I have a voice! Well, Google Voice, that is...

That's right, I'm all Google Voiced up and ready to go.  If you want to leave an SMS or Voicemail to me directly (which is an idea that my friend LordKat uses!), feel free to do so at:

+1 (530) MSKITCH

In other news, the Piano is planned on being delivered on Wednesday, so I'll have some pictures or something on that day, and I'll also be underway with creating a new installment of Famicom Fridays.

MAGFesta Added to "Original Works For Clients"

That song I might have done for Sean Fausz the other day?  You might be able to listen to it on its own over in the music player section now. :)

Enjoy, and feel free to leave feedback on it, or any other track I have featured on the site!

MAGFest time! (In a month, that is)

MAGFest is rapidly approaching, and it's looking to be an awesome time.  Sean Fausz, a friend of mine and contributor at ThatGuyWithTheGlasses is going to be there, and even made a video showing off many folks who'll be attending as well.  It's worth a watch!

Oh, and I might've written the background music for it...just maybe. ;)

Enjoy!

The NEW Famicom Fridays #1 - Chiptunes That You Might Don't Know...

(Click Image for Anthem)

Hello one and all, and welcome to the first installment of the revival of Famicom Fridays (and I'm aware that it's actually Thursday...consider this a special Thanksgiving gift...or me being impatient, whichever sounds better), where I’ll try to explain the various tricks and techniques I use to create the retro-tastic sounds that’re better known as 8-bit/chiptune music!

...I’m somewhat embarrassed about using that retrotastic pun, but now’s not the time for embarrassment, it’s time for some music!

For today’s entry, I’m going to be talking about some of the techniques I used to create an 8-bit arrangement of the current theme song to everyone’s favorite internet show about games that aren’t too well known - Games That You Might Don’t Know, But Are Still Pretty Damn Sweet!

For those of you who haven’t seen this show before, be sure to scope it out here...well, after you read this blog, of course!

The theme song was written by Julien Diaz (AKA: The Sad Panda), and it’s quite an energetic work.  So let’s take a quick listen to what my 8-bit rendition sounds like:

As you can see, there’s quite a bit going on in this version of the song, too!  Since this the first installment of the new Famicom Fridays, I figure it’s only appropriate to touch over some basics about how I make this music in the first place.

First and foremost, I primarily use Reason/Record to create my chiptune music.  Personally, I’d love to be able to delve into circuit bending or actually coding out the music authentically...but I’m not as savvy in those areas, so Reason works well as a backup.  Thanks to modern developments, there are a LOT of ways of getting great sounding retro synth tones to either create ‘authentic’ sounding chiptune music...or simply to add some retro flavor to other styles.  I’ll try to touch on some of these options in future installments, but for now, I’ll explain what I use.

The sounds I used in this song came from the “NES Wave Pack” put out by The Chip Collection.  You can get it for 20 bucks, and it’s pretty good for the price, though some of the sounds are a bit on the noisy side, and some tweaking is needed to make them really expressive.  Still, for a low cost option, it’s not bad at all! :)

Anyways!  So when it came to doing this arrangement, the first key step was transcribing the song.  I simply did this by listening to Julien’s original repeatedly, while picking out the key melodic and harmonic elements on my keyboard.  Once I figured out enough of the song, I was able to create a rough transcription using my NES tones to make sure I got the tempo, melody, and progression worked out accurately enough.

Original Version!

Sounds okay, but notice how...lifeless it sounds?  There’s hardly any flow and connectivity to the melody, the drum samples sound a bit flat and dull, and there isn’t really any harmonic language being used.  Looks like we’ll need to do a little tweaking here before we get to the final product!

In regards to the melody, we could just leave it as it is, and it’d be accurate in terms of pitch...but we can make it sound much more expressive and lively using some extra tweaks.  Namely, making the melody slide into and away from the main notes (via pitch bend), an adding that magical vibration of the note we like to call vibrato (via the mod wheel).  Here’s a picture of how some of that looks.

(Click Image to hear sample!)

As you can hear, the melody in this case has a little more life to it, but there's still a little extra work we can do.  One trick I like to do is to create an echo effect, which is fairly easy to do.  I simply make a copy of the melody line after I'm done writing it, offset the copy forward by some short interval (in this case, an 1/8th note), and make the copied melody softer.  The end result is a fairly nice echo effect that adds some wonderful density to the previously dry sounding line:

(Another clickable picture to hear another sample!)

Now we're talking!   Let's move on to those drums.  Just to give you an idea of how the drum samples that I used sounded on their own, simply click here.  Notice how it sounds extremely empty, especially when soloed on its own, and how dark sounding it seems to be right now?  We can fix that with some layering!

What I ended up doing was layering other drum samples (all of which were from the same sample collection I linked to earlier!), as well as using simple white noise (manipulated, of course!) to help give those samples some more impact, clarity, thickness.  Let's take a glance at what that looks like...

