Finally – after YEARS of avoidance – I have started taking the time to properly arrange and master the music available on this site.  This is a rather involved process; it involves hours of soundfont hunting, instrument tweaking, checking and re-checking levels, normalizing and compressing, and any number of smaller steps in-between depending on the particular song.  Because this process is so involved, I’ve failed to set aside the proper time for it, instead choosing to make my music available in various states of “almost finished.”

But no longer.

Here – for your listening pleasure – are two tracks familiar to anyone who has frequented the site in recent years… only they’ve been given proper treatment (meaning they sound a bajillion times better than previous versions):

Aerith’s Theme (Piano Solo) – MIDI (8kb)

Aerith’s Theme (Piano Solo) – mp3 (5.8mb)

Aerith’s Theme (Piano Solo) – ogg (4.2mb)

Retribution – MIDI (51kb)

Retribution – mp3 (6.1mb)

Retribution – ogg (5.0mb)

mp3s are available as high-quality VBR encodings (220-260kbps), with the ogg versions roughly equivalent.  Unlike previous versions of these tracks, proper compression and normalizing means each song will fit nicely into any playlist, with each track playing at a proper, standard volume.

I’m particularly happy with the way Aerith’s Theme turned out.   The new version uses a carefully tuned Steinway-based soundfont, and I’ve finally put my excellent Audigy2 ZS to use in getting the envelope hold, decay, and release working as it should.  The track sounds quite good considering it was recorded over MIDI from a 20-year-old keyboard.

Retribution sounds fairly similar to its original version in terms of actual instrumentation.  Some of the more grating tracks have been toned down, and I’ve swapped the piano for a celesta (it meshes better with the other instruments IMO).  Repetition on the percussion track has been cut down, and I’ve finally solved the problem of static on the loud sections.

Many additional, minor changes have gone into the remastering of these tracks, and I’m very pleased with how they’ve turned out.

Every song on the site will be getting similar treatment in the coming weeks, and every track will eventually be released in both mp3 and ogg versions (as well as the original MIDI when applicable).  I debated supplying FLAC versions as well, but the filesize simply isn’t practical.  Additionally, since these are not “live” productions, the extra “quality” FLAC affords really isn’t worth the extra time it requires.

If you have any feedback, do let me know.  Otherwise, enjoy music that is finally getting the treatment it deserves!

(And as always, all original music on this site has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License – so send copies to all your friends!  :)

Enjoy the music!

Download the Complete TannerHelland.com Music Collection (97mb)

Technical Specs

Number of songs: 42

Format: mp3 (192 kbps, stereo)

Running length: ~1 hour 20 minutes

Included songs: Aerith’s Theme (Piano Solo), Alagaesia and Eragon, A Memory Away, “Bloody Tears” Remix, Carol of the Bells (Ukranian Bell Carol), Clowns, Crossroads, Dark Knight, Defiance, Defiance v2, Deserve to be Loved, Destiny, DragonFyre’s White Knights Remix, Faith, Faith (Chase Remix), Faith (Love Remix), Familiar Roads, Fate, Find You, Find You (March Remix), From Here, Halls of Despair, Hidden Tears, Home, King of the Desert, Leaving Millie, Leaving Millie (Live), Lost Islands, March of the Zargansk, Nevermore, Now or Never, Ominosity, Purgatory’s Mansion, Reign of Anarchy, Remember, Retribution, Surreptitious, The Haunting, The Journey (Kroc’s Theme), Tiberian National Anthem, Unknown, Wild Waters Theme Song

All songs in this collection are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License unless otherwise noted.

1) Fixing dissonance, inconsistencies, and poor orchestration in existing MIDIs

Every MIDI on the site has been tweaked at least slightly, and more than one has received a fairly significant overhaul.  Many of the drum tracks have been edited to be less repetitive and more dynamic (especially under soundfonts).

2) New articles for each song

Originally, I had just cut-and-paste song description text from my old studio website.  Now each song has a real article with very visible download links at the top.

