Ocassionally Youtube just decides to recommend me some great themes late at night.
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This one is from Tokyo Majin Gakuen: Kenpuchou (東京魔人學園剣風帖), a PSX SRPG/VN hybrid.
Japan only, as you can probably tell. But what caught my attention is that this is from the same series as Kowloon High School Chronicle. Or well, Kowloon is a spinoff-that's-not-really-a-spinoff of TMG. It's complicated.
Once again, getting reminded that Japan gets all the cool stuff...
Sealed Vessel/Radiance - piano cover (by Christopher Larkin, from Hollow Knight)
I HAVE EMERGED YET AGAIN FOR THE BIG THING I MENTIONED THAT ONE TIME
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as you may know, hollow knight is one of my MOST FAVORITE THINGS EVER IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER, and the soundtrack is no exception, so i’ve been looking forward to posting this for a very long time.
finally, after a month of work, i managed to get a take that sounded good. i learned sealed vessel but i couldn’t help but feel like it was incomplete, so i added radiance too.
i definitely could have done a better take, but this arrangement is seven whole minutes and my tiny little silly brain can’t handle that much work. regardless, i’m still pretty happy with how it turned out.
go live life. play hollow knight. listen to music. see ya.
Let's talk about the music of Frameland today! As a game that prominently features a retro pixel art aesthetic, it was only natural for the music to reflect that as well.
Realistic-sounding instruments would feel out of place, and so we decided to adhere to the limitations of the Super Nintendo, music-wise. Listen to the first town's theme as an example:
The biggest limitation here is the 8-note polyphony. That means only 8 sounds can play at the same time, including percussion and drums!
To get that typical SNES feel, you'd also need to have the right samples. As file size was an issue in the 90s, these samples were usually very short and looped to allow for longer notes.
Also, you'd typically just have one pitch and let the system play the sample faster or slower to allow for different notes — yet another thing that gives the SNES its characteristic sound!
In order to find samples with the right ✨ vibe ✨, we found and sampled some vintage machines:
A toy piano from the late 90s
Two different synthesizers/romplers from the late 80s
Input everything into a DAW (music software) of your choice, load up your favorite sampler (we love chipsynth SFC) and off you go:
We hope you like our little excursion into the audio side of things! We can't wait to have you hear the whole soundtrack in-game.
That time again. This time I wanted to do something a little different and outside of the norm for me. It's definitely still a "battle track," and here I imagine it being for some giant, fuck you boss monster that comes out of left field. But what's different about this one is twofold, actually.
1. This is in 5/4 time signature, when usually I tend to stick to 4/4 which is much more comfortable for me lol.
2. This is the first time I've made use of the octarian scale. I specifically sought it out because I needed something that has a very sinister sound to it, and this scale does that in *strides.*