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In preparation for my next release “Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar”, I’ve revamped one of my old tracks.

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.