About the series
Re:cords is an interview series at Re:Sample delving into people’s experiences with Otomad/YTPMV.
This interview was conducted by Brando.
About the interviewee
beat_shobon is a Vocaloid Producer and a seasoned Otomad/YTPMV creator, previously under the name MatrixMarioX in the Otomad/YTPMV community.
Could you start by telling us how you got started making Otomads?
I first found out about Otomads when I was a teenager. I remember around 2008 or early 2009 I bumped onto what I simply called “remixes” of Lucky Star or Smash Bros. Melee to the tune of different game BGMs. Sampling always felt like an entertaining concept to me, I was already a fan of its use in electronic music and other genres. Naturally I was hooked on watching Otomads and YTPMVs with the way they use existing sounds and footage to create or complement a music track.
Not long after, this type of videos would get more popular and would get more exposure through reuploads. I started seeing things such as commercials (McDonald’s, etc.) or other anime being remixed, with quite a handful of other source material on the YTPMV side as well. Watching all of this unfold, I decided to give this a try myself by downloading Sony Vegas Pro and figuring out basic editing steps, like how to cut and pitch shift audio clips. Many of my very first attempts are well lost to time, but through all those moments of stumbling around Vegas Pro, the first domino piece in a line that would lead to the music I work on nowadays would make its drop.
I started watching Otomads/YTPMVs around the same period of time you started. YouTube was a very different landscape at the time. Do you remember how you first encountered these sorts of videos?
Much like others at the time, I loved browsing YouTube to find out more about my hobbies and interests, which, at the time, were anime and Nintendo games, similar to many other teenagers. I think when you’re into these things you’ll eventually stumble onto Otomad or YTPMV at some point, the same way I did. YTPs were popular if you watched YouTube videos about Nintendo considering the source material used at the time; much in the same way Otomads were something you’d find if you took a dive on anime content and ended up watching videos that were reuploaded from Niconico.
I definitely found out about these things from being into anime myself: the first Otomad I saw was also a Lucky Star one… You bring up YTPs, but did you ever have an interest in those? Ever tried making one yourself?
Not really. I did find some of them funny and I remember them fondly but the music aspect of YTPMVs specifically and Otomads are what brought me to try and learn editing over the parody or comedy of YTPs.
I see. You bring up the musical aspect, and we sometimes see the same sampling methods used in Otomad/YTPMV make appearances in various genres of music as well. Do you see Otomad itself as its own form of music?
For a long time I felt Otomad/YTPMV were similar to mashups, something that can clearly be named as its own thing but is otherwise too derivative from other sorts of works to be considered something bigger than that, despite the fact these videos clearly need double or triple the effort to make. (Perhaps even more!)
However, I feel that as time has passed, the thought has been getting challenged by videos and audio that really push the envelope. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to see Otomads that straight up remix, cut, change or alter a song in ways you’d expect from anywhere in mainstream remix and sampling culture, not to mention the subculture aspect to it that has grown to a level where you’ll see traces of it around commercials, hit vocaloid songs, big VTubers, or other popular hobby circles. Even if you were to nitpick and say that the audio or videos that could help classify Otomad as its own genre or subgenre of music are only a certain and smaller number of them, I don’t have any doubt that number gets bigger each day.
You’ve been in the community for quite a while, besides the influence and format of the videos themselves, do you think anything has changed the community over the years in any aspect?
The size of the scene, notably, especially in the west. While we were involved in the YTPMV scene as a whole (which was also much smaller compared to how it is now), the interest in Otomads specifically felt so niche in the west when I started being in the community. It felt like you could count the active users with your fingers, which also made it a lot more special whenever we got noticed by the community in Niconico/Japan.
Nowadays it’s a lot more common to see active users outside of Japan, notably in collaborations if I were to give an example. While it could still be considered niche compared to other hobbies, it’s a lot easier to find and interact with people interested in Otomads than before. To me it feels that there are a lot more interactions in the scene as a whole as well. That’s why we see a greater amount of collaborative projects, from small to big, from the more casual to the most elaborate.
On that note, it’s more common to see visual and audio editing tips and tricks being passed over from user to user whenever it’s needed or whenever someone needs assistance, which gives this hobby a much easier level of entry to anyone interested, and it heightens the average quality of videos over time.
Lastly, one of the biggest things I personally feel has changed is the line between YTPMVs and Otomads regarding styles. When I started getting involved it felt like there was a clear difference with YTPMVs being more focused on “covering” a song, instruments and all, while Otomads had a bigger focus on rhythm and sampling on top of the song. Lately there’s a lot of variation and crossings between these types of styles, which in my opinion makes the distinction between Otomad and YTPMV something a lot more subjective than it was before.
I was thinking the same thing regarding collabs myself lately. Do you have any early moments of interaction between the western and eastern side you consider as “breakthrough moments” - or just ones you look fondly upon when recalling?
One moment I often think about was when I found out for the first time that some of my videos were being reuploaded to Niconico. At the time I was used to seeing videos from Niconico being reuploaded to YouTube, but not the opposite.
