Haunted Machines
By jegasus on March 30, 2026 12:01 am
What am I going to say here? That I had tons of time to work on this week's submission and that's why I have such a complex and rich tune to show for this week?
No, actually the same thing that has been happening for almost a couple of months at this point: very little time to work on WB, so I just went with the safe route and did a fun little layered chiptune.
I did get a cool idea started, but wasn't able to finish it, so I'm putting it in the back pocket for a future week. It's a kind of country song where I'm singing about looking for a banjo instructor. Ironically enough, after recording the vocals into reaper, I could not for the life of me play anything on the banjo that would fit. So I'll just have to try again some other day with a little bit more time.
Anyways, enough about the song I didn't make! Let me talk about this piece! I only got about one hour's worth of work on this one, and it shows. But even though this is super raw, I'm so happy with what I landed on. The song is missing many things: a whole other section, some transitions, a proper ending, among many others. But one of the main things it's missing are some rap lyrics!!! I actually tried some freestyling, but most of what I got was just nonsensical grunts, oohs and aahs and some fun 1-2-3-4 counts, but nothing substantial. Oh, and cursing. Lots of on-beat cursing, hahahaha... After failing to add a vocal track, I instead tried adding a high pitch lead and landed on the theremin-style saw wave, and I'm so so happy with that choice. It lends the song a tinge of spookiness that I really like. That's the primary reason behind the title of the song - the rest of the instruments are more chiptune-sounding elements, but that high pitched lead feels rather ghostly and ethereal. I'm definitely going to have to revisit this one in the future. The M8 tells me I only spent about 1h on this one, so I'm looking forward to what I can do next time around when I get back to this one.
Also, for folks who were asking about the samba band I'm a part of, here's a cool video with snippets of our recent performances: https://www.instagram.com/batalahouston … g_--Hj6yA/
Thanks for stopping by, peeps!
Cheers!!!
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)
The melody was giving me some Castlevania vibes but futuristic. Excellent buildup of tension and release with the tempo change. Nice work!