12/24/24
silly_dungeon
mostly smrpg samples. some sgm, couple kirby dreamland. started with the initial melody and rhythm, just main melody, shaker and tambourine.
layered other instruments on top of it, in ways that i thought was cool. i think it sounds nice. its a little simple in that its just that one melody with
more things layered on top. not quite enough change. although it sounds nice as is. the melodies that get introduced later have a nice variety of sound.
a lot of times i used to take too much time looking for different sounds, which i still kinda do. having the packs from the snes helps cause there are already
a bunch of sounds that kind of fit a certain theme. and i can add a few different ones if i want to. i also generally tend to go with a sample even if i dont like it
very much. the string plucky sound (harpischord?) was kinda one of those, i didnt really want to use it. i knew it would sound pretty good, i was just kind of looking for something else.
also using the percussion is hard cause the samples are so short. well maybe its not even that. i guess its just surprising how much more substantial they sound in the
context of the entire piece. i like how the tambourine sounds. its simple but its still nice. also the main melody does a good job being. self contained? its fairly brief.
its a nice "seed". it wraps up the key signature, rhythm, has decent variety in the first and second part. i like the kirby vox, but it feels like the melody is kinda simple.
im not sure if i could really change that considering the other sounds surrounding. the melody is already pretty complex by then. also i really wanted a pan flute, but i still
need to pull a lot of snes samples, so i used the sgm one for now. its too "breathy". i wonder if i could eq some of that out. and i wanted the flute to sound less echoey more punchy around the end,
so there should be a little more rhythm to that part. i think. or else it sounds kinda slow or something. if id had a more up down kinda pattern i feel like it would keep the
energy up a little better. its also a little long feeling, should be more punchy. i think i said that already. really like the harpischord runs, second half of the fast part feels a little random,
but it works well for something i wrote in like an hour. and i think its good to get something out that demonstrates the idea, cause at this point i could sort of go back and change it.
so its good i got the basic idea out really quickly i guess. the strings that come in in the second section are nice. a lot of times there'll feel like theres a lot of "space"
when you only really have a simple melody. so its nice to add some background sound that harmonically fits. apart from the main string support the supporting lower string support
gives the harmony a little more unique texture. that upper string section could be a little more complex. and lots of things need volume tweaking.
and im really surprised how well everything came out harmonically considering i really was just winging it, not really looking at the notes or anything. i mean as long as its in key its fine
i guess, overlap might make one instrument kind of disappear for a moment, but theres so much going on it doesnt really matter. and a lot of the sounds that come in later are so simple that
they werent hard to fit onto everything else. its really crazy what you can do with just fl studio piano roll + sampler + snes samples + fruity reeverb 2. sometimes eq, but i didnt this time. i think thats literally all i used.
i mean thats like all i ever use. but its still significant. fruity reeverb 2 feels like cheating. i try to avoid using it until i actually like the melody or else ill think anything sounds
good. it kind of detracts from the harmony/melody/etc. this really would fit somewhere in smrpg. its not yoko shimomura level though. i cant really tell why cause idk music theory as deep cause
she went to music school i didnt and cause i didnt do as much theory as i should have, but her harmonies are just more epic.
that whistle is out of place but its funny so im leaving it lol. you know i said that there wasnt enough change and that the layering was too simple, but like. it flows really well.
it just sounds cool as is. i do want to make a longer song out of it sometime though, and that would benefit from a second section with the main melody swapped out for something else.
i dont remember what they were, but i think there were one or two mistakes i made that sounded cool that pushed me to do something cool. i know the splitting harpischord part happened cause i forgot to
move a note or something and it sounded like that was beginning to happen so i made the rest of cause it was sick. and there was a
shake sounds nice too, just a little reminder how much modulating the velocity of some notes can really drastically change how the
rhythm is perceived. the vox melody was really nice for how simple it was too. its a little boring, might want to dick with eq a bit, its not quite right somehow.
ugh jeez it really feels like im copying something that already exists. is the melody a shimomura melody? i dont THINK i copied it. ive done melodies that were pretty derivative
of things that i like before, so im a little paranoid about it. but im pretty sure its fine. god i wish i had an outlet for all this stuff. i dont really know what i
would use a song like this for though. i think it would fit in a silly rpg. the harp and strings make me think mansion, but the the silly dum dum melody makes me think of something silly.
so i guess it would be a clown mansion or something. thatd be funny i guess. im surprised that the sounds tune so well just by ear, i thought it would sound worse. just drone c, tweak volume in sampler.
i was using the fl tuner for so long but its kind of pointless since not all samples tune perfectly, and they dont always octave perfectly either. idk why that happens specifically, you've
really just gotta be listening like 24/7

i think i have a lot more to think about this. it actually turned out pretty nice, which is why i kinda wanna tear it apart. been in a good mood past couple days, really fucking
sleep deprived but its fine cause i got to do a bunch of stuff. glad i finally got back to freaking music. coming back to this later i gotta sleep

had to come back and mention how dumb this track sounds in the beginning... it sounds like some dumb halloween skeleton video or something. its kind of funny in a way, maybe
im just nervous about making something different than usual. also realizing that the pan flute may be a little out of tune. also new parts of the track are introduced every other bar, and mostly
line up with the whistle blows. so it sort of sounds like someone is blowing the whistle to tell the next section to start playing. sorta weird