Sam Ascher-Weiss

I wrote an entire snes-style soundtrack with my own custom built sound-set a couple of years ago, for a game that at the time very closely resembed a real 16 bit JRPG.
The game has since changed direction enough that this music will no longer be the best fit, but I just recently got permission to release that version of the soundtrack. I've been doing it 1 song at a time through my soundcloud. 18 are up now and more are coming soon.
I think you guys will enjoy these. The square and enix OSTs from the 90s snes era are SUCH a hugely formative and inspirational thing to me, so getting to attempt this was a very powerful emotional experience and I'm really glad I got to do it.
 
 

This will have to be discussed with the game director, as of yet I only have permission to release them in this format, as far as an official soundtrack album through bandcamp or something, that is possible, but not yet worked out. 
I'll definitely be pushing for something of that nature and I will give an update if we're able to move forward with that. 
Also, thanks a million for the support Shariq, really glad you enjoyed piano+violin versions!

I wrote an entire snes-style soundtrack with my own custom built sound-set a couple of years ago, for a game that at the time very closely resembed a real 16 bit JRPG.
The game has since changed direction enough that this music will no longer be the best fit, but I just recently got permission to release that version of the soundtrack. I've been doing it 1 song at a time through my soundcloud. 18 are up now and more are coming soon.
I think you guys will enjoy these. The square and enix OSTs from the 90s snes era are SUCH a hugely formative and inspirational thing to me, so getting to attempt this was a very powerful emotional experience and I'm really glad I got to do it.
 
 

I wrote an entire snes-style soundtrack with my own custom built sound-set a couple of years ago, for a game that at the time very closely resembed a real 16 bit JRPG.
The game has since changed direction enough that this music will no longer be the best fit, but I just recently got permission to release that version of the soundtrack. I've been doing it 1 song at a time through my soundcloud. 18 are up now and more are coming soon.
I think you guys will enjoy these. The square and enix OSTs from the 90s snes era are SUCH a hugely formative and inspirational thing to me, so getting to attempt this was a very powerful emotional experience and I'm really glad I got to do it.
 
 

Just commenting so that the review thread will show up next to the remix who inspired this one's title, we had assumed they would be posted in the opposite order!

Just commenting so that the review thread will show up next to the remix who inspired this one's title, we had assumed they would be posted in the opposite order!

So beautiful. Alex has gotten just ridiculously good.

in 70 years or so, when chiptunes are regarded as a medium on the same level as other relatively minimal forms such as a string quartet.... if OCR is still around then, they will accept chiptunes.
So given the current length of the queue you might as well submit one now

give me "the castle" thank you

give me "the castle" thank you

give me "the castle" thank you

give me "the castle" thank you

give me "the castle" thank you

give me "the castle" thank you

Hey, I just released my newest album today. Something I've been working really hard on over the past month besides a couple of tracks. Almost 4 years ago I released my first proper album called 'Strings of Time' and it was this mixture of orchestra, acoustic and electronic instruments and was quite chilled out, quite emotive. This is somewhat of a sequel album and I'm really proud of it, I feel like it's some of my best production to date and a really unique album as well. Thanks for checking it out and I hope you enjoy it.

It is £4 over on Bandcamp: https://alexroe.bandcamp.com/album/tides-of-time

Thanks for checking it out and I hope you enjoy it.

One of my favourite things about Dark Souls is its story. Comparing it to a painting is an interesting analogy because you can come up with your own interpretations and everyone can question it a bit differently. This is what Miyazaki wants from players because he had to do the same thing when reading Western books when he was younger with limited understanding of the English language -- which led him to do the very same thing. What is more important about Dark Souls is purpose, nearly everything in that world has a reason and a why. If someone was to say they didn't like how Dark Souls portrays its story or it just wasn't for them I can completely understand that, but to say it's not a good story or there is no story that is just ignorant. I am not taking into account Dark Souls 2 by the way, it's a good game but it does not have anywhere near the depth and meaning of the first game. I'll admit that in my first playthrough of Dark Souls I didn't really observe as closely as I should have or piece up the dialogues and item descriptions because I just wasn't used to that from a game. Then when I did that in my second playthrough, it was like a whole new world opened and I was understanding how wonderful the world and its characters were. It's a very rare thing and I hope that Dark Souls 3 offers this again. 

