Anyways, chiptune sounds + Rock. That's what it's all about; and here's more of it for a soon to be existent thing I keep talking about whatever it is.
Back in October 2009 I ordered this...thing. It's a plank of wood with strings on it and it makes noise, kind of like them geetars the kids are into. It's a 24-string tapping instrument. It's tuned to a whole tone scale (C, D, E, F#, G#, A#). It also has some interesting tech built into it. The bass and melody strings go through separate built-in pre-amps. When you lift your finger off a string it stops immediately thanks to the per-string mute system. Also, it sustains forever, which is weird.
Anyways, a few months into the build they offered to upgrade it from the D1 to the new K24 model they were working on, but that it would add a few extra months to the build. Decline a free upgrade? Hell no! So now, nearly seven months later, it has finally arrived. Yay!
A few images for those who are allergic to videos:
In Other News
I saw a squirrel. It was going like this. *squirrel*
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I have been making noise. Rock-like noise; you know, guitars and drums and stuff, but with the addition of a few chiptune synths and orchestral strings for good measure. Yes, it's very Machinae Supremacy inspired. It's also got a bit of Iron Maiden in there, which was also the inspiration for the accompanying video using wartime footage.
Dunno when Biplanes HD will be done, but soon as the core game is finished. Can't show any gameplay yet though as the art is being completely redone to not suck. :)
Enjoy!
And now for something completely different...
Oh yeah, I also tried out something different with my P.B. Winterbottom playthrough. I had a camera set up recording me and chopped that up into it's own video with a bit o' PIP action going on.
I might do more of this, dunno yet.
Lastly, I fucking love horchata. Rice, Almond, Vanilla and Cinnamon 3 Comments
I've enjoyed some Beat Hazard the last few days and it's definitely a fun game. I tested it out with some screaming and other nonsense to see how it would react:
I picked up the PC version of P.B. Winterbottom recently and will start playing that today. I'm excited to get into some time-bendin' pie-snatchin' action. :D
Instead of the usual AudioSurf videos of my music, here are a few drives through real locations:
This is a Chillout track with some ideas pulled from Dubstep and more ambient styles of music. There’s a lot of bass in this track and and a lot of granular fuckery on the drums.
Since my last blog I've played through Metro 2033 and a whole lot of Gridrunner Revolution. Them links be to some videos I recorded of said playthroughs. I also got some Space Giraffe time in as well.
I think I'm going to replay Iji as it's just that pimp.
Misc
This guy on Youtube has been making THA + rap mash-ups and some of them are pretty amusing:
Well, not really. Quite a few people have played it and the consensus is that it's horrible, so very horrible, which is why I bought it. I went into this game expecting the worst and it delivered. It does have some genuinely creepy encounters and the "badness" of it all was enjoyable in it's own way, but mostly it's just a tedious grind through empty environments.
I have abridged the I'm Not Alone experience into 80 minutes of video:
I've made some other, "Let's Play" videos too since my last time posting about them: Eufloria and Hammerfight.
Games recently finished:
(note: I use a 4 star rating system - not fun, occasionally fun, mostly fun, super fun.)
February
Bayonetta[ 2/20/2009 ]
(Fucking ridiculous. Well played, SEGA. Gets repetitive after a while though.)
Mass Effect 2[ 2/25/2009 ]
(Superbly done; but not without technical issues. I must have Mass Effect 3!)
Eufloria[ 3/05/2009 ]
(Great to look at & fun to play but a few control annoyances & uneven difficulty.)
Chains[ 3/07/2009 ]
(I would have liked more variety, but what was there was enjoyable.)
I’m Not Alone[ 3/14/2009 ]
(I bought this expecting the worst and my expectations were exceeded! So bad.)
Peggle Nights[ 3/15/2009 ]
(Well, it’s totally Peggle and Peggle is good, so this is good, as it’s more Peggle.)
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What's next:
I'm close to completing everything in DiRT 2, which is great so far.
I think I'm going to start playing Metro 2033 or Call of Pripyat tonight and record some of that; maybe all of it.
New Music
Not much new on the music front aside from this rough draft of a main title theme for an XBLIG project Mad Ninja Skillz and I are working on:
I’ve spent a good 50 or so hours in the Mass Effect universe; having played the original and the recently released sequel. The music in both games is fantastic.
There’s a particular piece of music in Mass Effect 2 which begins with low brass drones and percussion with snares and anvil strikes. That’s what inspired this piece.
I guess you could call this a tribute to Mass Effect. :)
I tried out something a little different yesterday; I had a camera and screen capture going while I wrote a song. I'm not super-comfortable doing live performance or having people watch me while I make stuff, but luckily, it all worked out.
Also, here's the video. Four hours of video. O__O Clearly, not the most exciting thing in the world, but possibly interesting to anyone wondering how it all goes down.
I'm currently working on a dark orchestral track inspired by some of the music in Mass Effect. :)
The sun has set for the last time and it will never rise again. Make the most of this bleak situation and enjoy what precious time remains. The end belongs to those who believe the sun will rise again. As the last pocket of heat dissipates and the last plant dies, the stars of distant planets mock us from afar.
This is a piano solo I wrote around the idea of the sun dying and the time spent until the earth dies. :)
Finished this a few hours ago and wanted to share.
I haven't felt all that inspired this year so far, but I got "California Dreaming" stuck in my head earlier today, which lead to me having, "The Sound of Silence" stuck in my head as well. Loop 20x Great. So, I started writing a slow pop folk piano ballad to get it out of my system. I got the melody down and *gasp* ran out of ideas...so I doubled the speed, changed the piano to a synth, removed the tempo swing, added some Turrican bass and suddenly all was clear. I KNEW WHAT HAD TOBE DONE.
What I ended up with is a sort of Chiptunes + Film Score + Rock kind of sound. Dunno really. I don't like to get too crazy over genrefication.
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