3) Remixing all existing mp3s with top quality soundfonts

Many of my previous mp3s were built using the default XP soundfont…which was not good.  New mp3 tracks, built off a variety of excellent soundfonts, are available for the following songs:

**A Memory Away**
Clowns
Crossroads
Dark Knight
**Deserve To Be Loved**
**Destiny**
DragonFyre’s White Knights Remix
Faith
Faith (Love Remix)
Fate
Find You
**From Here**
Halls of Despair
Hidden Tears
Home
**Lost Islands**
March of the Zargansk
Nevermore (Game Over)
Now or Never
**Ominosity**
Purgatory’s Mansion
Reign of Anarchy
Remember
Surreptitious
Tiberian National Anthem

Quite the list, eh?  I’ve marked my favorite remixes with asterisks.  (Some of the songs are completely different under the new soundfonts – SO much better.)

4) Create new mp3s for MIDI-only songs

Three songs on the site were only available in MIDI format…but no longer!  Each of these now has a custom-mixed mp3, and each is well worth a listen:

The Haunting
Unknown
Wild Waters Theme Song

In Conclusion

Enjoy the new music!  If you notice any broken links, or if you dislike any of the new tracks please let me know ASAP so I can fix things up.

And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll just assume you completely loved everything.  :)

P.S.  Now begins Phase 2 of my “new music project” – finishing and mixing songs I’ve already written, but that have never made it online.  There’s a good chunk of content there, so subscribe to the RSS feed to stay on top of updates!

What better way to release some new music than this – a remix of one of my favorite rock themes.  Video game battle themes have moved away from orchestral themes in recent years, opting instead to use a lot more guitars and drums.

Thus we have the newly remixed Defiance.  Soundfonts have been used to render the entire song, and a new intro lends itself more to classic RPG boss battle themes.  The end of the song has also been remixed, including more than 60 seconds of new material.  This remix originally appeared in the TGP/TLA project of 2000-2001, but I’ve never released it online.

So here you go!  Enjoy the new tune, and if you’d like to compare it to its predecessor, the old Defiance theme is available here:

http://www.tannerhelland.com/music/defiance/

I know, I know – it’s been (literally) years since I made any updates to my music entries, but in all fairness I’ve been a busy man.  Working full-time, writing a 400 page novel, and being married to my best friend all consume a lot of time.

But no more excuses!  I’ve finished my novel and am currently working on signing up an agent, so with my newfound free time I’m working on updating my poor, forgotten music.

Here’s how this is going to work.

Starting with my earliest music entries, I’m rewriting each song description/article.  The old descriptions were thrown together in haste, then cut-and-pasted from T.H.I.S. (Tanner Helland Independent Sound, my old music studio), and they are in desperate need of a rewrite.  So first things first, the descriptions are being rewritten.  (This includes writing proper excerpts so song pages aren’t useless on the search results screen.)

Next, I am tweaking and fine-tuning the MIDIs for all MIDI-based songs.  This includes remixing most of my drum tracks, stripping out dissonant notes, and cleaning up sloppy orchestration.  This is the most time-consuming step of the process and most of you probably won’t even notice these little changes.

But that’s okay, because you will notice the final step in my revamp process.

The final step is to produce all MIDIs with full soundfont orchestration.  Previously, most of my MIDIs were generated with the default XP soundfont, leaving them sounding tinny, synthesized, and weak.  While professional soundfonts aren’t quite up to par with a real orchestra/rock band (obviously), they are markedly better than the default XP soundfont – and the corresponding difference in my music will be huge.  For example, check out Ominosity (old mp3 and new mp3) and Surreptitious (old mp3 and new mp3).  Notice the difference?

As each song is updated, the old mp3 will be renamed as <songname>_old.mp3 if you’d like to compare versions.  Otherwise, keep an eye out for updates as I work my way through my large music repository.

