Just finished up a “music video” of sorts of this track, featuring clips of me and Tweek playing parts on guitar and keyboard, Mario Kart shortcuts, and FL Studio playthrough footage.
Check out the sweet powerslide up the ramp at 2:02. Did that on the first take. ;)
Nice work compiling the footage, with a great combinations of features. You get your nostalgia fix via the Mario Kart 64 footage, along with a nice look at the guts of the mix in the sequencer (arranging the work of Kenta Nagata), and performance shots of both ReMixers. Fun stuff, and nice to see these two go the extra mile.
Of course, you can also check out their debut ReMix at OverClocked ReMix yesterday with their Top Gear arrangement from the Altered Bit album, “Rockabilly ~ Dark Gears ~ Surfing Gear” (lovingly titled by me from the names the band gave each section). They’ve got more material coming OCR’s way, so keep an eye out for these guys as they continue to represent Brazil, the bastion of video game music fandom in South America.
Clearly all work and no play at the 2008 International CES, DToiders Graybush and Buckfitches decided to interview their own Dale North as he laid in bed, sauced out.
As soon as they creeped up on him, shining a bright light in his face, and you hear Dale go, “Goddammit, guys,” it’s so worth it. Hahaha! Let’s label this one under live performances:
Ok, so while Day 1 of MAGFest 6 was awesome, I completely missed Day 2.
LOOK, HEAR ME OUT!
Ha! But yeah, the short of it was that my lady, THE Lady, the esteemed Paige came down with a virus and felt like…let’s say “poop” and be generous. I took her over to the urgent care clinic to get checked out, but waited until late in the evening. I tend to play things by ear, so I didn’t bother checking when the concerts would be. “6PM,” you say? Well, shit. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have left for the clinic at 5:50PM, now would I? Regardless, she felt bad enough where I stayed home afterwards and took care of her, so I missed out on all of day 2! If you’ve ever been in a position where you’ve regretted everything while regretting nothing, you know how I felt. (That’s love! Try it sometime!)
If you have MAGFest thoughts to share so far, please comment or send them in; we’d love to hear from you on this always amazing yearly event. But to give you a taste of what took place on Friday, let’s hook you up with something I missed myself as Thursday turned into Friday after the opening ceremonies: Shnabubula performing in MAG’s Jamspace room.
A new addition to the event, Jamspace is the only place where artists can plug in and do their thing nearly any time of day. Whether it’s turntabling or performing live, if you’ve got the goods, you’re ready to play. Some instruments were already provided to Jamspace for use during the festival, and Sam quickly showed off the potential of the idea, brought to you by ThaSauce.
And in this corner, an under-appreciated gem of mine with “Demon Seed” from Castlevania III. This slightly longer performance features a lot more improvisation, so if you’re interested in seeing what Somnambula [sic] really can put together, this is the one of the two for you.
Man, call me out of the loop. The album itself, Ritual of Battle, was leaked in September and the video itself was posted on YouTube in late October. Parental advisory and all that good stuff. Hell, one of ‘em is wearing it for a shirt. Don’t hate:
Manhattan art space The Tank and New York artist collective 8bitpeoples announce the Blip Festival 2007, a four-day music and multimedia event taking place in New York City November 29 - December 2, 2007. Focusing on the modern artistic exploration of primitive video game and home computer technology and featuring 40 musicians and visualists from around the world, the Blip Festival showcases artists adopting and repurposing familiar but forgotten hardware - such as the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Atari game console and home computer line, and the Nintendo Game Boy - exploring their untapped potential and unique aesthetic character.
Blip Festival 2007 has come and gone, but the legend shall live on. The event featured Nullsleep, Blasterhead, and other big names from the modern chiptune scene getting down and dirty in New York’s The Tank. On Friday, November 30, one of the performers was Jake “virt” Kaufman, riding the wave of his most recently released game work, Contra 4.
Today, virt posted the six songs he played during his set. The set included arrangements of past songs he wrote (including one from a game he scored, Shantae), an arrangement of Jamiroquai’s “Love Foolosophy,” and a few original pieces. Check the video below for a short snippet of his performance of “DnB Chip Mix 07″:
“DnB Chip Mix 07″ gets my vote for best track by being an epic nine and a half minutes of FM bliss, but also worth mentioning is “Loli Fishing Next 20,000 Leagues,” a chiptune arrangement of a Kwakfest piece. Really, though, you can’t go wrong with any piece.
Note that all the formations are upside down because the band performed facing the opposite side of the field.
