I was recently asked by fellow chipper Tettix to remix a tune for his upcoming remix album. I chose to revisit a track that revolves around one of the most popular moves in one of the most popular fighting games of all time. Street Fighter 2. The album is free. Go check it out and enjoy my tune below:

Dragon Punch! (Dragon Fist Rising Remix)

Where “Level” and “NEUTRALITE” march full steam ahead in chiptune bombacity, “Midnight Orphans” floats between calm and chaotic, expected and unexpected. This is a collection of loose ends written over the last few years. The album material is as early as “Until the Sun Rises” and “Quartz” from 2006, and as recent as “Time Removed”, written in 2010.

Make sure to sign up for the mailing list over on the right so that I can keep you guys posted with new stuff! I’ll be giving away some exclusive unreleased stuff in the near future.

Cheers!

MP3: Jump Error

A few of you have asked for some insight into my creative process, so I'll share some of what went on while I was working on this. The original version that I released back in 2007 was made in Reason, as was this new version. I stripped out all the old synths and replaced them with new patches. All of the pulse-wavey goodness is brought to you by THOR, the wonderful hybrid/modular synth in Reason 4.

THOR Synth in Reason 4, totally awesome.

It can be a daunting task to take a song and redo it from the beginning. My initial idea for updating the sounds was to try and get some of the patches to sound almost guitar-like. In order to do this I used a pitch envelope on the main riff (and the power chords) that very quickly goes from a high pitch back to the normal, intended one. This produces something like a very quick “click” or transient sound which I think gives it a little more character.

Here the filter envelope is routed to control the pitch of the oscillator.

It was also greatly helpful to me to use audio markers to take notes about specific parts of the song as I was working on it. This way, all my ideas were jotted down and I could address them all one at a time.

Use markers to keep track of things you want to change!

Once I finished designing the piece and updating everything, including some more drastic changes (if you listen to both you’ll notice a couple of really big changes to the song), I rewired all the tracks into Logic to mix. In the past I’ve gone seriously overboard trying to mix chipmusic. I think I’ve learned from some of those mistakes and this time focused almost entirely on panning, volume, and dynamics.

One of the biggest challenges with this kind of music (especially chipmusic that utilizes a lot of voices like mine) is that so many of the sounds share the same frequency range. In order to address this I tried to be creative with panning; I approached each distinctive section of the song like it was its own miniature mix (which I think can be a pretty useful approach) and as a result made good use of automation. I also did some sidechain compression which helps the rhythm section fit like a glove with the drums, and can also be used as a really cool “suck” type effect, popularl with artists like Danger and Justice and the like.

Instead of using reverb, most of the tracks that I wanted to have a wet sound simply have a bit of delay on them. I also like to use delay as a rhythmic device, which you can hear at the very end.

Concatenation Records

A new compilation featuring music from artists who frequent the Minibosses‘ message boards on TheShizz.org is now available. I have a collaborative track on here with Temp Sound Solutions called “Ascend”, and there are tracks from many of the Pause artists including Phlogiston, Alex Mauer, Shnabubula, and Norrin Radd, and there are also contributions from videogame music extraordinaire Virt and Rushjet1, all of which have frequented The Shizz at one time or another. Old School NES Composer Neil Baldwin even has a contribution on the album! Definitely check it out.

Link: A Chip off the Shizz Block, Volume One

Some good news! The pledge period for High Strangeness has ended and we reached our $1,500 goal! We couldn’t be happier and more motivated to keep the wheels churning.

In the meantime, we’ve put out a teaser featuring three tracks from the game, two of which are previously unreleased.

Archive: High Strangeness Teaser

MP3: High Strangeness
MP3: A Single Ray of Light
MP3: Last Night in Podunk

Enjoy!

I’m proud to announce that Kind of Bloop is officially released!

http://kindofbloop.com/

If you were one of those kind enough to back the project through Kickstarter, you should have received an email today with your private password to stream the album or download it in MP3 or FLAC format with high-resolution cover art.

The digital download of the album will be available for purchase to the general public on Thursday. There are also short previews of each track on the website.

Thanks to everyone for their support and for making this project happen!

August 1st has come and gone, and we’ve not only passed our $2,000 goal for the putting together of “Kind of Bloop: An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis”, we’ve shattered it! We’ve managed to raise over $8,500! Thank you guys for all of your support. We’ve all been working hard on our tracks, and I think you’ll be pleased. For those who have pledged, check the Kickstarter for updates in the coming days about the production of CDs. The album will be available for download on August 17th. We did it!

For the last year and a half I’ve had the pleasure of working on music and sound for “High Strangeness”, a sci-fi, retro-styled RPG concocted by my friend Steve Jenkins. The process has been deliberate but thoroughly enjoyable, and we’re finally starting to make some real progress. By the time the game is done I should have somewhere around 30 minutes worth of music written which is exciting in and of itself.

Not too long ago we decided to make the game a Kickstarter project so that we could truly do what we wanted to do: release the game on XNA (XBox Live Community Games) and give away some totally awesome stuff, including a short run of CDs featuring the game’s soundtrack!

Enjoy the trailer and go check out the Kickstarter page for more info!

MP3: A Single Ray of Light (Music from the Trailer). Enjoy!