my 8-bit entry..."Level Up"

[Paulie]

Had a lot of fun writing this one, I was a die hard arcade junkie in the 80s.

https://soundcloud.com/paulcroteau/level-up

I used this listing as justification to purchase Plogue chip sounds.

[burpo]

Paulie, this track is EHF-YOO-EHN!

But, man, I think the drums take it out of the arcade and into movie-soundtrackville.
They are too complex and too legit-sounding for the primitive time we're trying to resurrect.

Try listening to it with the drums muted. I bet the rhythm of the synths are plenty!

Awesome work (for a fun listing, eh?)!

Best of luck on it.

-b

[jnmorrison]

Yeah, I agree with Burp on this one.

It sounds TERRIFIC.
But it's not 8-bit you've gone full force into 32-bit mode here. The synths were much lusher with "more realistic" drums...

I'm not sure if they want anything this late...this would be like a 1990 - 1994 type game.
8 - bit, as I've stated in earlier posts featured just 2 bits for music. So you could have 1 bit for a drum sound and 1 bit for a melody line and that would be it!
OR you could have 2 melody type sounds.
Chords were "techincally" impossible..but they got around it with arppegiating.

Now - I'm not sure they are going to be looking into it quite that heavily...but just a thought!

Good luck with it!
Nick

[cosmicdolphin]

Yeah, I agree with Burp on this one.

It sounds TERRIFIC.
But it's not 8-bit you've gone full force into 32-bit mode here.
Nick

Melodically it's great but I would say it's more 16bit ( Sega Megadrive /Genesis ) than 8bit or 32bit ( Playstation / N64 / Sega Saturn )

A quick fix would be to put the drums through a bit crusher as well as some of the more hifi sounding parts, the bit at the start sounds spot on to me.

On the Plogue site, this demo sounds more 8bit https://soundcloud.com/chipsounds/james ... psounds-ep

Mark

[burpo]

That's a rad link, Mark.

: )

[Joseph]

Yeah, I agree with Burp on this one.

It sounds TERRIFIC.
But it's not 8-bit you've gone full force into 32-bit mode here. The synths were much lusher with "more realistic" drums...

I'm not sure if they want anything this late...this would be like a 1990 - 1994 type game.
8 - bit, as I've stated in earlier posts featured just 2 bits for music. So you could have 1 bit for a drum sound and 1 bit for a melody line and that would be it!
OR you could have 2 melody type sounds.
Chords were "techincally" impossible..but they got around it with arppegiating.

Now - I'm not sure they are going to be looking into it quite that heavily...but just a thought!

Good luck with it!
Nick

A good majority of the music in the referenced video has multiple layers i.e.: drums, bass, 1-2 melodic lines and FX. I think they just want it to sound classic, not like a modern take on 8-bit. The particular track iI'm listening to is at 1:02:21 in the video, but there are others like it.

-Joseph

[cosmicdolphin]

Counterpoint is also your friend in this type of music

[Paulie]

Good stuff... thanks for the feedback everyone!

I based my track on various sections of the a la video, so many styles to choose from. But now I see that the video includes games from the 80s and early 90s, hence things like stereo mixes, more voices, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3xQXkh8Mek

I'm using an 8-bit vst... including the drums. All are from the plogue chipsounds vst, which are software emulations of the actual chips used. I just re-did this with older sounding drums and I added an 8-bit bit crusher to the master out.

Lots of counterpoint going on in the final section when I bring all three themes together for the simulated final credits. This is an interesting one.. will the screener really care? They want broadcast quality (as far as 8-bit goes). Customer is asking: “We need classic sounding 8-bit video game music in the style of old Nintendo/Sega game themes.” I thought my track was sounding thin initially so I doubled some of the voices and panned them hard L/R.

Here's the new version. I'm going to submit both... it's worth the extra $5 to get a better understanding of the screener's thought process.

https://soundcloud.com/paulcroteau/level-up-8-bittier

Thanks again!

[burpo]

I love it.

This has been, hands-down, one of most fun of all the TAXI listings in my years as a member.

I'm dying to find how we all did.

Paulie, I'd love to hear yours in a movie.


-b

[cosmicdolphin]

Hi Paulie

I think the first 42 seconds are cool and right on target, not sure about that next section though.. The drums and bass go from 8bit to 16bit and it sounds like a completely different piece from a different era.... More like Sonic The Hedgehog kinda sound which is a 90s game

Then at 1.39 it sounds like another piece again which is probably the most fun melody and sounds quite a lot like the references except the snare drum is too modern compared to the instruments.

My 2cents but I'm constantly reading about submitting "one mood" , "one emotion" ... You have 3 Cues here but none of them have chance to develop.

Mark