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/26/defiance/

(Last updated 15 May 2010)

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)

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)

I’ve played with many ideas for adding a melody to “Faith’s” original simple vi-IV-I-V (or i-VI-III-VII in natural minor) progression, but invariably none of them were epic enough to match the scope and majesty of the original arrangement.  Eventually I settled on a couple non-epic ideas worth investigating – and thus we get this “love remix”.

The key to writing a good remix is to maintain enough of the original that it sounds familiar, while also adding enough new/changed material that it’s not just a rip-off variation.  I wanted this to be a literal “re-mixing” of the original “Faith” theme and I’m pleased with how it turned out.  Nothing spectacularly technical here; just some simple arrangements of a couple simple themes.  Nothing as majestic as the original, but – then again – a sequel never is, eh?

I retained the drums from the original mix but almost everything else has been modified (and the only reason I kept the drums is because at the time, I didn’t have software that could imitate that velocity shift).  I really enjoy the new countermelodies in the final bars of the song.

This piece still has a strange feel to it – eerie but soothing, distant but imminent.  I enjoy DragonFyre’s work and it was a treat to fiddle with one of his compositions.

“Bloody Tears” is one of my favorite Castlevania MIDIs and although I didn’t write this song (full composition credit goes to the Konami Kukeica Club) or sequence this particular arrangement (Ricoberto Dones deserves full credit for that), I did arrange the instruments and fill out much of the accompaniment. I don’t know how this song sounds in the actual Castlevania II game, but this remix is pretty loud…

Hope you like it, and kudos to Kenichi Matsubara, Masahiro Ikariko, Kazuhiko Uehara, and T-San for their brilliant original rendition.