Nullsleep Zone
By As_Yoesual on September 14, 2024 3:11 pm
Encountering a weird being in a weirder ship, telling you about his even weirder journey.
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I went from sleeping rather well these last few weeks to not sleeping again; my tinnitus kept me awake.
So, one very late night /early morning, I went downstairs, decided I wanted to do something more "chiptuney meets hard techno", and started collecting sounds and setting up synths.
I mean, I already hear high-pitched sounds; Imma give that tinnitus a run for its money.
Once I did, I set them up, but I was not too fond of the beat and melody. I redid it all again and again until I found something I liked. It was quite a fun experience to see/hear how the same sounds can give a different vibe, depending on their order.
I then did the same for the stereo field of all the sounds, which I put a lot of effort into as there are a lot of sounds playing at all times. I decided the main "bleep" synth and the "warp" synth are leading, and everything else moves with or around them. I also started the track with just those two sounds, so the listener understands how the panning will pan out. (Pun intended.)
Then, I re-mixed the volumes three times until I found something good enough to go with and started working on the arrangement. I also redid that a few times, saving sections I liked from previous attempts.
The result is quite chaotic, but --listening back to all the chiptune stuff I used to listen to-- not something I am ashamed of.
This all took me until Saturday. I am exhausted as I slept only a few hours this week.
So, as for the title...
Whenever I feel this tired, I always think of "Nullsleep" because even when I first listened to "My Thin Skin" by Nullsleep, the word "Nullsleep" always resonated with me as someone who sleeps poorly and as a game developer, where "null" generally meant an invalid/void/valueless variable.
I added a few Sonic the Hedgehog samples from the old Sega era, and saved the file as "Nullsleep Zone."
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
