Hi all!

As I woke up today, a tune was stuck in my head: Human Race tune #1. It just
kept going and going and going in my head... I'm sure all of you had similar
experiences, although lately it seems to be happening to me more frequently
than ever before.

So, when a SID tune gets stuck in my head like above, I pull out my trusty
HVSC, I double-click on the SID tune that got caged in my head and I listen to
it over and over and over again. When I had enough of that, I pull up my
WinAmp media library (all my MP3s reside on one giant 250GB HD), I search for
the given tune and start listening to all the remixes of the same tune. When I
am done with that it's already time to go to sleep so another tune can get
stuck in my head the day after.

Except today. Because today I had the brilliant idea: why not create a radio
show on SLAY radio or do a podcast where I play remixes of the same SID tune
and critique them and then select a winner that would be designated as the
"ultimate" remix of the given tune?

But then I thought, creating a radio show like this would take time and
effort, and I am super-busy already, not to mention I am a lazy bastard. Plus
who would want to listen to the same tune over and over again in a radio show?
Plus, why play it on a show when anybody can download these remixes from RKO
for themselves?

So, instead of doing all this stuff with fancy new names that is still
essentially the same radio as it was 100 years ago, I decided to do a simple
write-up like this.

Today in my head: Rob Hubbard's The Human Race, tune #1. There are 4 remixes
of this tune on RKO:

- Betweenzone's remix was released in July of 2000 and since then it gathered
a 73% rating.

- Graeme Norgate's remix was released in May of 2001 and has a 71% rating.

- Over Karlson's remix was released in August of 2000 and has a 72% rating.

- Finally, the remix by Das Karl Werk Projekt is very recent, just a few weeks
old, but it already gathered an 81% rating.

Wow, those ratings are pretty close to each other! Indeed, selecting the
Ultimate Human Race Tune #1 remix wasn't easy.

Ove's remix has the nice touch of including a short sample of the original SID
and while it's full of great ideas, I feel it is drawn out and seems to go on
and on with too much repetition.

Graeme's remix is what you would call a "solid average" remix - quite
enjoyable, but nothing special, although I still like the beginning of it.
Betweenzone's remix falls very much into the same catagory: starts out
promising, but then it fades into averageness. But considering both these
tunes were released 4-5 years ago, they are pretty good!

However, folks, I have to agree with the RKO voters here: Das Karl Werk
Projekt's superb remix is the Ultimate Human Race Tune #1 as of the writing of
this article. It's well-crafted with high nostalgic value (meaning it remains
very true to the melody and to the general spirit of the original), and even
tough I still think the piano piece at the end of it is out of place, it is a
great piano piece by itself.

So, Das Karl Werk Projekt: CONGRATS! You are today's winner! I'll think of a
prize later...


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