Alternative Soundtrack Jam #3

Day 1

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More Nintendo games… 😅

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First thing I did when the jam started, was to play a bit of the theme game i.e Super Mario Bros. Played the game for a bit, after which I booted up Reaper, loaded up a NES sound palette using the Magical 8bit plug VST, and started sketching ideas not really being too critical if it fit the theme or not.

After I got a couple short sketches done, I took a break, after which I started working on taking those 3 sketches and tweaking/combining parts from them to make a new sketch based on some feedback I from other people.

The initial sketches were a bit too up-beat, so I tried to take the material and change some chords and lines to make it more dark, since the level is an underground level after all. But I somehow ended up turning what was initially a too up-beat track, to more of a Beat ’em up/Hack and slash track that really doesn’t fit Super Mario Bros., since its much too energized.

Since I’d made some progress, I decided to stop for the day, and see how the track feels tomorrow.

Final sketch from Day 1:

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Day 2

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Seems good to me?

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Listened to the Day 1 sketch again and thought it still sounded ok, even if its a bit more Metal Gear than Mario 😅 and started tweaking some things that felt a bit weird on my first listen + coming up with a new part to add to it.

Felt the track was pretty high energy the whole time, so I came up with this calmer Bridge section that loops back to the beginning, but I feel could also be the intro to the track too, but I will probably just make a short stinger/jingle at the start of the track, that plays when you enter the underground and not when the track loops.

I also tweaked the Triangle/Bass sound slightly, adding a pitch envelope that quickly slides down from up an octave when the note is played, giving it a bit of a kick drum like punch (going even further from the original Mario vibes😂). I also made another sound for the second pulse channel that has more attack to the sound, so that it can give more “spooky” vibes in the Bridge section.

After I managed to get the new part and tweaks done, I decided to stop there, since I felt I had done enough for now.

When I came back to listen to it later, I remembered, I think it was Nobuo Uematsu mentioning in an interview about how they got a sort of fake “echo” sound for the first Final Fantasy games on the NES, by playing the notes twice, the second one slightly after the first one is played, lowered in volume and slightly detuned. This makes a sort of fake echo effect that you can do all in the same channel if you have space to play the echo notes, if not then you need to use the second channel for that.

I hadn’t tried that before, so I wanted to give it a try, even if I’m not trying to be accurate to the limitations of the NES, and I’m doing this in a DAW and not a tracker.

After giving it a try on the pulse channel 1, I found it added a lot to the feel of the track, so I did the same to pulse channel 2

Seemed like I got a good amount stuff done for the day, so stopped there.

Final state of the track on end of Day 2:

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Day 8

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Submitting time?

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So I didn’t really work on the track anymore after Day 2, since it felt pretty finished to me already. Only thing I was still thinking about, was the tempo I was going to use, since I was going between 130 or 160 bpm and couldn’t decide. After pondering about it for multiple days, I decided to just have the track at 130 bpm and then in Super Mario style the tempo would get a lot faster after time starts to run out (in this case 180 bpm). I added the faster version to the repeat/fadeout of the track after the little “fill” part, to demonstrate how it would work “in-game”.

Since now it felt pretty finished to me, I decided to just submit it now , since I wasn’t going to do anything more to it.

Final Submitted Track:

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Day 3-8 Reaper things

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Reaper setup stuff during the jam…

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After Day 2 I got a bit side-tracked in setting up a template in Reaper for the orchestral sounds I have (EW Hollywood Orchestra, old Play version).

I’ve had a lot of issues in trying to learn how to properly use reverb to make a so called virtual “room” to get dry instruments to blend with other sounds, and just in general to get a sense of space on my tracks.

So I spent of most of the jam fiddling with reverbs to get a sort Mise en Place template where everything is already set up correctly, so that I can record, say some live vocals/instruments and it will blend with all the other tracks in the project, without needing to fiddle for an hour to get things to blend.

I think got it somehow setup how I wanted it, but will probably still need to tweak/test things until its perfect (if it ever will be 😂).

While building the reverb setup/template, I used the jam track to make some orchestral test arrangements so I could see how the reverb setup worked, so I’ll post them here too, in case anyone is interested to hear how the track sounds in a different arrangement.

Here’s the two “virtual space” tests using reverbs, one using Solo strings, a Bassoon and Percussion in a Medium sized “space” + another one using Strings Sections, with some Brass, Woodwinds and Percussion in a Large “space”:

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