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/

Retribution is my favorite rock/battle theme to date.  It’s a great mix of old and new RPG elements, and the whole feel and pace of it turned out better than I could have hoped for.

The mp3 version of this song is a must-download; while I like the MIDI version, it won’t sound nearly as good as the mp3.  Soundfonts are a wonderful thing.  :)  Also, if you have reverb effects on your sound card you may want to ramp them up for this song.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 15 Aug 2005)

This song is, in a word, random.  Sometimes I get a bunch of ideas in my head and I can’t think up a whole song for each one, so I throw them together into one big mess.

Like this.

Organs are a greatly underutilized instrument, in my opinion.  They’ve been around for hundreds of years and are such a critical element of hymns and spiritual music, but really they fit a whole variety of other genres.  I love what “Phantom of the Opera” did for the organ – it applied it in a modern context with the grandeur it deserves.  Organs are sweet.

Now this is not to say that I use organs appropriately in “Reign of Anarchy,” because I really don’t.  I wanted to write a really evil organ bad guy boss kind of song, but – as always – it didn’t really turn out how I’d planned it.  This song sounded way different in my head.  The opening bars are probably my favorite part of the song, and it’s kind of downhill from there.  This song is a little too unfinished for my purposes, but it’s fun so I’ve uploaded it here.  I’d appreciate any ideas regarding a future final arrangement.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 25 Apr 2005)

Note: a remixed version of this song is now available here: http://www.tannerhelland.com/music/song-defiance-remixed/

Ah, sweet “Defiance.”  I’ve gone through hundreds of variations and modifications of this theme, but still I love the original incarnation of this piece.  Yeah, it’s repetitive; yeah, the layout is awfully simple; yeah, that’s a weird techno-ish sound in the middle of what should be a solid rock song.  But somehow it works.  I don’t know how, but this song still rocks (and I’ve heard it probably a thousand times).

Getting a solid distort guitar sound out of raw MIDI is tricky, but I think “Defiance” succeeds.  My goal for the near future is to produce an mp3 remix of this using real guitars.  I’m not sure where I got the idea for the swayed power chord that comprises the whole first half of the song; I think it most likely came from listening to too much Disturbed or Godsmack.  The 2nd half – in case you haven’t already figured it out – is a straight adaptation of the bridge in Vertical Horizon’s “We Are.”  On a random side note, Everything You Want was the first rock album I ever bought.  Weird.  Anyway, I love the riffs VH pulled out of that album, and “Defiance” borrows from them as a kind of twisted salute to a good band.

Rock on, 40-year-old dads.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 24 Apr 2005)

“Dark Knight” is one of my oldest compositions.  I wrote the initial 8-10 measures of this as a sophomore in high school, but it wasn’t until years later that I sat down and actually completed the song as a full-length battle theme.  In this form I’m not even sure it embodies its name, but since it’s gone by this title for so long it deserves to stay this way.

My biggest hurdle in completing this song was the ungodly 5/4 time signature.  Who knows why I wrote a song in 5/4 (although several good 5/4 video game battle themes exist, like FF8)?  I didn’t think it would be hard to complete a song with a 5-beat pattern, but it turned out to be a real p.i.t.a.  I’m still amazed I managed to fill several minutes without using too much inane repetition.  I like the climatic feel of 5/4, though, and hope to someday write another theme with this beat pattern.

And for the record, this is about as epic as you get with free wavetable soundfonts.  :)

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 24 Apr 2005)

This song would sound 100% better with a real orchestra and choir behind it.  One of the unfortunate downfalls of MIDI is the extreme difficulty in getting synthesized instruments to sound “deep” and/or “full.”  As an orchestral battle march, “Now or Never” certainly demonstrates this.

In writing this piece, I envisioned a captain touring his camp, readying his troops for the morning when they will stand and fight in defense of their country.  Soldiers are shining their boots, checking and double-checking their guns, and the captain inspires each with a gentle nod and a grim smile.

“Now or Never” was purposely designed to be a notch below the intensity of actual VG battle music, and is instead a preparatory or preliminary battle theme.  As such, there is much less percussion, and the driving beat is left instead to the accompanying strings.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 24 Apr 2005)

Ominosity. Such a clever name.  Hehe.

I hate naming songs (I’ve got no less than twelve unfinished songs with the name “Battle” ), so I get excited when I actually think up something witty.  Simple things for simple minds, as they say.

A couple experiments are taking place as you listen to this song.  First, I decided to write something in 6/4 just because I could.  I’d never used this time signature before “Ominosity”, so what you’re hearing is my trial run.  (Note that I’d already tried 5/4 with “Dark Knight”, and I have no plans for trying 7/4 anytime soon.) Second, I wanted to stick as much as possible to using only complete minor scales.  Don’t ask me why I wanted to try such a thing, because I don’t have an answer for you.  I guess I was bored.

What amazes me is how well the minor scales ended up working for a song like this.  This was also one of my more fitting drum lines.  The cymbal work in this nothing short of masterful (especially for a hand-entered MIDI drum track!).

I suppose that part of the inspiration for Ominosity came from Metallica’s S&M album.  There is something so cool about a full orchestra and rock band playing together, and Michael Kamen really outdid himself with the orchestral work on that album.  In that spirit, here is a tribute to one of the more influential bands in recent rock history.

(Originally posted on THIS 1.0 on 21 Apr 2005)