The Key to Choosing Combo Video Music

[Maj]

Okay, for a long time this has been a huge mystery to me because the videos that i enjoy rewatching the most always contain music that i never listen to otherwise. I like rock, i like jazz, i like drums, i like bass, i like unpolished yelling and screaming, i like energy. But the problem is, somehow none of that works inside a combo video. I always pick a song i happen to dig at the moment, which fits the length of the finished video, but all i can do is trial and error my way through volume adjustments until neither drowns out the other and it sounds halfway decent.

Well, i think i've finally stumbled onto the secret. Here are a few of my favorite videos:

SF2 Combo Movie Vol.3 by Tosaka

Meikyousisui Volume 11 by joo

Power Strike 3S Combo Movie by RX

What do these have in common? The hits don't clash with the music. That's the whole trick.

Whatever song you pick, you have to be able to set it to roughly the same volume as the sound effects without having them interfere or blend. If something in the soundtrack sounds like something in the game, then putting them next to each other creates a mess. Then you're forced to adjust volume levels to separate them by elevating one above the other, which is a surprisingly accurate indicator that you're already fucked.

In the first example above, there are very little drums in the song and it's mostly soft synth/cymbal nonsense so the hits shine through without drowning out the melody. In the second example, the drums only show up when the annoying dude starts shouting and the editing covers that up by always showing random nonsense instead of combos during those interludes. And the third example cheats outright by muting all sound effects, which is necessary because that video would have sounded terrible otherwise.

So apparently, drums are the devil. Which fucking sucks because i love drums, but it explains a lot in terms of what didn't work for me in the past. It also explains why trance junk works so well in combo videos and why all of my favorite combo video music has been from genres that i generally don't listen to otherwise.

Still, i'm holding out hope that someone somewhere will be able to solve this problem and figure out a way to make drums mesh in combo videos. But since i've got no musical background, i wouldn't even know where to begin and i don't have enough time for that much trial and error.

[error1]

Personally I'm a fan of video game music, and I notice that good video game music is usually light on bass. I tried a video with some drum heavy songs from jet set radio and sotn and it sounded fine to me, so it could be they know something about how to use bass in games ( or it could be that I relay like the music )

[onReload]

So apparently, drums are the devil. Which fucking sucks because i love drums, but it explains a lot in terms of what didn't work for me in the past. It also explains why trance junk works so well in combo videos and why all of my favorite combo video music has been from genres that i generally don't listen to otherwise.

I think it's because combo movies themselves have their own rhythm, and since it's hit based, the movies themselves are very percussive. It is beautiful when the combo and the music sync up, but this is incredibly rare and to plan a whole video around it would just be gimmicky...I'm more partial to when there's a change in the music, there's a change in the type of combos. (Or if the music takes an interlude, so do the combos) which is seen in that MvC2 one (i love how they save the good stuff for the good singer, lol) and KYSG's Necro combo movie (the light, tinny percussion from mu-ziq takes a break in the middle of the song, and that's when he shows those heavily edited Necro mirror shots).

The only problem with this is if the music changes too frequently - which is why I think ordinary trance lends itself to combo movies as well, it usually doesn't change things up (as well it shouldn't, as a lot of it is meant for prolonged dancing/frolicking)

Though I have dreamt of using the most offensive music possible for combo movies and finding a way to make it work - offensive as in, "girly" or forgotten top 40 hits that most gamers would never even admit to remotely liking, even as a guilty pleasure.

[Xenozip.]

Yeah. If we call them combo movies instead of combo videos then we could also call it choreography. Which, Ikusat was the first person I saw do that, and he has been doing it rather brilliantly ever since.

Most of my choreographed scenes are entirely random synchronicities.

Lazy wins.