(I don't think I need to explain what you can do here. :D)

The last topic I want to hit on for this segment deals with the 'chord' sounds that I came up with to deal with the lack of harmony in the song.  I only used it during the chorus of the song, not only to keep the song from getting too busy, but also to help reinforce the structure of the song.  Now, these chords are done using the same sound sources as everything else in the song, and furthermore, the tracks are monophonic (which means only one note can be played at a time on each track).

So how did I create something that sounded like sustained chords, with multiple notes being played at once?

Take a look at this picture, and click on it to check the sample of what it sounds like:

Can you figure it out?  It may look like a mess of notes that shouldn't be able to make any sort of sound, but upon closer inspection...

...you can see that I simply have notes moving up and down around the appropriate notes of the harmony, but extremely quickly.  This creates the illusion of a sustained chord, using just a monophonic sound.

This is, in fact, in line with a common technique that was used predominantly by Western game composers during the 80's, especially on platforms like the Commodore 64.  I'll pull out some examples of this down the line, especially if I get some sort of encouragement/recommendations to do so. ;)

With those three techniques examined, this concludes this first (of hopefully many!) installment of Famicom Fridays.  Please feel free to leave comments about what you thought of this entry, and what you might want to read/see/hear more about in future installments.  Also, if there is a particular 8-bit track that is featured on my blog that you want me to break down and explain in a future Famicom Friday, don't hesitate to ask.

Have a great weekend folks!  This has been Skitch, and I'll be sure to see you again next Friday!

In Preparation for Famicom Fridays #1...

I'm getting some things together for Thanksgiving, needing to fly out tomorrow morning at 6AM. :P  In addition, I'm getting some music done for a few folks, and getting some writing points fleshed out for the first installment of the revival of Famicom Fridays for this Friday (otherwise, why would I call it that? :P).

The focus of Famicom Fridays will be on detailing and explaining various techniques I use to create some of the Famicom/NES/Chiptune/8-Bit music that I do, so if there are any particular elements of the songs you want to hear more about, feel free to comment and let me know!

For those who plan on celebrating it, have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, and for those that aren't, I'm sure tomorrow will be a great day for you all, too. :)

Piano might be on the way! Until then...get the vote out!

I think a little 8-bit 'piano' action is called for to celebrate this pleasant turn of events!  When the new Yamaha Upright is in the house, I'll see about posting up some pictures of it or something, but that'll have to wait for later. :)

There's a new song added under "Originals Works for Clients," entitled "Last Call at the Pixel Palace."  It's a work that I did for the folks at That Guy With the Glasses, so be sure to go over there and show them some love.

EDIT/UPDATE:

In fact, you should probably vote for some of the folks there for the Mashable Open Web Awards.  Specifically, by request of them, vote for The Angry Video Game Nerd for Best Online Video Web Series, and The Spoony One for Funniest Person to Follow!

So for now, listen, comment, and VOTE!


The Spoony One - Funniest Person to Follow


Angry Video Game Nerd - Best Online Video Web Series

Probable Future Updates, and the Quest for a Piano!

I'm going to be adding some new music to the site later on this week as I complete out a few arrangements and works for some friends.  When I do so, I will keep you all updated as well.  This week I'm going to get at least a written article together for the first installment of Famicom Fridays, and later on I'll likely try to do video renditions of the text articles (sometime when it's not Thanksgiving week, naturally!).

Other than that, in the realm of other musical excursions, I'm on the hunt for an Upright piano for the home, and if all goes well, a new one might be in place within the next few weeks!  If it does happen, I'll likely post pictures, and do some other sort of post to commemorate the event, but until then...stay tuned! Or would it be better to say 'stay in tune'...no, that's a horrible pun.

Yet Another Update - More Music!

Updated how the page was set up, and added two new players. The top player features original music by me, the second one features original works made for clients/friends, and the third one features arrangements I've done for friends/clients.

Feel free to listen and comment about the tracks in this post. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Quick update!

Now 'blog.skitchstudio.com' redirects to here, and I've expanded the page to make reading and posting a bit more comfortable.

Feel free to comment on the site's layout, as well as the content of the music player to the right!

There will be more on the way in the near future!

Something Dead Is A-Comin' Back...

(Click Image for Anthem)

I'm working on bringing back this blog concept, that I attempted then abandoned in '08. If you have any suggestions of techniques in NES/Chiptune music that you'd like to hear/read about, post in the comments!

Welcome!

This blog is currently under construction, and soon should be fully working as "blog.skitchstudio.com," once the DNS records and such clear up...good times. :P

Until then, "skitchstudio.blogspot.com" will have to suffice. I'll be posting up some new info over the weekend, so stay tuned!