megálē sīgḗ”). Interpolates four Chris Chris­to­dou­lou songs, with his gracious per­mis­sion/encouragement. Very likely the best track I’ve ever worked on
  • “Ex tempore, ex locō” (Latin: “Out of Time, Out of Place”) & “Nōn omnia in suā locō corrēctō erant” (Latin: “Not Everything Was in Its Right Place”), vaguely inspired by Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place”
  • “You Wanted To”, slightly inspired by System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” & Ra­dio­head’s “In Limbo”
  • “Ambiēns aquātica”, a tribute to David Wise’s “Aquatic Ambiance”
  • “Ludo mortale” (Italian: “Deadly Game”)
  • “Cauda toxica” (Latin: “Toxic Tail”)

And the following Mūsica ex tempore cladis tracks:

  • “Mārtiī hōrae ūndecimae” (Latin: “March of the Eleventh Hour”) & “Melōdia hōrae ūndecimae” (Latin: “Melody of the Eleventh Hour”)
  • “Fīliī Bombayānī” (Latin: “Children of Bombay”), inspired by Deep Purple’s “Child in Time” & It’s a Beautiful Day’s “Bombay Calling”
  • “Lamento latrōnis” (Latin: “The Mercenary’s Lament”)
  • “Malizia premeditata” (Italian: “Malice Aforethought”)
  • “Dēsīderāta” (Latin: “Things Desired”), a blatant pastiche of Nine Inch Nails’ “Wish”
  • “Lurkers in the Deep”
  • “Lavā, ēlue, repete” (Latin: “Lather, Rinse, Repeat”)

For a total thirteen to sixteen songs (depending on how you count them) lasting over a hundred minutes. I still plan to write one more track for it. I’ve also edited other tracks in several ways and mastered the entire OST.
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Compilations

Date Title Type Length DR
2023-09-08
2023-10-26 		Selected Works, 2014-2023 (“1-CD” version)
Selected Works, 2014-2023 (2-CD version) 		Compilation 1:26:13
2:38:07 		14
13
Aaron Freed ft. wowbobwow, Talashar, & Trey J. Anderson
original compositions & arrangements of music by Alexander Seropian, Tom Worth, Brian Boyko, Genesis,
(2 CD only) CryoS, Chris Christodoulou, Kōji Kondo (近藤 浩治), Danny Baranowsky, FamilyJules7x (Jules Conroy), A_Rival (Alex Esquivel), & Chipzel (Niamh Houston)

I had an incredibly prolific 2023, so I selected some of my favourite music I’d made since 2014 for the sake of people who have no idea where to start. I tried to provide a representative overview, so there’s a lot of stylistic variation. The fact that the average track length is over ten minutes is the only thing that isn’t entirely representative, but it also feels appropriate somehow.

I first released this collection on 2023-09-08, featuring detailed liner notes with my commentary on each track. At the time, it featured eight tracks that lasted 1:18:19, which fit on a single redbook audio CD, but after I revised several movements I’d included on it, I updated Selected Works to match, raising its length well past a redbook CD’s 80-minute limit.

Thus, on 2023-10-26, I released an expanded version with fifteen tracks, an altered track order, and work-in-progress liner notes. I’m leaving the “1 CD” version up for those that want a shorter overview, though.
2024 (WIP) Collaborations & Covers Compilation 2:26:28 14
Aaron Freed with Dr Craig Hardgrove, Talashar, CKT1138, & wowbobwow
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Chris Christodoulou, Brian Boyko, & CryoS
My 2023-2024 collaborations with other artists (most of which are standalone mixes of movements of Eternal 1.3’s soundtrack), plus two remixes/covers I made that will probably appear on Tempus Irae Redux and Phoenix 2.0’s OSTs.
2024 (WIP) Selected Works, 2023-2024 Compilation 2:32:07 14
original compositions & arrangements
(list of interpolations coming soon™)

A fifteen-track distillation of what I’d estimate to be more than ten hours of music from the past two years. It seemed silly to make another compilation a year after my previous one until I noticed I’d written some three and a half hours of music in 2024 alone; then it seemed silly not to. I’ve included the credits; my commentary is forthcoming. I’m still revising some of these mixes and will likely continue updating this collection accordingly to match them.
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As Mastering/Remastering Engineer

(I’m not listing my solo work under this, because lol.)

