Rip

A rip, in the context of video games, refers to a song or audio file extracted from the files of a game, completely un-modified.

On the SiIvaGunner channel, however, instead of being straight video game music, the songs (or "high quality rips") featured on the channel are generally remixed, or involved in a mashup with other songs or memes.

Format
The objective of the channel, originally, was to pretend that these "high quality rips" are not modified, in an attempt to imitate regular ripping channel GilvaSunner, and successfully "bait-and-switch" viewers of the channel. Over time, the goal of the SiIvaGunner channel has shifted to producing "high quality rips" for the sake of entertainment; however, the aspect of imitating GilvaSunner has never completely disappeared, and continues to act as the basis for much of the channel's identity.

Video descriptions
Rips are, like GilvaSunner's uploads, YouTube video uploads that are titled in the format "Song Title - Game Name", with a description that usually reads:

Music: Composer: Playlist: Platform:

Please read the channel description.

However, it is not terribly uncommon to see rips deviating from this format, though for the vast majority of examples, the only change is to the "Please read the channel description." line (usually called the catchphrase).

Channel descriptions
The channel description almost never changes, with one exception: during any channel event that involves a character taking over the channel, the description will usually be changed to something befitting of the character in question. At any other time, the channel description will be a carbon copy of GilvaSunner's channel description with an added disclaimer.

Here you can find a selection of mostly Nintendo video game music. I do not own the rights to any of the music heard in these videos.

Banner artwork is from the game "Tengami".

(All content is willingly submitted by a team of content creators; if you use a video for your content, please credit the channel, and do not monetize it if said content consists primarily of/is centered around the video in question.)

Playlists
Almost every rip and lore video is put into a playlist corresponding to the ripped game. Occasionally, some fake games are ripped as an excuse to upload non-video game music. In addition, a couple of playlists, especially the Undertale playlist, have been altered to include irrelevant videos as another part of the "bait-and-switch" joke.

Streamed and sequenced music
The kinds of rips made for a given game are usually heavily dependent on whether its music is streamed or sequenced.

Due to technical limitations, many games (particularly on retro consoles) use sequenced music, which means that notes and other sounds are encoded as MIDI-like instructions. Often, this means that an exporter program that reverse-engineers the format can convert this data into an editable format, making it much easier to produce melody changes and arrangements. The ripper can also create a simultaneous melody swap and a mashup with sequenced music. The export format is usually either a tracker file or a combination of a MIDI sequence file and a SF2/DLS soundbank file that contains the sound samples. In some cases, PC games will directly use MIDI files in their soundtracks.

Other games use streamed music, which means that each track is stored as a complete audio file (analogous to a WAV, FLAC, MP3 or OGG file). In these cases, the process for making a mashup is the same as for sequenced music, but making a melody change or arrangement is typically much more difficult and either requires recreating the base track from scratch or scrubbing the lead melody from the track and replacing it with a similar sounding instrument.

Sometimes, the process may be made easier if isolated stems are available (which is often the case for rhythm games, some non-video game music with published stems for remixing or songs that have been featured in the Rock Band series, as the stems can be extracted from the game's files), which may allow the recreation to use samples from the stems or to directly use the stems in full; this is also done for some rips of sequenced music where the export process is cumbersome or nonexistent.

Sometimes, the author of the game uses everyday methods available to the public in order to make their game's music. If the samples are known, it is possible to recreate the songs in an editable format from scratch, therefore allowing them to be used for melody-swap rips. Examples of this are Undertale and Deltarune, which were scored with FL Studio and free soundfonts that can simply be downloaded from the internet.

There are many exceptions to these general descriptions which are out of the scope of the overview provided in this section; for example, some games use a mixture of streamed and sequenced music (For example, the rendition of Slider from Super Mario Galaxy 2 is sequenced, while a majority of the other tracks are streamed), and some games' soundtracks (e.g. ) have been directly released by their composers or publishers in editable forms.

Melody change
One of the most prominent bait-and-switch formats on the channel is the melody change (or melody swap). Introducing a melody change in a rip involves modifying the notes of the advertised track, usually the lead instrument, to form the melody of another composition (though in some cases the inverse is done). Many rips contain multiple melody changes, and some rips that are primarily in a different format also contain melody changes. Most melody change rips are rips of sequenced music, and vice versa. Melody changes are also possible with streamed music, though they are much harder to produce.

Mashup
Mashups consist of putting elements from another source along with the original source. It goes from adding simple sound effects (like Loud Nigra or Vinesauce Joel) to unharmoniously or incoordinatedly mixing several songs together, but most rips try to create a cohesive result. Mashups are most commonly made by superimposing the vocal track of one song seamlessly over what is typically the instrumental of the advertised track, changing the tempo and key where necessary.

