TheChargingRhino

Said it a few times now but again thank you so much for putting this composition through!
It's actually really nice to hear people saying it's too short! Usually I just assume that people will have really short attention spans, and because no one really knows me as a musician, I feel the need to cram in as much as possible into a short space of time. To a fault really haha.

And the notes about the production are very fair, I definitely struggle with production.

But this is so sick and I'm so happy people enjoy it! This has definitely given me a kick up the backside to start creating more content and to sort out my music accounts.

Watch this space, I'm feeling a Binding of Isaac cover next

Cheers!



 

This sounds like an arrangement that would appear in a Smash Bros game. It’s so energetic and rocking. It’s too bad that this track is so short. But again, I definitely get a Smash Bros. vibe out of this. So I can forgive the length (as well as the fade out ending).

Chiptunes fall under parody so they're legally safe under Weird al laws.
Just kidding.  

No worries, and sorry for the dead air. Coming up for air now (finally!!!!!!!!!!!), and will holler back later today. We'll get everything lined up!

We can do licensing, but we're only looking for arrangements of video game music and not popular music, film, tv, etc. 

Yeah, I'm using a temporary Win 10 laptop while I'm in grad school, and WinAmp works here, so it's probably not just because its Win 10 that it doesn't work for you.

BUMP
Oooh this looks like my kinda place  Don't have the time to post a giant analysis so far, but I got some little tidbits on modal structure and leitmotif continuity in the Star Fox OSTs from 1993 to 2016, maybe I'll write it down sometime

This thread seems like it's got a lot more potential, if there were more people that contributed. I doubt it's /that/ popular of a subject, but then again I'm one of those weird guys who's into the gritty details of theory and comp. If anyone else wants to bring this thread back to life, I think it could be a fun general hangout for some of us music nerds, studying comp and sound design of vidya music.
Props to OP as well; I'd never heard the Silver Surfer OST before today. I am a changed man. 

I really wish 2010 Moseph had actually gotten around to doing that Schenkerian analysis of the Mario 1-1 music ...

It's an older thread from a few years ago that fits the new forum we've created. BardicKnowledge is the moderator for this new forum which will be focusing on ludomusicology, and Gario's theoretical analysis of certain VGM pieces fits the goal of this forum. Ryan (Bardic) will be updating this forum tomorrow with a goals/guidelines post about what types of threads belong in here, but the gist of it is that this forum is dedicated to a more academic discussion of existing VGM, be it historical, analytical, etc.

Hello everyone!
I have no clue how many of you analyze music (for fun, to learn something, for anything really - to be honest, I've analyzed music longer than I've written it ), but I'm gonna throw this up and see where it goes. For the sake of this thread, it's probably wise to only bring up VG music (it's OCR, after all), but if you want to bring up anything outside that genre, be my guest - I'd be more than happy to discuss it (and I'm sure others would, too)!
Now, if your not a music theorist or anything, that's fine - if you listen to music I'm sure you've heard interesting things in a song and it's caught your interest, yet you also noticed no one else heard the same thing. The point of this thread is to show other people some very interesting musical tricks and the like that you've heard in a song but others may not have. Don't worry about any technical language - just try to get the point across as best as you can. Perhaps there will be other people here that can clarify the technical tricks that occur and help you learn how to use the techniques better.
If you want to just comment on another person's analysis, please feel free - I encourage discussion on the discoveries of others. Please keep the flames down, however - really, I don't know what anyone could flame about here, but you never know.
I'll start the discussion by talking about my favorite VG music... well, basically of all time.