Official Releases

I mastered or remastered the soundtracks used in official releases of the following game mods:

Date Title Type Length DR
2018-12-21 Eternal X 1.2 OST Game soundtrack 1:31:58 12
Dr Craig Hardgrove, Tommy T-Bone, Nicholas Singer, & Eike Steffen
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Martin O’Donnell, & Michael Salvatori
The most acclaimed and popular remixes of Marathon’s soundtrack, three classic mash-ups of Marathon and Halo tracks, and a few bangin’ originals. YouTube video here (again, I strongly encourage use of an adblocker when viewing my channel – I don’t want ads on my videos and make no money from them).
2020-05-24 Marathon Phoenix OST Game soundtrack 1:38:42 11
Kevin MacLeod & CryoS
Included with Phoenix as of version 1.4, released 2022-01-19. (Phoenix 1.4.2, released 2024-04-06, is the latest release and, per scenario creator RyokoTK, the final word on this iteration of Phoenix: the next release will feature major overhauls to its content.) YouTube video here (again, please use an adblocker). I also remastered the sounds, which you can get alongside the remastered title theme here.
2021-06-19 Trojan Standalone Edition OST Game soundtrack 1:57:05 15
Tom Worth, John Carlo Maffei, Jason Aguiar, Steve Campbell, & Hamish Sanderson
I remastered these tracks for the Standalone Edition release, though they’re mostly not huge changes from the originals besides having slightly more dynamic range. The biggest change is the inclusion of the credits loop, which I also expanded slightly. (I didn’t credit myself for this.) YouTube video here (yet again, please use an adblocker); the credits loop and ‘Archangael Death’ are omitted for the sake of pacing. My biggest contribution to the Standalone Edition by far was to the sounds, all of which I remastered. This easily took me 20+ hours. The only acknowledgement I got for this was a ‘thanks’; my contributions to the game weren’t mentioned anywhere in the credits. I’m still annoyed about this.
2022-09-19 dungeons presents hellpak: Vol. 1 –
Not Recommended by Doctors 		Game soundtrack 2:03:46 12
tbcr, Matrix_XV, CKT1138, & NEFX
The official soundtrack, including ten tracks not used in the game. Each track has unique artwork generated with Midjourney. I strongly recommend watching the YouTube video (with an adblocker) to get the full experience.
2023 (WIP) dungeons presents hellpak: Vol. 1 –
Not Recommended by Doctors DLC 		Multi-artist anthology 54:35 11
Matrix_XV, tbcr, & CKT1138
Technically not a soundtrack, but it’ll be an official release once we finalise it. It contains remixes and demos of Vol. 1 tracks, plus standalone versions of tracks with gapless transitions on the OST.
2024 (WIP) dungeons presents hellpak: Vol. 2 –
An Exercise in Questionable Taste 		Game soundtrack 7:12:54 12
Matrix_XV, tbcr, CKT1138, Aaron Freed, & NEFX
We haven’t even begun to consider the song order yet, so these aren’t tagged with song numbers. Around half of these songs will likely be cut from the final release, though many of those will probably be held over for Vol. 3 or even Vol. 4. The remainder will probably make it into other projects in some form.
2024 (WIP) Tempus Irae Redux OST Game soundtrack 4:09:20 12
Aaron Freed, Alexander Nakarada, Rafael Krux, Kevin MacLeod, Nine Inch Nails, Bryan Teoh, Chris Christodoulou, Brian Boyko, CKT1138, Sean Magee, Rich Wilcox, & Fungus Amongus
Contents and even track selection remain subject to change. Tempus Irae Redux entered a closed beta test in October 2023; it’ll hopefully be released in late 2024.
2024 (WIP) Eternal X 1.3 OST Game soundtrack 7:43:44 12
Aaron Freed, Dr Craig Hardgrove, wowbobwow, Talashar, CKT1138, Solar-Tron, Dan Storm, Matrix_XV, Tommy T-Bone, Nicholas Singer, Trey J. Anderson, & Eike Steffen
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Martin O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, & Chris Christodoulou
1.3 is still under construction; at the current pace, it’ll probably be finished in 2024 or 2025. The OST is now massive, thanks to new work from several new contributors (including me) and even two old ones. Each level now has unique music averaging (as of 2024-03-06) eight minutes in length – so if players avoid dying, they’ll hear very little repetition of music as they progress through the game. The OST’s varied musical styles also make it an even more dynamic listening experience.
2024 (WIP) Collaborations & Covers Compilation 2:26:28 14
Aaron Freed with Craig Hardgrove, Talashar, CKT1138, & wowbobwow
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Chris Christodoulou, Brian Boyko, & CryoS
My 2023-2024 collaborations with other artists (most of which are standalone mixes of movements of Eternal 1.3’s soundtrack), plus two remixes/covers I made that will probably appear on Tempus Irae Redux and Phoenix 2.0’s OSTs.
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Unofficial

I’ve remastered several free soundtracks and game remix albums. These are presumably still copyrighted by their respective creators, but as they were free releases, my hope is that their creators won’t mind me linking my remasters of their work here. (In a few specific cases, I’ve attempted unsuccessfully to get in touch with the creators.) Unfortunately, I don’t have a release date for the M2SE, but it seems to have been released sometime around 2006. I’ve listed them in what I believe to be rough chronological order. I’ve also included a huge OverClocked ReMix collection at the bottom that currently includes two lengthy tracks (namely CarboHydroM’s A Link to the Past medley and Prince uf Darkness’ ‘Prancing Dad’) that aren’t part of any albums.