The formations and songs are, as best as I can identify:
0:03-0:35 - Pong: two paddles moving up and down with the ball bouncing between them (no music)
0:39-1:30 - Tetris (Game Boy): descending blocks, set to “Korobeiniki”
1:32-1:55 - Mortal Kombat: an “MK” in a box, set to “Techno Syndrome”
1:55-2:21 - Mortal Kombat: the signature dragon logo (same music)
2:21-3:10 - Pokémon: two Poké Balls and a Pokémon battle, set to “Opening”
3:10-3:55 - The Legend of Zelda: the Triforce and Master Sword, set to “Overworld”
3:57-4:17 - Super Mario Bros.: two pipes and five blocks, set to “Overworld BGM”
4:17-4:44 - Super Mario Bros.: Mario entering from the top pipe, jumping and hitting the third and fifth blocks, and exiting through the bottom pipe, set to “Underworld BGM”
4:44-5:10 - Super Mario World: Mario exiting a pipe and running in front of some configuration I can’t identify, set to “Athletic BGM”
5:10-5:36 - Super Mario Bros.: a largely random configuration possibly intended to resemble an underwater stage, set to “Swimming BGM”
5:36-5:38 - Super Mario Bros.: same formation, set to “Time Up Warning Sound”
5:38-5:55 - Super Mario Bros.: castle and flag at the end of a level and Mario jumping at the flag, set to a sped up version of “Overworld BGM”
5:58-6:07 - Super Mario Bros.: flag descending, set to “Course Clear Fanfare”
Even though there’s no Street Fighter II music involved, there are some character poses and occasional sound effects. And The Lady would like it. Enjoy.
If anyone has more information on the competition or competitors, please let us know.
While in Prague, they took the time to improvise an arrangement of an arrangement, Mitsuyoshi on piano and vocals and Barrak on goblet drum. The original piece, written by Mitsuyoshi, is called “Let’s Go Away” from the arcade game Daytona USA. The soundtrack album, DAYTONA USA / B-univ, has a version of that track, arranged by Mitsuyoshi and Koichi Namiki, with, among other additions, extra lyrics. It was this that Mitsuyoshi and Barrak arranged.
Jiggy Jon asked for some ass-kissing in exchange for being allowed to pimp the video, so I’ll just say that the guy is a jack of all trades. He’ll tell you never to ask him about production (I concur, don’t!), but in terms of genres, he can nail solo pianojust as soundly as a rock piece. Check out his OC ReMixes, and you’ll see for yourself. I’m certainly looking forward to when the finalized arrangement of this new idea is ready to drop. Be sure to holler at Big Giant Circlesin order to obtain the sheet music once this is good to go. Tell him Larry sent you.
Well, more like 1 1/2 minutes of introduction & messing around and 6 1/2 minutes of tutorial, but I definitely enjoyed the F-Zero“Mute City” noodling that was in the initial demonstration.
You’ve gotta be technically inclined enough to gather all the needed materials and assemble them to Marchiel’s specifications, but if you’re up for it, you’ll end up with a pretty badass instrument.
Chris also makes sure to walk you through the features he programmed into the unit, and it’s clear that the door’s wide open in terms of another enthusiast tailoring the same project to their own specs.
As he mentions within the video, Chris hasn’t spent much time working with his finished synth controller, so perhaps we can expect a follow-up video down the line from him and Powerglove showing off more of what he can do (and, perhaps more importantly, what can be done) with this excellent idea!
***Chris messaged me via MySpace after this went up: Thanks for blogging about us and thanks for the kind words! I’m going to refine the control and the programming as I learn it, and i’ll play a solo on it at our live shows, which i’m really looking forward to!
I coded a control scheme for the dual shock ps2 controller too, so i might play that as well, though it’s not as flashy. I’ve also thought of doing a double neck one, since you could more than an octave at a time in usable buttons and use an octave pedal to play higher notes.
For a band that neither Ben nor I had heard of before, The OneUps put on a rock-solid show that ignited the crowd on numerous occasions. They showcased music from a treasure trove of age old games using a full seven piece band and unvieled a two piece keyboard duet called “Final Fanboy.” Plowing through a strong hour-and-a-half long set, The OneUps won the favor of the Main Theater’s near-capacity crowd.
During my periodic search for the word “Dhsu” on Google and YouTube (for reasons completely unrelated to stroking my own ego), I came across this vid by YouTuber Dekreme:
To say that I’m flattered would be an understatement. To say I’m impressed would also not be enough…even though it isn’t my most complicated arrangement, learning the whole thing by ear takes a special kind of dedication. Mad props, my man!As surprised I was by this though, I’d be lying if I said this sort of thing hasn’t happened before…
Though my name isn’t specifically mentioned in the description, the source of the arrangement is obvious. Kazamajin1, the performer in the video, asked me directly for the sheet music to “A Clockwork Vampire” and kept me personally updated on his progress in learning this piece. The culmination of his efforts was the video you now see here.
