http://missingno.ocremix.org/

Well the people have spoken: My Greatest Rival is not only the worst song on the album, but may very well be the worst game remix of all time! Just look at some of these testimonials:

“I know OCR albums tend to be a bit hit & miss, but My Greatest Rival is one of the most goddawful ‘songs’ I’ve ever heard.” — NeelEvil

“Also, if you’re going to download the .zip, delete My Greatest Rival. Shit’s garbage.” – Anonymous @ 4chan

“My Greatest Rival is atrocious if only for the fuckawful vocals” – 4chan

“Essa My greatest Rival começou épica pra caralho, aí veio um truta cantando e fodeu a porra toda.” – guiiivs

[Translation: "My Greatest Rival started out epic as hell, and then a singing trout came in and f***d everything up.]

“Fourth track has both over-long intro with no relevance or tonal/melodic coherence with the rest of the track and vocals from people who aren’t good at singing! That’s double for your money! (lyrics are also terribles)” – Suairyu

[Jaroban: And why would he listen to the intro carefully if it makes him want to hurl?]

“Disc 1, Track 4, immediately deleted. Probably the worst OCR song I’ve ever heard. But I’m sure it’ll probably be the most popular with the tweeny-group just for saying ‘bigger pokeballs’ repeatedly. It’s bland, the rythm feels way off, most of the lyrics are incredibly bland and predictable…it’s just a chore to listen to, and worse, it’s a good song in Soul Silver, so it’s very disappointing to hear it being completely ripped apart so early in the album. I get the feeling they really built the song entirely on trying to get a giggle out of saying ‘bigger pokeballs’ and forgot to actually make the song something you can listen to.” – MAGNUS-8M

 
So is My Greatest Rival the most godawful piece of crap that ever crapped? Or is it a brilliant piece of sociopolitical satire? Weigh in below with your opinion!

 Click here for the original blog post about “My Greatest Rival”

EDIT:
I feel like I should provide some context for those that aren’t familiar with the source material.

My Greatest Rival is a remix of this song (Rival Battle) from Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal:

And it’s supposed to sound kind of like:

The track is meant to be a sort of tribute both to the Pokémon games and to the anime, which I used to watch with some of my buddies back in high school.

People are talking! Click here for the public reaction to “My Greatest Rival”

Project Website • Project @ OCRemix

Click here for the lyrics!

I want to thank all the following people for their help on the track:

Matty – Lead vocals, rhythm guitars
Fishy – Lead guitars, rhythm guitars
Sam Cooper – Vocals
Vralia – Vocals
Jocelyn Holst – Vocals
DJ Krisp-E – Vocals
chris stibrany – Additional programming, mastering

Obviously, I’m very excited about this album and I hope people enjoy listening as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it.

In other news, I’ve been working hard at increasing my web presence, and I’ve launched a few more places on the web where you can follow me and get updates on what I’m working on. I’ve got a new facebook Page, and a new Twitter account, and am working on turning the Music page into a résumé/portfolio. So if anyone should want to receive the latest poop on me, you can subscribe using the “Follow Me” tab on the side of the site.

1. GRE (isn’t gonna happen at this point)
2. Receive recommendation letters (already have commitments for this – YAY!)
3. Statement of Objectives (Proofread)
4. Résumé (Proofread)

Today we’re gonna focus on choosing the portfolio. I’m gonna give you guys some input since I have several options.

Here are your candidates:

• Bones’ Theme — Theme from the film Zombie Blood Chaos. Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Iridescent Plumage (Excerpt) — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Prelude for Orchestra (Excerpt) — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• First Sacrifice — Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Traveling Theme — From the unreleased game Quest to End All Quests. Performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Hernando.
• Fabula Venera — From the show Lords of Pain E01. Sequenced. This is the only one that was actually scored to picture.

I can use 3, so you can vote for your favorite 3 below. Bear in mind that they should demonstrate potential in ability to compose for film.

(Spring 2007)

In February of last year, I was approached by Albert Cook to write the score for a zombie movie he had been filming. The project had started out as a simple trailer for one of his film classes at the University of Colorado, but he had decided to see the project through, and by the time I became involved, it had ballooned into a 48-minute near-feature-length behemoth.

I was delighted to have an opportunity to write some action/adventure/suspense film music since I hadn’t really done too much of that. Little did I know the project would require me to write, in addition to the dramatic underscore, a death metal song, a country song, a punk-rock song, theme songs for both a news show and cowboy show, and yes, even a one-minute opera to be performed by Styrofoam packing peanuts. (Now there’s something you probably have never seen before!)

All in all, I composed about 30 tracks of music for the film, and have since compiled a soundtrack album which is available for listening at Last.fm and SoundClick.com.

Some of the tracks on the album are:

• Zombie Blood Chaos – this is the theme of the film, although it only appears in its entirety on the DVD menu. My brother Luke Banta improvised the vocals for this track, and I cobbled the song together out of his shoutings. Matt Beckemeyer laid down the guitar tracks and, in the process, helped pen some of the licks.
• 

  Packing Peanuts Sing the Transformation Opera

  Zombie Girl – this one was written by Sam Cooper, and also features Sam on vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. Thanks are due to Jeremy Averitt who let us use the equipment in his basement to record all the tracks. All told, the song was conceived, written, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered over a period of about four hours while Sam was in town for a day.