I really liked Bloodborne, it's a fantastic game. I don't think it has the depth of a Dark Souls game story wise and I think there are things about that world which could have been embelished more. However it does have depth, if you haven't finished it there is quite a lot to it you probably still don't understand. I really hope the DLC adds to this and isn't just more gameplay. Artorias of the Abyss for Dark Souls I think is possibly the greatest DLC ever made and it added so much more to the lore of the game that was worth every penny. 

is it this?
 

is it this?
 

hey, it's a very easy fix, don't worry, I've done it for many soundsets since then, those were the early days when we didn't know what we were doing, add me on skype as "shnabubula" I use that for IM chat, best way to directly communicate. 

Yo Paul, this is really cool man, especially on a compositional level. Yours is probably the best use of secret of mana sounds I've heard outside the original soundtrack. I think your work here would be greatly and enhanced by a more accurate use of the sounds on a technical level themselves. Unfortunately the only secret of mana "soundfont" available, currently, and what you were using, was made back in the early days of snes sampling by blitz lunar, when openspc was the only option. Changing from 32khz to 41.1khz back then when exporting the samples from modules often would cause the looped portion of the samples to be out of tune with the attacks, as is especially the case with the first ripped secret of mana set and is pretty audible in your song, this is totally not your fault and would be easily fixable by just replacing with the correct samples.
 
Also, squaresoft games in particular, had a very specific kind of filtered delay that again is very simple to replicate with the right settings, if you'd like I'd love to help convert your song to sound even more accurate, not just for like nitpicky anal reasons but I think it will sound even better that way as the writing itself, the compositional work you did on the track is really really neat and I just want it to shine even more. 
 
You mentioned doing evemore, not sure if you found this in your searches but, a couple years ago, I did a song with half sounds from secret of evermore, half from secret of mana, and it switches back and forth then combines. I actually used lunar's improperly ripped mana sounds for it at the time, I just avoided using samples with detuned loops as there was not yet a good way to fix it like there is now, though the DSP is a pretty accurate emulation of the original (only used during the secret of mana portions) and that helps give the sounds that special squaresoft ethereal ambiance. You can here that one here (secret of mana sounds start at 0:45): https://soundcloud.com/shnabubula/evermore-densetsu-secret-of-mana-and-evermore-instruments

When I started doing my research project for my DMA in Music Composition, I wanted to look at VGM and fan compositions specifically.  I interviewed a few fan composers, had them fill out a survey, and began transcribing videogame music.  Now, as part of my research I stumbled upon SNESology and man, I thought that was cool.  So I grabbed some soundfonts off of the internet and started experimenting.  This is addictive and now I want to screw around with the Secret of Evermore sounds. SO RAD.

Here are a couple of SNES style tracks I did for fun and for procrastination. 
 
In the style of Secret of Mana



Using Super Metroid Sounds.  This one isn't strictly SNES style since I used EQ and I combined sounds to create the atmospheric effects.  I really don't know if it would be possible on the SNES.

https://soundcloud.com/paul-levasseur-2/super-metroid-style-ambient-track

I'll probably create more at some point.  My goal is to create a portfolio of tracks in contrasting styles.

https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-5
 
Alright, The Longest one so far, I felt really good about these performances today, here's the tracklist for Vol. 5:
 
