Something Unreal

I started playing around using the melody and chord progression that a huge number of people created together at CrowdSound, and ended up making this little arrangement for Bawami, my MIDI synth. It took a few hours over 3 nights.

CrowdSound is a site where people were given a chord progression and song structure, and were then allowed to vote note-by-note to make a melody. It’s an experiment to see if lots of people can work together to gradually make an entire song by voting on many tiny additions. Since people are making remixes already, I decided I’d try, too.

[Watch in HD]

As of the 15th of August 2016, only the melody is complete, so I imported the MIDI of the melody (from here) into Sekaiju (the MIDI editor I use). From there, based on the chord progression, I made tracks for bass, percussion, overdriven and acoustic guitar parts, 2-part pad and a portamento synth sequence to liven things up a bit. Then I decided on how I’d switch between the various backing parts so they weren’t all fighting for the spotlight at the same time. After that, I changed the velocities of all the melody notes (since I’m using a velocity-sensitive lead instrument on Bawami), to make it sound less annoying and repetitive and to complement the beat. I also shortened some long notes (which is within CrowdSound’s rules for arranging) to let the lead stop for breath every now and then, added modulation (vibrato) sparingly, and decided to somtimes pitch-bend from one note to another during the conclusion instead of instantly jumping (I think this should be allowed, because a real human voice would have to do this all the time =P).

In keeping with the openness of CrowdSound, you can download my MIDI (designed to be played on Bawami rev.132 or later) here. It uses several GS “variation” instruments, so it will sound worse on GM synths. It also uses an instrument (12-string Guitar) which is not present in Bawami rev.131, the currently-released version, but it should still sound fine on that version (it’ll fall back to the “Acoustic Guitar (Steel)” instrument). That, along with many other changes, will be in the next version I release!

This MIDI is playing on BaWaMI, which is a freeware, retro-sounding MIDI synth that uses subtractive synthesis. I’ve been working on it every now and then since 2010. You can find out more (and grab the latest version) here (click its title to get to the download page).

The 3D scrolling view of notes is MIDITrail.

I finally completed this remix of 「ひそやかな欲望～ミサカは，発生させます～」, the character song of Misaka Imouto from the anime A Certain Magical Index. I think it shows off her more hardcore side, where the original showed a gentle side. I certainly tried to pack it with energy in the chorus.

[Watch in HD]

This was my first time using both the Roland SC-88Pro and Korg Radias synths together. The Radias is playing most percussion and a high-pitched lead, and also processing a guitar sound from the SC, while the SC plays everything else by itself (bass, pads, electric piano, lead synth, lead guitar, cymbals, etc). The 2 synths seem to work well together.

What genre could this be? I wasn’t aiming for anything, so I’m not sure. Hard dance, perhaps?

MP3 download (320kbps) is here, or you can watch on Niconico for scrolling comments.

It’s been 3 months since my last video. Wow.

An attempt at remaking the Alstroemeria Records remix of “Bad Apple!!”, the stage 3 theme from Touhou 04: Lotus Land Story. It took about 8 days in total. I added a lot of improvisation during the main “chorus” part. Major thanks to my brother (Steeeven1 on YouTube) for playing the guitar part, and going from never having heard it before, learning it, and having it recorded in less than 2 hours.

[Watch in HD]

The looping backing part which I played on the keyboard is seriously annoying to play, so I put some lights on to annoy everyone else. …No, not really. I just thought they livened things up a bit. xD

This is a birthday present to someone who finds the original version of “Bad Apple!!” awesome. I hope this can live up to that…

High-quality MP3 is here, and link to the video on Niconico Douga for those who want to leave scrolling comments is here.

TECHNICAL RUBBISH: (more…)

My friend, Sota Systems (Sota250993), and I, made this techno remix of Shikieiki’s theme, “Critical Judgement”, after hearing IOSYS’s remix of the same theme, “Koko de atta ga 60 nenme”. Then I made a StepMania simfile for it.

We play it on StepMania at the same time, but in our own separate countries, recording our gameplay with several cameras, and here you see it all mixed into one video – our combined gameplay views. I have a few custom things connected to my comp being controlled by StepMania. ;D

You can download the simfile (even if you don’t play StepMania, it’s just a ZIP and it includes the MP3) from a new “StepMania Simfiles” section of my site, here.

Also in the video is a crazy announcer which my bro (“Steeeven1″) and I made, after being told that a previous attempt wasn’t crazy enough. I won’t provide a download link for it unless anyone seriously wants one. ;P

The StepMania theme is called Pop☆Candy 2, and you can get it from the author’s site, here.

Sorry about my large period of inactiveness for the past week! >_<

Here’s an updated version of my remix of Unlocked Girl by IOSYS! I called it “6 Voice Style”, since now, instead of just the 1 electronic voice, there are now 6 voices used, including a backing harmonizing voice (Miku Hatsune)! The other 5 voices are made using RealSinger on Virtual Singer, part of Melody Assistant. There’s also now a much cooler-sounding Distortion Guitar used during choruses.

Here’s the YouTube video, this time featuring my attempt at a full translation of all the lyrics, and 10% of your RDA of randomness near the end. Of course, this is in mono and at low quality. This time, I think I avoided typos and forgetting things in the credits. ><

The actual YouTube page is here - there’ll be comments there. ;P Of course, I don’t mind if you leave comments here at my blog either! ;)You can download the high-quality stereo MP3 of this “6 Voice Style” [6.48 MB] (or if that link doesn’t work, you can try this link, although it will be much slower, sorry). I’m also putting up the original MIDI for download [64 KB] which I made for this remix, which is at the heart of this MP3. Please note that the MIDI is not complete. Sorry about that. But it’s certainly better than nothing (well, probably). It does contain all parts of the song, by which I mean that just by copy-and-pasting things you can complete the song. But I didn’t do that to the MIDI – just to the final MP3′s audio. That’s why the MP3′s complete and the MIDI isn’t – I’m lazy. ;P

I finally completed this! I’ve been working on it since the 25th of December, and finally last night it was completed. I hope you like it. And I know there are several typos. >_<

Original YouTube page

I’d prefer it if you commented at that page, rather than here. That way, all comments will be in one place (even the comments left by people who didn’t find the video on this blog). There’s more info there too – just check the description! :D

Oh, and the high-quality stereo MP3 can be downloaded… right… here. (5.47 MB, 5 mins 10 secs) (Sorry about the slow download speed.)