As for the implication by certain smellyjdgfgts that I might be jealous of or threatened by these rising talents, I can assure you such claims are preposterous. I am in fact quite glad that “Nayru’s Love” is fulfilling its purpose of getting people to give the Zelda Oracle games more, well…love.
You may have heard of The Black Mages. Formed in 2003 with, among other people, three Square Enix composers (including Nobuo Uematsu), TBM is the closest thing Square Enix has to an official band. Other game companies (especially during the 90’s) have had bands featuring one or more in-house composer, like Konami’s Kukeiha Club and Taito’s Zuntata, but TBM is probably the most prominent modern example.
Live performances of VGM have been not necessarily commonplace in Japan, but certainly more frequent than in the United States and elsewhere. However, in the past few years, there have been an increasing number of video game concerts like PLAY! A Video Game Symphony and Video Games Live. So, I figured it might be kind of cool to look at other, earlier VGM performances, including those by in-house bands and those like VGL. I mentioned the S.S.T. Band in “Composer Spotlight #3: Koichi Namiki,” so that’s as good a place to start as any.
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The S.S.T. Band was one of the first, possibly the first, official developer band, starting way back in 1988. “S.S.T.” stood for “Sega Sound Team,” befitting the fact that, of the six original members, three were Sega composers (Hiroshi Miyauchi, Jouji Iijima, and Koichi Namiki). A fourth member, Kimitaka Matsumae, would later become a Sega composer, as well as would two future band members who were not part of the original lineup, Hisanori Kumamaru and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.
I was going to make an info file about the S.S.T. Band’s members, discography, etc., but their Wikipedia article is very thorough, probably more thorough than anything I would have written, so I’ll pimp that out instead. The only full arrangement albums are MEGA SELECTION I & II and BACK IN THE S.S.T. BAND!!; all of the others contain both arrangements by the S.S.T. Band and original soundtracks.
An interesting thing to note is that every single S.S.T. Band member had a stage name, most of which were taken from Sega arcade games:
Jouji Iijima: GALAXY (Galaxy Force)
Shingo Komori: BURNER (After Burner)
Hisanori Kumamaru: SPLASH Wave (”Splash Wave” is the name of a track from OutRun)
Kimitaka Matsumae: HARRIER (Space Harrier)
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi: R360 (refers to the R360 arcade cabinet)
Hiroshi Miyauchi: Hiro
Koichi Namiki: Mickey or Pretty K.N.
Masato Saito: TURBO-kun (Turbo OutRun)
Takehiko Tanabe: THUNDER (Thunder Blade)
But the best part of the S.S.T. Band, even moreso than their rockin’ arrangements, is their appearance. Remember when sleeveless vests, ponytails, bandannas, and sunglasses used to be cool on musicians?
“After Burner” (arrangement of the track of the same name from the game of the same name)
video from the S.S.T. Band Live! DVD (1990 concert)
Jouji “GALAXY” Iijima: Guitar (red)
Kimitaka “HARRIER” Matsumae: Keyboards (right)
Hiroshi “Hiro” Miyauchi: Keyboards (left)
Koichi “Mickey” Namiki: Guitar (yellow)
Masato “TURBO-kun” Saito: Bass
Takehiko “THUNDER” Tanabe: Drums
The band’s arrangements always stayed close to the original, usually being covers with the occasional solo thrown in to retain the feel of the originals, all of which were from Sega arcade, Master System, or Genesis games. Since the band’s instruments were guitars, keyboard, and drums, they usually picked upbeat songs that could easily be converted to synthrock, like the title theme from After Burner seen above. However, as the material dictated, they were not above slower, jazzier pieces like their medley of Galaxy Force tracks and ballads like their cover of “Last Wave,” the high scores theme from OutRun.
VG Frequency #065: Raw Manliness
Larry Oji - WMRE (Emory University Student Radio; Atlanta, GA)
Saturday, October 8, 2005 / 10:20 PM - 1:17 AM EDT
Liontamer f/ThatPaige, Flik, Vigilante, Rexy, Disk Mastah Smokabitch, Grand Masta Poppa Cap & Hella-Tight MC Fukkaslut
Disk Mastah Smokabitch: “my mom is so prowd that i m on the radio” (more…)