That's right, Silver Surfer, baby!
In particular, I'm looking at the Title theme. Every track on this game kicks ass, but this one has a pretty exceptional level of ass-kickage. It is one of the most advanced piece of chiptunage out there, and I'm here to show you all why.
The degree of single-channel polyphonic lines is absolutely incredible. Basically, a single channel may only play a single note at a time, but the way the notes are played imply more than one line (or instrument) at a time. Using the power of Emulation (I own the game, don't worry), I'll separate the channels so the effects I'm talking about are easier to hear...
A single rectangle wave...
An example of that 'polyphonic line' occurs well at 0:09 - 0:23 (and again at 1:12 - 1:32). There is a note that is quickly played an octave above is an example of a polyphonic line in action. Remember, a single channel may never play more than one sound at a time, so in fact the sound cuts out when the higher note is being played. Now, this isn't the only VG soundtrack that does this, but the way the Follin brothers do it, however, is so seemless it deserves some special attention.
Listening to it closely, it sounds like they took the waveform and had it play the low sound first, filling the ear with the low sound before introducing the upper 'blip' then immediately returning to the lower sound. The effect that comes from that particular placement is that the ear retains the sound of the lower note while the higher note plays, thus giving the illusion that two sounds are playing (when that is physically impossible, given the hardware). Even more interesting is that the higher note is implied in your brain, so you fill out the octave throughout the span of the note in your mind.
Now throughout this song these polyphonic lines occur all the time. Take a look at the other rectangle wave playing in this song (there are two given at any time in a NES game). 0:16 - 0:53 sounds like a series of chords (that's right, chords) playing through when it is only physically possible for a single note to be playing at any given time. It's easier to hear what they do, and the trick is pretty common in NES & C64 games, in general - arpeggiate chords as fast as the system can play the notes in order to make a single line play complex chord structures. However, the Follin brothers use this in conjunction with other not-so-easy-to-hear polyphonic tricks to create a rich, complex environment unmatched by any other game on the NES system (it even challenges most 16-bit systems soundscape, as well, IMHO).
The best is still to come, however... the Triangle wave.
Seriously, what the hell?! 0:09 - 1:16 may repeat the same thing over and over again, but damn, is it a hell of a line to repeat! There's not one, not two but three (possibly even four) instruments being implied there. The pulsing bass, a strong, diving bass drum, and the weaker toms and snare... all on the channel that cannot even fluctuate the volume (let alone play more than one sound at a time). Simply amazing (especially when you add the noise channel [which cover the hats and the 'snare' of the drums] to the triangle to create a full array of drums with the bass - without ever using the PCM!). Now, this isn't unique (Megaman 3's intro triangle does the exact same thing), but I've never heard a game that does nearly as seemlessly.
How did they do it?
The toms and the snare are designed similarly to the rectangle wave I discussed above - the sound cuts out for such a short time that the ear still percieves the bass sound as something that is playing when it is not. The diving bass drum, though, lasts longer than those short sounds - basically past the threshold of when we imply and connect the sounds mentally. I believe that they first hit the bass note sound, followed it by a sudden change to the bass drum sound which dives back into the bass sound again(cutting out for the snare and toms whenever they needed to). Because the sound dives into the original bass it ends up sounding like a part of the bass. However, because of the music before (0:00 - 0:09), the bass drum sound also sounds like a bass drum. Using the power of context and cutting sound out, they created three or four different sounds using a single sound at a time.
Put all of these channels together and you get an amazingly complex soundscape using only four channels (and one of them can only make different samples of white noise). The parts were certainly great, but the sum of the parts compliment each other so well that they really amount to more as a whole.
Basically, I've always been amazed by their complete mastery over the hardware that the Follin brothers had. I could go on for pages about other little tricks and doodads that they used in this song alone (that's besides the other eight great songs written for this game), but I want to leave room for others to bring something else up (and possibly bring up those doodads at another time). Don't worry about the size of my post - I don't expect anyone to spend over an hour writing an analysis of anything on here (although it certainly would be welcome!). In fact, any other analysis I make will more than likely be shorter than this, but I just love that soundtrack so damn much. If you notice something interesting that you don't believe anyone else has heard in a song, post it here!

Just so you know, the website's all done. Got all of the artwork in place and the pages are all working. I just need whatever info is being given for remixers, track names, notes, etc.

Epicverb from Variety of Sound, who also made the NastyDLA MKII, is a must have.

I cannot for the life of me imagine a life wherein I need to play a video game for longer than six hours without plugging it in and somehow don't have the money to just buy an external charger/extra battery/whatever

the ps4 and xbox one launched the exact same way and nobody said anything, presumably because the doom and gloom attitude isn't as eye-catching about those companies

haha, neat experiment! Turned out well.

