Big Lion Music » Music

Mario Paint – Que Rico el Mono

virt — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 09:28:00 +0000

The title was going to be “I Love Yoshi” but I thought it was more appropriate to pay homage to Perez Prado, the one and only King of the Mambo (and of Cha-cha-cha, as in the second half). This was sort of a midterm exam – I’m heavily studying harmony and orchestration for jazz ensembles for no particular reason other than that it’s freaking awesome and fun to write for jazz ensembles. Hopefully live ones at some point. Or dead ones with robots standing over them, holding their instruments and turning them over in their gripping appendages, evaluating jazz as a psych tactic to leverage against the human resistance. I’ve got your back, Skynet, look me up.

TMNT (NES) – Enter the Turtle

virt — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 09:03:19 +0000

My entry for Dwelling of Duels at Magfest 7. Three-way tie for 12th place — there were a lot of legendary entries that month. Theme was “Side scrollers”, and my intention was to make something that sounded like a 70s Kung Fu movie soundtrack, in the style of Lalo Schifrin (one of my favorite composers). Played live guitar and bass, and did all the keys in single takes rather than micro-tweaking everything. If it didn’t come out right, I just did the whole section over, rather than “fixing in the piano roll”

Thriller (Side-by-side Comparison)

virt — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:48:45 +0000

I played this in memory of Michael Jackson, who is my all-time #1 musical inspiration, at Magfest 8.

What you are hearing is Michael Jackson’s original Thriller in one ear, and my own NES chiptune cover of Thriller in the other, with a tiny bit of bleed-through. The mash-up effect is a little jarring at first, but hopefully you will be amused by it when you hear things lining up. When I made the cover years ago, it never occurred to me to try this; I just did A/B comparisons a measure at a time, and got the details as close as possible by ear. This was the first time I’d ever heard the entire thing played in sync, and I just sat there for a while staring into space, thinking hard about lots of serious things.. before hitting play again and doing the “zombie hands” dance the whole way through.

Lorem Chipsum

virt — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:17:53 +0000

As performed at Magfest 8, in January 2010. This isn’t the original song just run through chip synths, it’s almost entirely rewritten to account for how sloppy my playing was on the full production. Chip instruments are much less forgiving and stick out terribly if they’re just a little bit off, so I just selected everything and hit delete. Since I had improvised the guitar and bass while recording, they never existed as notation and I had to transcribe them and re-play on keys. The synths used are VOPM, Yamaha TX81Z, and Plogue Chipsounds.

Lorem Ipsum

virt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:53:05 +0000

I wrote this as my entry for Blockparty 2009′s Music competition, in which it won first place. It’s supposed to be a “placeholder” theme song for a futuristic anime series with a sort of apocalyptic vibe. This is my first released song using Yamaha’s VOCALOID2 software, and also my first “singing choir” using Quantum Leap Symphonic Choirs, which I bought in 2006 but still hadn’t really explored. It’s incredible, as you can hear. The lyrics are also available. For anyone who doesn’t know what “Lorem Ipsum” means, read this for an explanation!

Micro Media Broth

virt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:45:30 +0000

This is the first new NES chiptune from me in quite a while — this won first place in the Oldschool Music competition at Blockparty 2009. If you’re a fan of my chiptunes, you probably want to hear this. Additionally, and this is kind of a big deal, the IT version contains… all of my FX3 samples. I’m giving them away to the community. You’re free to use them in anything. Enjoy!

Sans Titre (Northern Dragons + Brainstorm)

virt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:39:23 +0000

My soundtrack for the conceptual demo, Sans Titre. I wrote this on site at Blockparty (using Ableton and Reason) after my friends, the Northern Dragons, asked me to help bail them out since their usual musician didn’t have a track ready. I had to write this while techno music blared in the background (it was a ..very noisy event). The demo itself can be found on Pouet here.

Turbonugget

Jake — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:58:23 +0000

This is Nugget’s Theme. For anyone who doesn’t already know, Nugget is my adorable puppy (there’s a link to a picture on my About page). This song is for and about him — his own simpler, more upbeat counterpart to “Staring at My Spaceship”. The mini-melodies during the silent pauses are the “fanfares” our Roomba vacuum plays when it starts and finishes cleaning, respectively. The Roomba is Nugget’s best friend, they were raised together.

Sorcerors Battle

Jake — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:52:32 +0000

This is one of the three new songs I debuted at MAGFest 7 – An FM journey into an epic past where metallic wizards do battle on high windy cliffs with guitars and lightning. Dedicated to Wizwars, who couldn’t be at Magfest, and who was deeply missed in an otherwise incredible chiptune concert.

Nuts On the Go

Jake — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:26:15 +0000

Nugget was being clingy and annoying while I tried to calibrate my condensor mic setup in my closet. So, I brought him in there with me, exasperated, and started singing to him in my famous “operatic” “tenor”. He sat there still as a rock, either fascinated or terrified, as I proceeded to record the song and set it to music.