• Zombie Party – this dance track was done by Chris Stibrany.

Other people who helped me out on this huge project were Shenandoah Davis, who sang the soprano part for the Transformation Opera; Aaron DiVesta, who laid down some saxophone and flute on a couple of cues; Josh Moore, who was the drummer on a couple tracks; Jocelyn Holst, who let me borrow her equipment while I was recording the live instruments and vocals; and my dad, Bob, who let me take over his basement while I was making all this noise.

The film debuted in June, 2007 on campus at the University of Colorado, and later appeared at the 2008 Backseat Film Festival in Philidelphia, PA, winning an award for Best Drinking Movie.

(Spring 2000)

My last semester of High School I took a film production class with a bunch of my friends, and we made some pretty weird stuff. This is the soundtrack for our final project, which was called “For Whom The Phone Rings.” It was pretty much a study in how not to make a film. All of our shooting was done before we really knew what the plot was, and so in the end we just had a bunch of loosely connected cool-looking shots with an absolutely nonsensical plot and a soundtrack by inexperienced me that wasn’t necessarily conveying the proper moods at the proper times. But by golly it was fun. I think Chris used to describe it as “All style and no substance,” which is a pretty accurate description.

Anyway the soundtrack is pretty simplistic, there weren’t too many sync points and the files are just midi sequences. But this is my first shot at scoring a film, which was one of my childhood dreams, or whatever. So I hope it’s semi-enjoyable.

UPDATE (6/12/2008): The video is now online!

(Jazz Comp 2 – Spring 2004)

Original Music by Jared Banta
Tenor Sax Soloist – David Black

Here’s my Jazz Comp 2 midterm project that was performed at my senior recital at Berklee. The band did a pretty nice job reading it; it’s a tough chart.

I don’t really have much to say about it I guess. I was in a bad mood when I was writing it, but I’ve gotten mostly positive feedback on it.

I should mention that I promised John to title a song “Rancid Beans” many years before writing this, although I’m sure he doesn’t remember that I am a man of my word!

Ahahahahaa.. I just found this on my hard drive, and I’m very very surprised it has stayed with me this long. I think it’s worth posting.

It’s from a very long time ago, before the time of mp3s and when we had our old crappy computer. You can hear a bunch of noise on the track, and that’s the computer huffing and puffing trying to keep up while recording audio, and all that garbage bleeding over into the audio input. Wonderful. Remember when computers sucked like this? I think I recorded it in the old, old Mac Sound Control Panel, where you could record like :10 of sound tops and then use it as your system beep.

The song itself is just a little ad lib that my brother did for no particular reason, and I sang a little “harmony” part. I don’t really think it was meant to be harmony, but who really cares? It’s cute, and that’s all that really matters. Our voices weren’t actually quite that chipmunky, I doubled the speed after we recorded it.

Not a breathtaking display of musical prowess, but good for a smile nonetheless

(Big Band Arranging – Spring, 2003)

Original Music by Jared Banta

This track is cobbled together from two different performances. The first is from summer 2003 at the Mile High Jazz Camp, a camp I had been going to since the summer before entering high school. The band was great, unfortunately I don’t have the names of all the performers, but it was led by Brent Campbell. The second performance is by the 9th and Lincoln Orchestra, the house big band at Dazzle Jazz Lounge in Denver. The featured soloists are Jaime Parker on trombone and Art Bouton on alto saxophone.

The song itself was my final project for my Big Band Arranging class in Spring 2003, and I based it on a poem by my friend Alli. It has been my most frequently performed big band composition, including performances at Berklee College of Music, University of Colorado, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And finally, thanks to Larry Oji of WMRE radio for playing the recording on his radio show VG Frequency on 11/18/03.

(16 June 2006)

Original Music by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse

(2/15/08) Update!  The old version has long since disappeared from my SoundClick page. People liked the old version a lot, but I perceived it to be long and a little boring in the middle, and something that we did many years ago. The new version is more sophisticated, and it has vocals!

It’s from a live performance at the Rock ‘n Soul Cafe in Boulder, CO. I stole some of the brilliance in the A sections from a recording by saxophonist Mark Turner. That circulating 3 chord vamp is his, and was just waaay too good not to use, but is a pain to blow over. The bridge is different from his version though, and the overall form has been altered, so I feel okay calling it an arrangement of mine, with credit where credit is due. Hope you enjoy this rendition as much as the last!

Vocals – Jocelyn Holst
Alto Saxophone -  Darren Mueller
Guitar – Matt Fuller
Bass – Jared Banta
Drums – Josh Moore

(Summer, 2002)

Guitar: Matt
Guitar: Andres
Sequenced material by: Jared
Special thanks: John, Chris, Darren
Original Music “Day of Summer” and “Le Tresor Interdit” by Yasunori Mitsuda

One more game remix for this week’s track.. as of today (11/1/03) it’s the last one I’ve completed and it’s also the last project I ever did before receiving any formal composition/arranging training, so it is truly the culmination of many years of teaching myself how to write music.

It took me about 2 months to complete the first draft of it, and then more to revise it and get it ready for release. Thankfully, all this work paid off as the folks over at OverClocked Remix graciously voted to post it up on their site.

Soon I hope to finish up some more game projects, but for the time being I have to do my work for school, so it might be a while yet.

Song Page @ OC Remix