Day 1#
Another Nintendo game I’ve never played, nor have I listened to the soundtrack that much 😭. So I guess I’m going do this “my way” after listening to the original shop tune first, since I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to match the original score without really getting to know the style 😅.
Took a listen to the track and decided to loosely take inspiration from it, mostly with using a banjo on my track like on the original + trying to get some of that 60’s/70’s music influence too.
Loaded up some SNES style sounds from a fun cheap Kontakt library called Magical Box, starting first with a piano sound to sketch out some sort of a skeleton for my track before thinking about instrumentation.
Since I got a bit stuck on the last Impressions Jam, I decided to input all the midi data by using the mouse instead of playing it in this time, hopefully coming up with something more fresh sounding instead of inadvertently playing the same sounding stuff I’ve done before.
Since this a sort of opposites approach for me, I also started with the chords first and then figured out a melody to match the chords.
After I had gotten the skeleton for one section ready I had the melody played by a banjo, and then after trying a lot of stuff I ended up with a Piano accompanying with the chords, a bass playing the bass line and a vibraphone outlining some chord tones + a hi-hat doing rhythm stuff.
The combination sounded pretty ok but a bit short so I repeated the section, but having a Hammond organ taking the lead this time around with the Banjo playing some mimicking accompaniment stuff at parts.
After that, the first section felt pretty OK to me for now, so I started thinking about the second section, which I felt should be a bit contrasting to the first so the track doesn’t get too boring
Like before I started out by sketching out a skeleton for the part on a piano sound, and after a bit felt that maybe I could have the part be a solo piano section.
The solo piano section felt like a fun idea, but I had a lot problems coming up with the part itself, since I wasn’t sure if it should just be some “solo” like riffing on the melody form the first section, or just a completely new B section that maybe has a bit of the same style/vibe as the first section.
After a lot of screwing around with ideas, I ended up with a sort of a new part, with having the latter half copy the first section a lot to hopefully make it sound cohesive.
I also had the piano change to comping on the latter half, with a Clarinet coming in to play the lead, doubled by the Vibraphone.
I still feel the second part is not that great + probably needs a bass part, but at least I got a lot done on this first day.
Hopefully I won’t lose steam for the rest of the jam after such a good first day, like I usually do 😂.
State of the track after the first day:#
Day 2#
Spent the morning tweaking stuff that felt a bit crap after listening with fresh ears and added a bass line to the second section, but didn’t do anything else after that.
Day 10#
So I got a bit sidetracked with other stuff after the first two days, and didn’t work on the jam at all after that.
So because of that I’ll just submit the track as it is now, since It feels good to me as it is now, as a 1 minute loop.
Made a quick video with the same graphics I’ve used on previous jams, uploaded that to Youtube and submitted a day early in case I forget to do that.