I like it, and I think you should take an extra look at balancing especially at parts 3:01-3:04 as the tone is very sharp and it dominated over everything else. I'm still learning all this stuff, but that was the biggest aspect that came to mind. Someone else will probably be able to give you more information than I can. Keep up the good work!

Just wanted to share this with all of you...samples are fun to work with...
Not being submitted, this was just for fun.
Feedback would be nice...I guess...
Any other tracks that'd you'd like me to do, just ask!

This sounds like an issue with your installation. Try reinstalling Kontakt. Or, as DJP linked, could be a Service Center metadata issue.

I say this because it's impossible for a sample library's code to render Kontakt at all unstable and unreliable except in the very few cases where it performs file I/O. These are things like loading convolution reverb impulses, and loaded presets using the internal preset system. However, these are things that many, many sample libraries do, and have never caused issues except in some cases during SAC testing when users were allowed to rapidly randomize SAC settings by mashing the randomize button without any safeguards in the code in place (and we took care of those before release).

Even still, none of the above usage cases of Kontakt's file I/O have anything to do with libraries disappearing and nki's being forgotten from DAW projects, and no SAC testing has ever come up with this issue prior. So it really does sound to me like a DAW/Kontakt installation issue. Does it not happen with other Kontakt libs?

Long time lurker, but just wanted to say a big thank you for making this tool. I've just purchased it and am looking forward to giving it a go. Especially looking forward to messing about with the NKS integration on Kontrol. I do a lot of VGM trackers in Renoise and I think this is going to add a lot of fun to that process!

Ah, now I really like this. I really liked the gliding synth at the beginning to segway into the theme. Awesome. 

How about I call it Seagull Sonata? Even though it's not a sonata...  
Edit: Thanks for the feedback, everyone in this thread.

Welcome to OCR.
My only comment really is that the lead guitar is a LITTLE biting imo. You can probably round it out by cutting around 8k just a touch. That's probably more of my personal preference for warmer sounds than anything else, but since the lead guitar is so present and loud in general I don't think it would affect the overall mix other than making the lead a little less abrasive. I know you were going for that Ska-ish lead tone but I guess I'm used to those being recorded on tape so are naturally a little warmer haha.
God if for some reason you could get some live horns on this that would probably make my life, otherwise... yea great arrangment, great mix overall.  Working with what you have, and you madei t sound great. 

EVAL
Nah, Soundcloud works for here, though if you plan on submitting it either link the track to your e-mail or make the track downloadable in some form or another. I'm liking the style that you've got going here - Goat Ska works great for me. Definitely takes it to a different level, as far as tone goes, and I'm liking it.
Great way to introduce yourself to OCR, that's for darn sure. Nice, solid guitar playing and tone, and the style is slick to boot. The brass sounds pretty fake and unbalanced, but once everything gets going it's less of an issue. I could go the easy route and say get some live players, but that's not always an option for people. You do get some life out of them by playing with the dynamics and articulations, but when they're exposed in the beginning the articulation makes them sound like they're honking. It doesn't sink the track, but it does sound strange.
It's hard to give this anything other than a pass on the panel, though, even with the less human brass in the beginning. Welcome to OCR, by the way, and I'm hoping to see this get to the front page.

Yeah, reverb is done using a plugin or outside hardware, not part of the samples themselves - sometimes VST instruments come with a reverb built-in. The DKC soundtrack in particular actually didn't use the SNES's reverb, instead Dave Wise used delay (a doubling of one of the instrument channels played slightly ahead) for that effect.
To pitch bend, you can use slide notes in the piano roll if you're using an FL native plugin (ex. Fruity Soundfont Player), or otherwise through automation clips.
I whipped up an FLP of a portion of the guitar lead in Gangplank Galleon as I was curious myself - it has the slide notes, delay, and volume automation.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/j3920jsal06lsni/gangplank+galleon.flp

i want teh zelda
 
i want it now.