Date Artist Title Length DR Link
2001-07-24 Tobacco Marathon Remixes 24:58 12
2002-03-11 Chibi-usa Marathon Remixes 38:15 12
2003-08-12 Cannibal Whore Feast Marathon Remixes 16:55 13
2003-09-12 OverClocked ReMix Super Metroid: Relics of the Chozo 1:11:58 12 link
unknown Various Marathon 2 Special Edition 1:22:38 12 link

by Mark Sumner (Zipper Cat), Mike Gorczynski (The Punisher), Cannibal Whore Feast (Iain McLaughlin), Julian Zielke (Mercenary), & MuShoo

See my soundtracks page for a version you can use with any Marathon 2 map in Aleph One.
2007-05-29 Various Excalibur: Morgana’s Revenge 3.0 2:04:38 12 link

Note: I don’t know all these tracks’ correct names or composers. James Bisset, Bill Catambay, Bob Chamot, Dane Smith, Solra Bizna, and Mark Sumner created the original tracks; others are based on Carl Orff’s “O Fortūna”⁽³⁾ (Latin: “O Fortune”), Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme, and Nobuo Uematsu’s (植松 伸夫) “Listen to the Cries of the Planet” (kanji: 「星の声が聞こえる」, rōmaji: Hoshi no koe ga kikoeru) from Final Fantasy VII. The scenario credits several other sources, but at least three are incomplete or incorrect:

  • Oni’s music is credited solely to Martin O’Donnell (misspelled “O’Donnel”), who in fact cowrote it with his usual collaborator Michael Salvatori and Paul Sebastien (of Power of Seven and Psykosonik fame). Per VGMdb.net, an uncredited Brian Salter (also of Power of Seven) also composed several tracks.
  • Metal Gear Solid’s “Mantis’ Hymn” is miscredited to Norihiko Hibino (日比野 則彦). Per VGMdb.net, MGS’ music was actually by KCE Sound Team Japan’s Kazuki Muraoka (村岡 一樹), Maki Kirioka (桐岡 麻季), Tappi Iwase (岩瀬 立飛, aka TAPPY), and Rika Muranaka (村中りか). Hibino’s first MGS game was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which he worked on with Iwase, Muranaka, and Harry Gregson-Williams.
  • “O Fortūna” is miscredited to Carmina Burana (Latin: Burian Songs; Buria is now called Benediktbeuern), which is not a person; it’s both the musical cantata whence “O Fortūna” is excerpted and its lyrical basis. Carl Orff composed the music; unknown 11th- to 13th-century students and clergy wrote the lyrics.

The game also credits the Santa Fe theme to “Alexander Seropian […] revised by Mark Sumner”. That seems hard to get wrong, but given the errors above, I don’t even know how much credence to give it.

Also, Excalibur: Morgana’s Revenge 3.0 does not work correctly with any version of Aleph One from at least the last ten years. It may at first appear to work correctly, but the Lua is completely broken, which will render many levels uncompletable. Moreover, its creators have consistently refused to allow anyone to release modified versions of EMR. (Multiple people have asked, including me.) However, pfhore on Discord has been working on a plugin to fix it; I’ll link it when it’s complete.

Finally, while I remastered most of this soundtrack, I left three of the original MP3s intact, as they already had sufficient dynamic range, and upmastering wouldn’t have restored enough upper frequencies to make an audible difference (if memory serves, they were piano pieces).
2007-09-14 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream 3:26:46 12 link
2009-07-19 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy IV:
Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption 		4:35:13 11 link
2010-09-10 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy V: The Fabled Warriors ~I. WIND~ 33:03 12 link
2010-12-13 OverClocked ReMix Link’s Awakening: Threshold of a Dream 1:47:43 13 link
2011-11-12 OverClocked ReMix 25YEARLEGEND: A Legend of Zelda Indie Game Composer Tribute 1:15:19 12 link
2013-07-01 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin 6:06:01 12 link
2013-09-28 Various Spectrum of Mana 3:43:39 12 link
Remixes of Secret of Mana (1993). Not an OCReMix album, despite this page’s former claims otherwise.
2015-09-09 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy IX: Worlds Apart 4:19:33 12 link
2016-04-25 OverClocked ReMix Final Fantasy V: The Fabled Warriors ~II. WATER~ 37:03 12 link
2016-10-17 Will Christian Marathon Remixes 41:51 13
2017-01-31 OverClocked ReMix Super Mario RPG: Window to the Stars 2:07:47 12 link
2017-08-07 OverClocked ReMix Mirror Image: A Link to the Past ReMixed 1:11:18 12 link
2017-12-04 OverClocked ReMix Secret of Mana: Resonance of the Pure Land 2:07:41 12 link
2018-10-01 OverClocked ReMix Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness 4:37:43 11 link