Perhaps the interactions I had with the Japanese community at the time were small but it made me feel so rewarded, and welcomed. I strongly recall yamas and Nprp/ネプリピ being some of the first users on the Niconico side I started interacting with in one way or the other.
Not long after I would even see a Nicopedia article written about me, which is still up if you look up my old username. I was really honored! I was thinking about it for weeks! I don’t like to brag nor to give myself too much credit for helping with the relationship and connections between the Japanese and western scenes for this type of videos, but these moments definitely made me feel I was doing something right.
MatrixMarioX on Nicopedia Source
Note
atwiki is an older web service for wiki-style collaborative editing, similar to Fandom (Wikia). It was often used for purposes fulfilled by services like Google Sheets or Notion today.
My first collaborations were a little awkward too, considering the language barrier and how unfamiliar I was with sites like atwiki’s, which were used a lot for collaborative projects in the past, but I was treated very kindly and with a lot of patience so I’m beyond thankful for those moments as well. I still catch myself smiling a little when I check older videos and I see people refer to me as “MMX-sensei” or “MatrixMarioX-san” in the comments, I couldn’t possibly be more thankful and blessed. While the audience is different and a lot bigger, to this day I hope that, whether small or big, I can leave my mark in the Vocaloid scene, where I am currently most active, in the same way I did for Otomads.
You’re definitely more active in the Vocaloid community these days - I think you recently had one of your songs debut in a rhythm game? In any case - Do you think your Otomad roots have influenced the way you’re making music these days?
Yes! “Can’t Make A Song!!”, one of my Vocaloid originals, is featured in Cytus 2 and Project Sekai. Something else I feel incredibly thankful for, especially if I start thinking about how much I used rhythm game music in Otomads when I started making them.
Otomads definitely played a huge role in the music I make today. When you make Otomads you’re analyzing or dissecting the music in certain ways. It feels like you’re studying a song so you know how to properly add to it, or remix it in some way. Whether it’s figuring out each layer of a song to cover it properly with a pitch shifted sample, or figuring out its rhythm to add percussion and sentencing over it. You can get away with making Otomads even if you’re unable to perceive the correct pitch of a note or if your sense of rhythm is lacking. But through each video and audio you end up practicing these skills and getting better little by little. Even if I had the chance to study music and piano on my own, I’m 100% sure that I have Otomads to thank for everything I know regarding music production and using my DAW. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do today without learning the editing skills and techniques you need for Otomad.
For example, learning how to edit through Sony Vegas would end up teaching me how to use REAPER. Making noisy or low quality audio samples stand out would help me understand the process of making “punchier” drums or bass. Sentence mixing and fitting audio samples in the segment of a song would make me understand how to properly make lyrics match the rhythm and melody of a song without making them sound awkward or rushed. Figuring out techniques to make pieces of audio “sing” through UTAU or manually tuned in the style of Jinriki Vocaloid through pitch correction plugins like Kerovee would end up teaching me how to do certain tuning tricks in software like Vocaloid and SynthV. And of course, sampling still plays a big part in my music production process today.
I wouldn’t deny that my favorite choices for songs and samples back then have perhaps shaped the style of my music nowadays. Those who have followed me from my Otomad days up to my Vocaloid Producer days no doubt recognize the similarities, or even references to my Otomad content whenever they listen to my music. And I never intend to hide that, I’m happy to have learned everything I have through this journey. On that same note, it makes me happy to see other Vocaloid producers reference Otomad fads and jokes in their music as well and I hope to connect with the Vocaloid community through the enjoyment and memories of this subculture as well.
You mentioned your progress from messing around in Vegas to making full fledged music - what was your early experience with editing like? Especially given the lack of resources available at the time.
It was like the saying: “throw things at the wall and see what sticks”. The basic tutorials I saw online could only teach me so much, so a lot of my experience was playing around with the software until I got the results I needed or until I found something that could be of use. At least until I got more involved with the scene and found people that would give me tips or their own findings. It’s worth pointing out that, at the start, I was easily satisfied with my videos despite my amateur skills, and it’s a bit funny to remember how little I was satisfied with. The simple visuals, impractical choices for samples and audio cuts, some sounds being slightly off beat or off pitch, very basic or a complete lack of effects… Sometimes all it took was placing sounds over a song, pitch shifting them, raising the volume enough for them to be heard and nothing else. Nothing fancy, just the basics. There’d be a lot of easy tips I could give myself in the past if I had the chance to.
Note
The Measures and Beats Ruler feature is available in VEGAS Pro since version 1.
As time passed, I gained more experience. I obviously started being more aware of the flaws in my work as I kept making more and I was more concerned on how to fix these issues about my audio and video once I realized I kept having them, and I’d start finding out about ways to improve my work with different effects or techniques to fine tune everything. One of the biggest things I remember dealing with was not having any BPM markers or measures and therefore just improvising the timing of my sample placing by ear and by following the audio peaks which is not a viable way to work with audio at all! Of course this would be dealt with once I made the transition to REAPER for my audio.
This is part 1/2 of a conversation with beat_shobon. The next part is scheduled to be published on Nov. 2.