How to make a remake (music)
uh .. that question is quite generic 
You could also have asked: "what equipment do you generally use?", since (my) remakes or normal songs aren't really different, technically.
I'm the tracker-type so I use Impulse Tracker 2 for composing/arranging, with a load of samples, and software like Vegas 4 and Soundforge to mix and master..
But I know that J-War fo_Or example wO_orks co_Ompletely different. There's no formula for all this.. The only thing you can do is just 'do it', release it, and ask for opinions. Generally I always give tips when I give opinions, because those tips are usually based on my opinion about the remake
Oh.. there's one hint tho: if you're doing a remake of a Konami game, try KSS .. (not the winamp plugin, but that neat little player by F.Groen), it supports diskwriting.. which is a good method of getting all the correct notes!
And some more hints: use ParaMSX, disable some sound channels with it, and let it write the output to a wavefile. Then you can load that wavefile in a sound editor, slow it down, and pick out the notes at leisure! At least that's what I did for a really tricky part in an F-1 Spirit song I was rearranging 
And it's basically just like Wolf said, it depends on yourself. Wolf prefers trackers and lots of samples, I prefer MIDI (synths) + a few samples, and I think J-War prefers real instruments supplemented by synths for the stuff he can't play
o_O .. that's already a fact for more than a year I think
When using KSS and mute all but one channel, it's impossible to make errors, so there should appear some flawless covers once 