I'd like to preview Mega Man XA and finally reveal what it's all about! Have a look at the awesome cover art by The Coop:
That about sums it up!
Mega Man XA is an alternative retelling of the original Mega Man X--somewhat of a "reboot", if you will. The entirely fictional game contains the same basic characters and premise of the original, but with a different plot. This album is the imagined "original soundtrack" to Mega Man XA, featuring the music of several video game music composers arranged by myself into a Mega Man X "style". An essential part of this was my use of the Mega Man X soundfont by
Dave Harris. With instruments pulled straight from the original MMX, I aimed to create an authentic-sounding soundtrack using a wide variety of VGM tunes. While the instrumentation and arrangement stay true to the MMX style, I definitely cheated in terms of hardware: my work for MMXA goes beyond the 8-channel limit of the Super Nintendo to provide a "fuller" sound.
A word about the arrangements, which you'll be able to hear in full in two weeks: some are
very arranged, and others will almost sound like transcriptions and stay extremely faithful to their sources. Again, my goal for this project was to create an "original soundtrack"--something suitable to be heard in an alternative MMX. So it really should be thought of that way, instead of an "arranged album". The tracks here loop and fade-out, and there's a full selection of music needed to fill (most) parts of a Mega Man game: intro and ending cutscenes, stage themes, boss battles, etc. That said, allow me to present a sneak preview of the soundtrack, a short jingle created for the fictional game's title screen:
Mega Man XA - Title
I'll provide a complete list of who-composed-what on release day, but for now you might try not to look at the composer list and guess for yourself each track's source.
The album will be released in mp3 format and on YouTube. There will be a Bandcamp distribution as well (for free, of course) so you can download different audio formats if you'd like. Liner notes will accompany the album and will be accessible from the web. Furthermore, The Coop has created back cover art as well as "booklet" pages which go into detail about each track's source. These will be uploaded to vgmdb.
This was a challenging, but fun project. It's a great way to end the summer for me as I transition into the new school year, where most of my free time for the next two weeks will be spent setting up my classroom for my incoming 1st graders. Music has been a welcome distraction!
I hope this will be a nice start to everyone's Fall, and I hope Mega Man fans as well as fans of the featured composers will find something to enjoy.