I am also looking into licensing all my music under a Creative Commons license, which I think would be a great move.  I’ll let you know if this formally happens.

Finally, if you’ve never listened to any of my music, now would be a good time!  :)  Here are some of my favorite tracks to get you started:

Bloody Tears (Castlevania II Remix)

Leaving Millie

Retribution

FFVII – Aerith’s Theme (Remix for Solo Piano)

And – dare I say it – once all my existing songs have been updated, you may even get to see some all-new, totally original music.

<gasp>

Stay tuned!

Okay – I’ve finally had it.  I have listened to so many mediocre arrangements of this song that it’s finally time to write a good one.

For those who don’t know (shame on you), Aerith’s Theme comes from quite possibly the greatest game of all time: Final Fantasy VII.  The theme is beautiful, and many artists have attempted to arrange it in a variety of styles.  Most are terrible; a rare few turn out very nice.  I hope that this intermediate-level arrangement fits the latter description…  ;)

I hesitated to post this song since it is, as described, an impromptu performance.  I haven’t edited the recorded MIDI at all.  What you hear is straight how it came outta my fingers, sloppy runs and all.  But I feel like it’s important to post a good, original, live arrangement of this piece on the internet since most the amateur versions out there sound like they came out of a Lv3 Alfred Book.  Argh.  This is certainly a more varied, lively performance than the ones I’ve heard so far.  (And no, I haven’t heard the Piano Collections arrangement of this, unfortunately.  I imagine it’s quite good!)

It is also worth mentioning that this was arranged by ear, without any source notation.  The mp3 and ogg files are soundfont-generated and NOT from an actual piano.  I apologize for that, but alas – no recording studio + Yamaha Disklavier yet!  Someday!!  :D

Comments/requests for additional FF arrangements are welcome.

(last updated 9 March 2010)

After reading Eragon by Christopher Paolini, I was struck by the awesomeness of a teenager making the New York Times Bestseller list with his first novel.  If that’s not living the “American Dream,” I don’t know what is.

Anyway, the book is quite good and I am very impressed by Chris’s accomplishment.  So in honor of him and his first novel, I’ve written a piano tribute to my two favorite parts of the book: the world of Alagaesia and the protagonist Eragon.  This piano piece begins and ends with an Alagaesian theme while the middle section is a tribute to Eragon.  I hope it does both justice.

This was recorded off my old Roland HP-30006 keyboard and synthesized via a very nice Steinway-based soundfont.  Yes, an actual live recording will always sound better, but this will have to do until I can afford an actual Steinway. (Which, according to my calculations, should be sometime around 1 Jan 2135).

(last updated 10 March 2010)

Planet Source Code is one of my favorite open source programming sites on the internet.  I’ve been involved with PSC since the late 90’s, and still like to drop in every now and then.  I was doing this just last week when I came across “Wild Waters” (follow the PSC link above), a freeware 2d game written in VB by Trent Jackson.   Trent was looking for music for the project, so I looked around and found this old (but good!) song sitting on my hard drive and offered it to Trent as a theme song for his project.  It seems to fit!

Known as “It Begins” back in TGP/TLA days, this song is a simple arcade-style theme song.  I based it loosely off “Cold” by matchbox twenty and I’m still fond of it even though it hasn’t been online for several years.  I don’t know why I never uploaded this before – it’s a decent theme.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 14 Oct 2006)

One of my favorite Christmas songs in epic video game style.  Happy Holidays!

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 9 Dec 2006)

As has become typical in my work, this song relies heavily on its mp3 mix for sound quality.  MIDI instruments just don’t do it justice (which is why I have refrained from posting the MIDI version of this song).

I wanted this piece to be a simple, catchy town theme – not the typically dull background piece associated with that style of VG music.  I like the instrument mix and pace and am pretty damn happy with how it’s turned out so far.  Perhaps in the future I’ll lengthen it, since this version is unfortunately short…

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 23 Aug 2006)