Mashups, while often performed on tracks with no lyrics at all, can also be done with tracks with singing, provided there is a karaoke version available for use. If not, the ripper has to manually scrub the singer's voice from the song to acquire a clean slate, which can take patience and expensive software.

Melody addition
A melody addition involves taking any piece of music and layering instruments over the top of it, typically ones that sound similar to instruments in the advertised track. It is similar to a melody change, but without needing to rip the song from the game oneself. As such, it is much easier to attempt this sort of rip, since it doesn't limit the ripper's choice to sequenced music, and it doesn't involve physically extracting midi files and soundfonts from the game in question, which some may not have the tools or knowledge to do.

Remix
A remix of a song is a new take on that song using audio mixing techniques. The melody and instruments can also be altered and sampling may be used.

A remix can also be the practice of taking the isolated vocals from a song and building a new instrumental around them. The practice of dubbing instruments, most commonly Trap percussion, over the original track is called a "dub remix".

On the internet, the word is often used interchangeably with "Cover".

Arrangement
Arrangements are rips featuring a song remade in a different style and instrumentation. Generally, this involves arranging a composition in the instrumentation and style of the advertised track, or vice versa. Compared to a melody change, an arrangement is much more likely to alter the chords, accompaniment and structure of the track that the arrangement is in the style of.

Arrangements, should they not sample the song directly and if they are made in their own distinct style, are also known as covers. More information can be found on this below.

Midi swap
A midi swap (also known as a midi slap) refers to the process of downloading a MIDI of a song from the internet and changing its soundfont without any other adjustments instead of rearranging the track to properly fit the game's style. Such rips are not recommended in user submissions and when the channel posts them, usually they are intentionally bad.

Another type of midi swap involves converting a streamed audio file of a song to a midi through an online MP3 to midi converter and then applying the relevant soundfont to it, resulting in a cluttered cacophony of notes that vaguely resemble the original file. Due to the converter only producing a singular track, this is typically performed on sequenced music containing only one instrument. If a track with lyrics is converted, this may cause an illusion where it's possible to make out the words, despite there only being one instrument in the rip. As with the main type of Midi swap, they are deliberately bad when the channel posts them.

Medley rip
Rips are considered medleys when they feature modifications from at least 5 different sources. They can be both melody changes (like "Stage Select - Mega Man 3") or mashups (like "P-R-O-G-R-A-M (Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection) - Kirby Planet Robobot").

Switcheroo
The switcheroo is bait-and-switch put to the extreme. It is when there is (almost) no trace of the original song whatsoever, switching it to a completely different track. The Circus rips are infamous examples of this.

Another type of switcheroo involves uploading two rips, each of them being of a similar name or context, and pairing the unaltered track with the wrong video, such as The Defender (Black Knight Battle) - Shovel Knight and Against the Black Knight - Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Cover
A cover is a new performance or recording by someone other than the original performer or composer of a song. Sometimes, contributors happen to do covers of the songs ripped themselves. Early examples of this are the kazoo and Bob Dylan rips.

A cover can be as different as an entirely new performance of the track in question with no traces of the original recording left behind (commonly known as an arrangement), or, if the original track has vocals, it could simply involve singing the lyrics over the track's instrumental.

Blue balls
Blue balls rips consist of looping one portion (commonly a portion that repeats a few times in the original track) of the song over and over, usually for the majority of the track. In some cases, however, the track returns to normal after some time and the rip continues, though this is usually right at the end of the rip.

The name of the rip type comes from a slang term for the uncomfortable testicular sensation that can occur during a state of male arousal.

Sentence mixing
Sentence mixing consists of mixing the lyrics of a song to create completely different lines for comedic effects. This is infamously common in rips of "DK Rap" and "Unknown from M.E.‎".

Pitch-shifting
Pitch-shifting consists of changing the pitch of a sample, most often with song vocals to match the key of the instrumental. This is a technique frequently used in YTPMV: the samples are arranged with pitch-shifting so that they are heard in a different melody.

Memes
Throughout the channel's history, it has incorporated hundreds of melodies and songs into rips, however the jokes fundamental to SiIvaGunner have always been its memes. The first and arguably the most often used is "Meet the Flintstones", the joke used on the first rip. Since then, it has added two other memes to its trifecta: "Snow halation", which became so commonly used that it prompted the team to make SilvaGunner: Rebooted in response to the fanbase's reaction, and The Nutshack theme, a simple four-note melody that has become a classic SiIvaGunner staple.