For starters, let me clearly state that “Thugs” didn’t turn out at all how I intended.  I was working on a deathmetal battle theme and instead it turned out like this.

<sigh>

Rather than throw it out and start again, I decided to wrestle with the piece a bit longer and flesh it out as more than just an 8-bar theme.  Maybe someone out there can find a use for the cheesy rock style as the theme song for… something?

“Thugs” is awfully repetitive for my taste, but it did end up being fairly catchy.  Unfortunately.

Anyone who’s worked with MIDI knows that brass instruments are notoriously to work with.  They inevitably sound very synthy, and the attack either sounds mushy and wet or painfully harsh.  I did what I could with the brass instruments in this piece – they’re not stellar, but they work.  I also used a French Horn (the best MIDI brass instrument by a long shot) for sections where a bit more melody was required.

The second half of this piece reminds me a lot of the Mortal Kombat theme.  (I think it’s the orchestra hits.) The guitar/synth instrument mix was pretty much all I used for the majority of my early compositions, so count yourself lucky that this piece also includes a semi-orchestral section!

After a brief introduction, the first theme is introduced. Depending on your familiarity with Baroque music, you may notice a strange similarity to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  (Please follow that link and listen to the original piece if you’re not familiar with it – it’s spectacular.)  I did indeed use Bach as inspiration for the first movement of this piece, though I imagine he’d heartily disagree with my use of a cheesy drumbeat alongside an otherwise nice melody.

Meh.  I always envisioned Bach as being kind of a prick, so I’m not too concerned with hurting his feelings.

After the Bach-ish theme, you’ll notice a pleasant middle bridge marked by an electric guitar (not sure why I picked that instrument, but I left it in the remaster since it’s been that way forever).  Once the second movement hits, you may notice its theme as “Remember,” another piece already available on this site.  “Remember” was originally written as the second half of “Cyaron’s Gate,” and it wasn’t until years later that I pulled that theme out and gave it its own piece.

I’ve tried to leave the instruments somewhat synthy so you can get a feel for how this piece sounded 10+ years ago when it was first written.

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/

Also – unless you’re a die-hard MIDI fan, I absolutely recommend the mp3/ogg versions of this track. Even a killer MIDI setup won’t be able to replicate the great soundfont arrangement used here.

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.

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.

My biggest hurdle in completing this song was the ungodly 5/4 time signature.  (I think I was tempted to try 5/4 after hearing FF8‘s excellent battle theme.)  Up front, I didn’t anticipate much difficulty working with a 5-beat pattern, but now I can unequivocally state: it’s a major p.i.t.a.  When done properly, however, the climatic feel of 5/4 is hard to beat.

I’ll let you decide whether or not “Dark Knight” constitutes “done properly”, haha… :)

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 homeland.  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.

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.