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Ethan's 4P98 Page |
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Welcome to my 4P98 composition page!
You are on a wonderous quest and begin to feel misguided in your efforts to vanquish an evil force. Travelling in lands not known by your people, you see a village in the distance where you think you might rest and acquire much-needed goods for your quest. But when you enter this place you know right away that this place is simply... Odd ...
An Odd Place (Csound-only version)An Odd Place (Csound/Reason Extra-Fancy Combo-Mix)
Download the .CSD file with samples
This composition is inspired by music from Final Fantasy IV. I imagine this as being the theme music for a strange town where some magically mysterious events are likely to unfold. The introduction noise is meant to be an immediate sign that the town is an odd place - with the main part of the theme repeating as you explore. The Csound-only version is what I think the theme would sound like on an 8-bit system. The waveforms are purposefully simple and the percussion is achieved using a pink noise sample to get authentic 8-bit percussive sounds. The synth instruments are largely from Fractal Tune Smithy's Csound instruments, but with many parameter changes and some code-changes to get the authentic 8-bit sound I was looking for. Both sample WAVs were generated by me.
The Csound non-percussive instruments are simply Square-Wave and Sawtooth shapes with some modifications. Perfect for that old-school NES sound.
The Csound/Reason Extra-Fancy Combo-Mix version is a combination of the Csound-only version with added instruments in Reason using the original MIDI score. It is more how I think the theme would sound on a 16-bit or even more modern system. This is my preferred version and sounds much better than even a version done completely in Reason, in my opinion.
Software used:
- Propellerhead Reason - For recording MIDI notes from my keyboard and simulating instruments in the combined mix.
- Anvil Studio 2012 - For formatting the MIDI file into proper tracks and to add stereo panning.
- Fractal Tune Smithy - For generating the non-percussive instruments (also excluding the grain instrument) and converting MIDI events to Csound score.
- Adobe Audition - For mixing the grain instrument into the Csound-generated file and to combine the Csound and Reason versions for the combo-mix.
Here is a diagram showing how I created the percussion instruments in the Csound track. I basically ignore all input parameters aside from pan because I only need the timing, which is defined in the score. All other MIDI information is thrown away.
Super-special bonus area!
Here is another composition I was working on at the same time, but didn't think I could make it sound the way I wanted with Csound, so I just finished what I had so far in Reason. This is my take of a climactic final battle where a hero is about to vanquish all evil!!! Some other video game-insprired tunes on my SoundCloud page aswell. :)
Final Battle (Work in progress!) by Ethan Jackson