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!

Links: That’s Mister Coconut to You, Marco Tannenbaumgartner

The second track is something of a tribute to one popular franchise in particular. I’ll let you guess which!

Also, here’s some early work in progress footage of the game!

This jam came out of a session a week earlier and we played it a couple of times afterwards incorporating new ideas and refining it. Still, it’s a jam. We originally called it “Can I Still Rock While I Get My B.A.”. This version is lovingly called, “Can I Still Rock and Hang with the Bachelor’s Associates”.

At this point I’d only been playing guitar a few years, and writing even fewer. Pretty much everything I’m playing is by ear and memory of positions.

Nonetheless, I think this is a cool little number that has some potential. Kind’ve has a Tortoise/Slint/Assorted Post-Rock vibe to it.

MP3: Can I Still Rock and Hang With the Bachelor’s Associates

Note: Vault is a new feature which you can also access directly at: Disasterpeace.Tumblr.com

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.

With the exception of the notes, this track is almost entirely controlled by a single pass of pitchbend data. Each time you bounce the song, it sounds different. So I bounced it a couple times and mixed them together!

MP3: HMHS Britannic

MP3: Backroads
This is a little fingerpicked acoustic guitar number I was messing around with; would go lovely with some vocals one day.

MP3: This Call is Important to You
This is an experiment in creating a new series of sonic limitations. There will be more of this in the future. I created a new drum kit for this track, and I ran the final product through my cassette player to give it an older, warmer sound.

MP3: Saints Hospital
This is a similar experiment as the previous, except focusing more on FM instrumentation. I whipped up a couple new FM patches for this.

Another one coming shortly!

This is a bit of a follow-up to the idea from the third piece for 30s30d, “The Battle of Vyazma” … more focus on ostinati-like guitar riffs and athletic drumming.. I could potentially see this idea melding with the prior one or acting on its own as a followup/sister piece.

MP3: The Battle of Varna