Tanner Helland (dot) Com» VG Town

Song: Syntheticity

Tanner — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:30:26 +0000

“Syntheticity” has gone through any number of name changes. It started out as “Technojazz”, then later became “Diridian Syndicate Theme” as part of a video game project. When that project went belly-up, the song ended up lost in an obscure folder on an old Windows XP hard drive.

When I finally stumbled across the piece while perusing old musical archives in search of music worth fixing up, I have to admit I was pretty excited to see “Syntheticity” again. The 80′s drum sound combined with a catchy electric piano line and a great slap bass were too vintage to pass up! I also decided against using any of the previous song titles, and instead settled on the excellent noun “syntheticity”. (It’s partially a real word.)

I’ve adjusted all of the soundfonts to more closely match my original idea for the piece (a retro-heavy town theme), so don’t be alarmed if the MIDI sounds quite different from the mp3 and ogg.

(last updated 16 April 2010)

Song: Familiar Roads

Tanner — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:11:21 +0000

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…

Song: Home

Tanner — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:22:28 +0000

The mp3 arrangement of this piece makes all the difference. The original MIDI sounds shallow and somewhat trite, and what should be beautiful melodies are ruined by weak MIDI instruments. I used a mix of several excellent soundfonts to arrange this piece, and I really like the way it turned out. Not bad for fake instruments, eh?

“Home” is short, simple, and peaceful. I hope that listening to it brings back a comforting feeling – like coming home after too much time away…

Song: Lost Islands

Tanner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:53:01 +0000

Mmm…hehe…a ha ha ha. This song is so bizarre. I’m not sure how to explain it.

Truth be told, a large element of track 10 (the MIDI percussion track) was generated by random mouse-clicking. At the time I wrote this piece, I was frustrated by the way my percussion tracks had all started to sound the same. So, I resolved to write a percussion track unlike anything I’d done before. Several hundred mouse clicks later, the first rendition of “Lost Islands” was born. I tweaked my favorite random-clicking percussion track, added several other percussion tracks (taiko, tom, wood block), picked sweep for the main instrument (I still don’t know what a “sweep” is), wrote a choir track and added a couple other mystery instruments (like the shakuhachi).

I’m still amazed this piece turned out as coherent as it did. The song has a sweet groove and the dissonant-ish choir adds rather than distracts. The percussion blends well and the instrument mix really is one-of-a-kind. I don’t know that I’ll ever find the patience to write a percussion track more complex than this one.