VGM in timesigs other than 3/4 and 4/4

[LuketheXjesse]

Thunder Force IV:

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES such a fantastic song. <3333333

[Strike911]

Damn, some of these really make my head spin.

[ella guro]

Super Castlevania IV - Dracula's Theme

Snapple was trying to pin this down a few weeks ago. I count it as 7/4 (and 4/4), but he thinks, or at least thought, it was far wilder than that.

Such a great soundtrack. The intro section is obviously in 4/4 and when the drums come in towards the end it's in 4/4. That leads me to believe the whole thing is in 4/4 and it's just extremely difficult to tell because the organ's phrases aren't following the beat and neither are the strings before the drums come in. I counted in 4 from the beginning of that section until the drums come in and it matched up perfectly, so I think that's what's happening.

That reminds me, Dracula's Overture from CV3 is in 11/4:

Edited October 6, 2010 by ella guro

[Gario]

I'll outdo ya all and add a non-tonal/modal song on here, on top of an odd time signature (7/4).

Castlevania - Bloodlines, lv.3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2uLJWbH2d0

Aaaand... one of my favorite Maverick songs, with an intro that's in 13/16.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_7dfeR7qo

(please let me do that one, DS... )

[K.B.]

Changed the info on Valkyrie Profile in my previous post; what I had yesterday was wrong.

and when the drums come in towards the end it's in 4/4.

Right, but...

The intro section is obviously in 4/4

Depends where you start. If you start counting at the very start of the track (using the tempo that's apparent later in the track), 7/4 fits much better than 4/4 since held notes come in every 14 beats. There's also seven beats between the changes at 0:28 and 0:31. However, if you start counting at 0:41, 4/4 works better for the held notes. Most interesting of all, though, is how the strings break down. For the first 28 beats, 7/4 fits better than 4/4; for the second 28 beats, 4/4 fits better than 7/4.

I suppose you could read all of it in 4/4 if you wanted, but that would make for far less elegant timing. Since the entire piece is divided into 28-beat groupings (except for the seven beats at 0:28*), I think I'm not just imagining the use of both 7/4 and 4/4 and that the switches between the two were done intentionally. I hadn't noticed this until your comment forced me to relisten and try to make it conform to 4/4 throughout. Very slyly done; I like it even more now.

Of course, I could just be stinking up the place. And that organ doing whatever the fuck it wants still confounds me.

*stupid auto-smiley feature

[Rozovian]

Just woke up. Dreamt about realizing there's a 5/4 track towards the end of the sd3 soundtrack. Which I'm pretty sure there isn't. Stupid dream, now I have to check.

(note to self: air drumming 5/4 is probably not gonna impress SnappleMan, so why dream I was doing that?)

[Nabeel Ansari]

(note to self: air drumming 5/4 is probably not gonna impress SnappleMan, so why dream I was doing that?)

Whenever you dream about lame mistakes, you know how to avoid them.

[EC2151]

Hearing these songs makes me wish I had a lot more of the good games back when I was a kid with an SNES (and my friend with a Genesis).

No, I didn't have Terranigma; I got to play Zoop instead.

[Oni-91]

: all in 7/8.

[Cyril the Wolf]

Shadows of Illusion from Treasure of the Rudras...

I can't for the life of me find a link though.

Another really cool track that's in 7 (as far as I remember) is Mother Brains battle theme from Super Metroid.

Actually I think all the battle themes except the mini-boss theme are in odd time sigs.

Ridley's is in 5/4 and the one you hear when you face kraid is in like... 7/8 if I remember correctly.

http://www.metroidmetal.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/supermetroid_bossmedley.mp3 <--- has all of the mall metal like.

[Vilecat]

Shadows of Illusion from Treasure of the Rudras...

I can't for the life of me find a link though.

Only a handful of songs from the game (under Rudra no Hihou) are on Youtube. The game didn't see a fan-made translation until a while ago either. The soundtrack however is available as a .rsn here. This soundtrack really needs more love, it's one of my favorites on the SNES.

from the unreleased Starfox 2 is in 5/4. It's also one of my favorite tracks of the soundtrack, along with Battle Against Mirage Dragon.

sounds like 5/4 too, unless I'm not counting right.

[Vampire Hunter Dan]

This may be my favorite thread ever, for the "29 16" piece alone.

[Tensei]

I really don't know anything about time signatures, I just know I tried a completely different rhythm from 3:24 to 3:55. I sort of just made it up, but it's probably something.

Sounds like 6/8 and then it skips a beat in the fourth measure (5/8 )...soooo that would be 23/8 unless my math is off.

[Chickenwarlord]

Sagat's Theme. That can't be any normal measuring.

[djpretzel]

If anyone wants to compile a master list, preferably grouped by time sig & with links to OCR song pages (if available) and YouTubes, it's possible we could find a way to track this in our database at some point...

[djpretzel]

Wow, I killed the thread. Nobody wants to take this on?

[Bleck]

I'll do it this afternooooon

[Chickenwarlord]

If anyone wants to compile a master list, preferably grouped by time sig & with links to OCR song pages (if available) and YouTubes, it's possible we could find a way to track this in our database at some point...

It's not that we're ignoring this, it's just that it's pretty time consuming and daunting for any one person. Maybe a thread similar to the OCR Mascot project is in order?

[Level 99]

I think if the task is to be undertaken, at least for now, it should be done communally. How about a shared googledocs spreadsheet with pertinent categories? That way, everyone can contribute as long as they adhere to the entry format. Trying to keep something like that organized in the OP of a thread wouldn't be the best way to go about it at the moment.

Categories:

* Game Name

* Song Name

* Link to source tune/chiptune

* Time signature (if multiple, include in order of occurrence within the song)

* Other game info (if the game isn't in the OCR database yet): Release Date, Publisher, Game System (Include this regularly if the game has releases on multiple systems with differing soundtracks), Composer

How does that sound?

[Rozovian]

Sagat's Theme. That can't be any normal measuring.

Count to eleven. 11/4? 11/8?

[CSmith]

First post in a long time, but here we go.

"Run" from Final Fantasy IX.

Here's the time signatures as best I can figure them out:

(after the intro) 3 measures of 5/8 followed by 1 measure of 6/8, then 4 measures of 5/8 again. 3 measures of 4/8 then a measure of 7/16, then 4 measures of 4/8 again. Then repeat all of that.

The next section is harder, like 7/16, 8/16, 13/16 or something, but I can't figure it out.

[Lunarfall]

This song from Tales of Vesperia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVJ7EyYIQbo

Sounds like 5/8. Probably is 5/8.

[Gario]

If anyone wants to compile a master list, preferably grouped by time sig & with links to OCR song pages (if available) and YouTubes, it's possible we could find a way to track this in our database at some point...

Like Chicken Warlord said, this is a pretty big project that you're requesting, here, and I don't think taking potshots at it like we are here is the way to do it. If you're serious about this we'll need to approach this systematically.

Making a site project thread is probably the way to go. If you give me the OK I can organize it and get the time-sig machine started. Just understand that it won't be a small endeavor, when it comes to tagging .

[DarkeSword]

Make a thread. I'll move it.

[Kanthos]

Only 5/8 with forays into 6/8, but there's Prophecy from Secret of Mana, remixed as Dragon Song.

Also, not VGM, but one of my favourite jazz tunes is largely in 22/8: Pat Metheny's The First Circle