Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
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Sword Cards

By Catthew O. on March 6, 2016 11:59 pm

I tried a whole mess of different concepts for this week but nothing turned into something I could finish in a week. Ultimately, "three monophonic, unchanging square waves with drums metal" seemed to work for me at the last possible second. Another week of cutting it too close!


Definitely influenced by Game Gear music, which I indulged in excessively the past couple of days, but I'm sure this goes too low for the Game Gear to be able to reproduce it (I should really try! This isn't the first time I've worked with this exact concept)


As it's influenced by Game Gear, I couldn't stop thinking about the feeling of being in the back of my parents' old minivan playing Sonic Chaos and Legend of Illusion, and the general weirdness of having such isolated, emotional experiences, all within a confined space with other people who have no relationship to what I'm feeling. (Not because they didn't care about me, but because they weren't exactly as moved by GG and GB music as I was. I started wearing headphones pretty quick.)


Because I knew time was of the essence and because I wanted to REALLY challenge myself to make something that felt compelling with extreme restrictions, I didn't let myself mess with ADSR automation or write in any vibrato or pitch bends. I literally used YMCK's plugin with whatever the default setting was, since I knew it was at least a basic square sound. NO SHAME.


The drums are all from the Roland XV5080, except for the kick drum. The kick samples in the XV5080 are great, but they were too boomy for this instrumentation, sucking the life out of the bass voice square entirely. I wasn't going to try to EQ one sample on a synth module that I'm still learning to use when the whole point was minimalism and restriction. This one has more iPod click-like triggered kick sound to it anyway.
(One of those cymbals is probably too loud. Maybe next week I'll get it done by Friday so I can give it a fair listen for mixing!)

oh damn that arpeggiator right in the beginning that glides is really attractive. nice composition. personally not into the dry drum kit sounds with chiptunes over the top, but hey, its a thing. at about 3/4s there is a phrase which i think should have come in much earlier and been returned to like a chorus, the phrase that ends up speeding up.

MUST! BEAT! LEVEL 200!!

This is pretty rad! Love the tempo changes!

1000h wrote:

oh damn that arpeggiator right in the beginning that glides is really attractive. nice composition. personally not into the dry drum kit sounds with chiptunes over the top, but hey, its a thing. at about 3/4s there is a phrase which i think should have come in much earlier and been returned to like a chorus, the phrase that ends up speeding up.


No arpeggiator here, everything was programmed with piano roll! Sometimes the slowest way is the fastest way wink


Alphaglitch wrote:

MUST! BEAT! LEVEL 200!!

This is pretty rad! Love the tempo changes!


Thank you! I wish you luck and hope that you win.
(I also hope someone with a lot of money needs 200+ levels worth of music and hires me, using this for level 200 specifically. I WANNA EAT SOMETHING OTHER THAN RICE, CELERY, AND EGGS THIS WEEK, DAMMIT.)

something can be an arpegio without having used an arpegiator

1000h wrote:

something can be an arpegio without having used an arpegiator


I was just responding to what you said (^^;

(I'm sure it was just a typo)

love the game gear! can def hear the influence. reminds me of Sonic Triple Trouble smile

this is super amazing, especially when it does that staccato stuff, very nice mix!

Brackleforth wrote:

love the game gear! can def hear the influence. reminds me of Sonic Triple Trouble smile


Thank you so much! One of the best soundtracks/games for the system for sure >o<


george bowles wrote:

this is super amazing, especially when it does that staccato stuff, very nice mix!


Thank you!!

Huge work, you deserved to be hired. Love the blastbeat !

impressive.

FXtion wrote:

Huge work, you deserved to be hired. Love the blastbeat !


BLAST FOREVER


minaret_kid wrote:

impressive.


Thank you! (^^

Hectic!!  Can't believe this was a "quick" track.  The metal is certainly strong big_smile

cool tune!
nice works!
love it

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