Since 2019, this game’s official English title has been Trials of Mana, but Western audiences mostly used its rōmaji title when this album was released, which is a common signifier that a work has not been officially translated. A (relatively) brief history follows.

Square (now Square Enix) originally released this game (which is Secret of Mana’s sequel) for the Super Famicom in Japan on 1995-09-30. They originally planned to release it internationally under the title Secret of Mana 2, but these plans were shelved due to the difficulty of localizing such a large game.

However, Neill Corlett et al.’s 2001 fan translation patch made it accessible in the West, where it became a cult classic of sorts. It may be telling that OC ReMix’s album featured at least one remix of every song in its soundtrack before its official release in the West was even announced – its predecessor didn’t even manage that (though to be fair, Spectrum of Mana had already featured remixes of every Secret of Mana song).

Oddly, Square Enix had no idea that this game had any following outside Japan until sometime around 2019, when they announced its long-awaited official translation (and corresponding rename to Trials of Mana). It came out on 2019-06-11 as part of the English release of Collection of Mana, a bundle of the Mana series’ first three games (Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana, and Trials of Mana) in their original forms. (The Japanese version came out on 2017-06-01.) Then, on 2020-04-24, Square Enix released a full remake of Trials of Mana for Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows (and on 2021-07-21 for iOS and Android).

Seiken Densetsu 3 (kanji: 聖剣伝説３; hiragana: せいけんでんせつ３) means Holy Sword Legend 3, wherein ３ equates to 参 (formal kanji), 三 (informal kanji), さん (hiragana), or san (rōmaji).
2019-03-18 OverClocked ReMix Chronopolis: Music Inspired by Chrono Cross 1:52:14 11 link
2019-09-20 OverClocked ReMix Songs of the Sirens: Link’s Awakening ReMixed 1:08:39 13 link
2022-09-30 hypersleep Apotheosis X 1:28:25 12 link
This is semi-official, as it will be used as the basis for the OST video on YouTube if we ever finish it.
OverClocked ReMix folder
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Endnotes

# Note
1. Occasionally, I’ll include ominous Latin chanting, but it has to be in actual Latin (which I’ve been known to write myself) or ancient Greek.
2.

The Final Fantasy VI track’s Japanese name (「ティナのテーマ」, rōmaji: Tina no tēma) literally translates as “Tina’s Theme”. Tina Branford (katakana: ティナ・ブランフォード; rōmaji: Tina Buranfōdo) is one of the game’s two protagonists; translator Ted Woolsey localized her given name as Terra for at least two reasons:

  1. Tina is considered an exotic name in Japan, while in the West, it’s considered rather ordinary.
  2. Terra is Latin for earth, forming a nice contrast with the name of the other protagonist, Celes Chere (katakana: セリス・シェール; rōmaji: Serisu Shēru), whose given name is one letter off from caeles, Latin for sky or vault of heaven (meanwhile, chère is French for dear).

Because of this, 「ティナのテーマ」 (in this context) can be reasonably localized as “Terra’s Theme”, though it is also commonly just called “Terra”.

The Final Fantasy IX track is simply titled 「テラ」 (rōmaji: Tera), which the game localizes as Terra.
3.

“O Fortūna”’s parent movement, “Fortūna imperātrīx mundī”, is Latin for “Fortune, Empress of the World”.

Also, some trivia rē Final Fantasy VII (whence “Listen to the Cries of the Planet”): Uematsu’s “One-Winged Angel” (「片翼の天使」, Katayoku no tenshi) shares the line “Sors, immānis et inānis” (“Fate, monstrous and empty”) with “O Fortūna”. In fact, “Sephiroth!” is its only word not from the Carmina Burana:

  • “Estuāns interius”:
Latin English
Estuāns interius Burning inside
Īrā vehementī With furious wrath
  • “Venī, venī, veniās”:
Latin English
Venī, venī, veniās Come, come, o come
Nē me morī faciās Do not let me die
  • “Avē̆ formosissima” (“Hail, Most Beautiful One”):
Latin English
Glōriōsa [Glorious, famous, boastful, haughty]
Generōsa [Generous, superior, honorable, high-born]
(Since both these words have multiple possible translations, I’ve listed four for each.)
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