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 I'm a hobbiest composer, and will be doing just about all of the music and ambient sound of Prodigal 2 myself, unlike last time. But not everything I compose will be going in the game...and here are a few other pieces I've worked on. All are composed in Reason 4.01, and all use VBR and a high bitrate so they are nearly the quality of the masters. General Interest This first song is called "Traveling" and is just a short techno piece that I used in my Doom level for the config screen. The drums are passed through a flanger that is dialed to max saturation with a delay of only about 1 millisecond. This is what causes the drums to have a "spitting" sound to them. (3.15MB) This next one is titled "Clearing the Infection." This is the absolute first song I did in Reason. I think it sounds pretty good considering I was using a program I'd never used before! Lots of arpeggios used in this one, as I was fascinated by the sound altering abilities of Reason's Arpeggiator. Heck, I still am fascinated with it, but I don't use it so overtly anymore. I like this song as it has a driving beat. (7.22MB) Ugh. Forgive me for foisting this on the world, but I did a cover of that criminally catchy song, "Hamster Dance." I wanted to see how close I could get to the original, but ended up making it my own reinterpretation of the song. I did not do the (c)rap verses of the track because I hate (c)rap. Unfortunately, the song suffers a little from the lack of verses as it gets a bit monotonous by the end. If you've never heard this song, listen at your own risk. It sticks in your head for weeks. (4.67MB) Game Music I've done enough of these to be worth their own section. I take my absolute favorite songs from any games and remake them with modern music equipment. It's fun, and helps me remember and honor those great games of years gone by. If you are my age, you might have very fond memories of the old Ultima games by Lord British. Ultima VI has been called by some the best of the series. I don't know, I never played it, an oversite I still plan on rectifying someday. I have, however, heard the awesome sounding intro song when starting the game. It is, in my opinion, one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs of the DOS era. If you only heard it on Adlib, you missed out. It sounds phenomenal on a Roland MT-32, which far too few people ever got to hear. Well, I hope I've done some justice to the song with my remake. This is NOT a one-to-one conversion, I have added new melodies, new rhythms, and taken the two loops that the game used and tried to turn them into a complete and cohesive song. If you like the game and remember this song, I think you'll love it. Without further comment, here is the Ultima VI Introduction Haunted Mix. (5.33MB) Like adventure games? If you are here, you probably do. Well, one of my absolute all-time favorites was King's Quest VI. It truly captured the wonder and beauty of the best fairy tales, due in no small part to Jane Jenson's influence. It was the best game of the series, and the final good King's Quest before Sierra began systematically flushing all their wonderful series down the toilet. Oh Ken Williams, you were my hero growing up...Why did you go public with Sierra? Anyway, My favorite song on a soundtrack filled with memorable music is the Arch Druid's theme, from the Isle of Mists. Remarkably simple in construction, it nevertheless gets in your head like only great music can. This is my own interpretation of the song, and while everything that Mark Siebert did is here, I added new parts, more drums, and fleshed out the song from a one minute loop that gets monotonous into something you can enjoy as a full song while keeping it true to its roots. Heck, I think I made it quite a bit better. Check it out and see if you don't agree! King's Quest VI: Arch-Druid Theme Trance Mix. (5.35MB) In a completely different genre, on an unrelated system, Viewtiful Joe is one of my absolute favorite Playstation 2 games. While much of the game's music is functional but forgettable, the first level's song, "Joe the Hero," Is so awesome it kills people with rays of pure cool. Fast and frantic dance style music, the song just pumps you up to play the game and perform Viewtiful combos. Listen at your own risk, but I think you'll like the song even if you never played the game it comes from. Again, as is usual, I have made some large modifications to the original song, including making up my own guitar riffs at several points. This is actually blended in with melodies from the Nintendo DS sequel and lengthened out from a very short song loop to a full song in order to make it iPod worthy. Note that I used the DS version of this song in my "Prodigal Shooter" technology test game, so you can compare this version to that and see what you think. Viewtiful Joe: Joe the Hero. (8.66MB) (This is a reupload, with compression tweeked so there isn't so much dropout on bass drum runs. It's hard riding the fine line of distortion volume.) This one is called "Running from Evil" from Doom 2. Most people will probably know it as "The song on the first level of the game," but my title is the official name Robert Prince gave the song when he composed it. I changed only a few things around while keeping it mostly true to the original this time. The largest changes come in half way through the song when the electric guitar solo starts. Prince had the guitar doing a very mechanical arpeggio the entire time, and I broke that up with some "Squeedly Guitar Riffs*" with the whammy bar that are lots of fun. (3.9MB) Prodigal Soundtrack So you want to here some ambient stuff, eh? Huh? You didn't ask for any? Well, it's my website, so deal. These are taken from Prodigal 1. I have tons of newer, better stuff, but it is mostly potentials for Prodigal 2, so I don't want to release 'em to the public...yet. If you have a favorite from Prodigal that you'd like a high quality copy of, let me know and I'll release it here...Except for the Shadowplay song, that isn't mine so I can't post it. You can find it elsewhere on the net legally though...I'm just too lazy to look it up and give you a link. Some of the best sounds come from the most unlikely sources. This first one, "Ela Wind is Blowing," has an interesting origin. I was eating breakfast on a spring day, and the window in the kitchen was cracked open. All of a sudden the wind hit it JUST RIGHT and started to make these spooky howling sounds. I grabbed my hand recorder and captured the sounds until they stopped, and this track is the result. The chiming effect was also a lucky find. I was doing noise reduction on the clip to clean up static hiss from my crappy hand recorder, (I bought a professional recording setup for Prodigal 2, but back then I was using a $60 Radio Shack voice recorder to get my sounds. Kinda sad, huh?) and I set the noise reduction too high, and that chiming effect was the result. It was perfect, so I saved it. Weird origin, ya think? (<1MB) I frankly don't remember the origin of "Echoing Bass 2." It was used in Prodigal, and sounds really weird and creepy. I think it is heavily processed synthesizer, but I'm not sure. Whatever it was, it is so hidden in processing I can't tell. I had to produce so many art assets for Prodigal...I just plain can't remember where I made them all from. I do warn you though, this is a "speaker blower!" Don't crank this thing unless you want hearing damage! It is designed to make your speakers do weird vibrations and sound like they're about to explode, but it should be safe...I think...(1.18MB) I love messing around and finding weird sounds. "Track 1 Special" is just such a sound. Everything you hear was recorded from an electric guitar. Heavy ring modulation and other processing was done, and this is the result. I would grab the two low strings, (E and A) and pull them out as far as I could, then snap release them. the resulting dissonant clanging twang sound was then reversed, which is why the sounds seem to build up to a fevered pitch and then stop suddenly. The clanging that comes in around the middle and passes from speaker to speaker is also a ring modulated guitar, this time without being reversed, and I seem to recall it is the "B" string being played. (<1MB) Term "Squeedly Guitar Riffs" is wholely owned by S. Bad. |