1. Super Mario Kart - Credits 03:45 2. Carl Åborg - Dreamplay 06:24 3. Donkey Kong 64 - K.Rool Battle 07:08 4. Atelier Escha & Logy - A Road Full of Unknown 04:59 5. LaTale - Bifrost 05:17 6. Treasure Master - Worlds 3 & 5 [Microchip] 06:36 7. The Secret Garden - First Time Outside 04:04 8. Borne in Blood - Airborne Assault 04:46 9. Live-A-Live - Demon King's Prelude 04:59 10. Shining Force Gaiden Final Conflict - Frontline 06:19 11. Shenmue - Sedge Tree 05:43 12. Rustie - Hover Traps 04:20 13. Tigran Hamasyan - Song for Melan and Rafik 09:12

Volume 2 is up: https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-2

https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-1   Isolated Warrior - Ending  Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit  Link's Awakening - Tall Tall Heights  Project Diva F - Negaposi Continues  Nier Geshtalt - Wretched Automatons  Super Mario RPG - Beware the Forest Mushrooms Bloody Roar 3 - Mystery Relics  E.V.O. - Birthplace of all Life  Gimmick! - World Map and Good Weather  FFXIII - Dust to Dust  Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky - Crystal Cave  Silver Surfer - Stage 2  FalseSTOP! - Mellow Caverns  Fantastic Star-Friend - ...I can come with you?!   
All of the songs here were performed live on stream atwww.hitbox.tv/shnabubula, you can watch the full performance here:www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ubGHRTrK0    These 14 Songs were all requested 2 days before on the regular weekly stream held every Friday from 12 PM to 8:30 PM EST (GMT -5). Part of the fun is learning all this material for the first time in front of a live audience watching me struggle and occasionally triumph, one tiny 5 second long portion of the "Bloody Roar 3" song took me more than a half hour to be able to play with any kind of consistency, but it all paid off in the end that Sunday. A good friend, Tadd Nuznov a.k.a. Rushjet1 (rushjet1.bandcamp.com) managed to save FLACs of each of the individual songs played and since I hadn't expected them to come out so well, I didn't properly prepare.    In the future, all Sunday streams will be recorded via direct audio to my computer, unfortunately, since that was not the case this time, the audio is not as good quality as I would have liked, but it's pretty good and definitely better here than on either the hitbox or youtube versions.    Anyway, I'm very happy with my playing on these recordings and I hope you all enjoy. Special Thanks to everybody who made it to either stream, can't wait to see you all again on Friday/Sunday coming up.  

https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-1   Isolated Warrior - Ending  Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit  Link's Awakening - Tall Tall Heights  Project Diva F - Negaposi Continues  Nier Geshtalt - Wretched Automatons  Super Mario RPG - Beware the Forest Mushrooms Bloody Roar 3 - Mystery Relics  E.V.O. - Birthplace of all Life  Gimmick! - World Map and Good Weather  FFXIII - Dust to Dust  Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky - Crystal Cave  Silver Surfer - Stage 2  FalseSTOP! - Mellow Caverns  Fantastic Star-Friend - ...I can come with you?!   
All of the songs here were performed live on stream atwww.hitbox.tv/shnabubula, you can watch the full performance here:www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ubGHRTrK0    These 14 Songs were all requested 2 days before on the regular weekly stream held every Friday from 12 PM to 8:30 PM EST (GMT -5). Part of the fun is learning all this material for the first time in front of a live audience watching me struggle and occasionally triumph, one tiny 5 second long portion of the "Bloody Roar 3" song took me more than a half hour to be able to play with any kind of consistency, but it all paid off in the end that Sunday. A good friend, Tadd Nuznov a.k.a. Rushjet1 (rushjet1.bandcamp.com) managed to save FLACs of each of the individual songs played and since I hadn't expected them to come out so well, I didn't properly prepare.    In the future, all Sunday streams will be recorded via direct audio to my computer, unfortunately, since that was not the case this time, the audio is not as good quality as I would have liked, but it's pretty good and definitely better here than on either the hitbox or youtube versions.    Anyway, I'm very happy with my playing on these recordings and I hope you all enjoy. Special Thanks to everybody who made it to either stream, can't wait to see you all again on Friday/Sunday coming up.