1. work-in-progress Phantasy Star II - "Restoration" Mega Drive +/Arrangement Album

[BONKERS]

Making some minor progress
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16mGae3TrooGug20R8oxws-j0pjd1zd0Z/view?usp=sharing

[BONKERS]

Almost done blocking it out. Something cool, I managed to work in the original 2612 bass patch (x2)and with some processing it sounds really cool as an arpeggiated bass line.
I also bought a new short scale Bass that should be coming in the mail in a few weeks so i'll be able to get some actually good sounding bass recordings. So i'm looking forward to getting to play with that as I tried to write all the bass lines used here on the DX7 with a real bass in mind. I might create a layer of the two together maybe as well.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oeVtIW7p1JA0HqBrFIMf3gx1ZBX66MtS/view?usp=sharing

Edited September 30 by BONKERS

[djpretzel]

@BONKERS Funky! I will say, I felt like the low end didn't kick in until like 2'10" - bassline before that is active & funky but not filling out the bottom much, so when 2'10" hits it almost feels like bass is appearing for the first time. Something like bx_subsynth, or adding a sub layer, or just EQ on the bass could help give it more low end.

[BONKERS]

Yeah it's there mostly as a placeholder for now because I am intending to record all those lines with a real guitar (As the first section or so does use a real bass but my bass is so old and crappy that it just sounds bad so if you listen at 00:40 the real bass is actually switched out for a couple of DX7 patches so I could write the lines without having a guitar to record them with yet.
Once I get the new bass in the mail i'm going to try and record all the lines for that (And keep the switch at 2 minutes to the heavier synth bass). I might also keep the DX7 patch and try to get the timing between the real bass and the synth as close as possible and then process them on a bus as a single instrument just for the cool effect. But i'll wait and see how that goes after recording.
The drums are placeholder as well at the moment, I have some processing going on with that but it's all on a single track which doesn't sound good. I'm planning on doing what I have done in other songs which is to write a multi-channel MIDI file with each channel being routed to separate tracks and processed separately before being sent to a drum bus. So I can get a certain specific sound on one part and one on another. This is actually the first song i've worked on thus far where the drums are all from a single set/machine(And this particular one is basically just mono without the ability to adjust the panning for different drums) just because it was good enough while writing and gave the kind of vibe I was looking for before really building it out. (Every other song so far has had more complex work done on the percussion)

The mixing here is really basic too as i'm trying to get in the general ball park of what I want with all songs as I block them out and then once they are all done i'm going to go back and really try to tune the mixes up. I tend to get too lost easily in small details (And waste huge amounts of time)when i'm building a song and I have found for me it's beneficial to progress to only try and get the basics out of the way while i'm trying to build the overall song before really going into the details.

I appreciate the comments and I knew someone would notice the lack of low end as I have while i've been building it. (Which reinforces how i've felt about it too. It sounds kind of good but it's lacking the low end punch)

Edited October 1 by BONKERS

[BONKERS]

Ok, I think structurally the song is done.
It will be A ton of work to eventually "finish" it. (The Drums are basically still just placeholder as is the bass for the first 2 minutes) But the basic foundation is there so I can move on to building the next song.
I like the ending a lot. (As I always love coming up with those little weird outro sections)
But if it seems too out of place let me know what you think.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18S0nCqho9NAicq5f0iB68_-Ecc6H_2h4/view?usp=sharing

Edited October 5 by BONKERS

[BONKERS]

Started picking up on My Home.
I'm pretty happy with how this is sounding so far. I have the melody in the second section already. But I was playing around with leaving it out first time around.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WAeq9d8uTwa1wyKBUOz3H1CWGxMv1sTS/view?usp=sharing

[BONKERS]

The levels are a bit all over the place but it's taking shape
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13UqIBYgoIc-GkRBNbTHHR7tRTeEXtbXC/view?usp=sharing