PPF
patreon
Flower Garden and Gruntilda's Lair Preview
🕑 Added 2017-08-01 02:27:11 +0000 UTC Hello everyone! I just uploaded Flower Garden from Yoshi’s Island, so here’s an update regarding my next project! Normally I’d also talk about new equipment purchases, but I didn’t really purchase anything interesting this month, as I’m trying to save up some money to maybe make some upgrades to my recording/monitoring equipment. So I guess this entire update is just gonna be about Gruntilda’s Lair.Gruntilda’s Lair Preview (Unmixed Audio)
Here’s a preview of Gruntilda’s Lair!
https://soundcloud.com/user-789983357/gl-premix/s-3tfUr
The only parts that I still need to record are the percussive sounds that are going to be in the recorder section. That section is kind of a mash-up of the Click Clock Wood and Mumbo’s Mountain variations of the lair theme, so I’m trying to think of a way to emulate the percussive sounds that are heard in the Mumbo’s Mountain variation, but I haven’t really come up with anything yet. It also sounds fine without percussion, so I might just leave it as it is.
So anyway, I originally arranged this about five years ago, but at the time, it just ended with the wintery-sounding section, and the Treasure Trove Cove section was an octave higher than it is right now because back then I didn’t have the harmonium to play the bass notes. But now that I have you fine folks helping me out with production costs, I was able to touch things up a bit, and I also decided to spend some money on some PVC pipes so I could add the Clanker’s Cavern section. And while I was at it, I went ahead and added the Furnace Fun variation so that I could have an excuse to use my xaphoon for a few measures, and also so the arrangement could have a more exciting ending.
Back when I first arranged this, my work flow was a lot different, and I was also still using Audacity (!), so although I did start recording the original version of this arrangement, I eventually decided that it was getting too complicated, so I just kind of abandoned it. However, now that my workflow is a lot more refined, I decided that I’d give it another shot, and everything turned out to be much easier this time around, even with the two extra sections that I added.
Check out my production check list!
Normally I just have one long checklist, but this one is divided up into the different sections of the lair. I’m pretty sure this sets a record for greatest number of tracks I’ve recorded in one project, with Music of the Celestial Beings coming in close second. I think this one probably has a greater number of unique instruments though.
Overall, I’m pretty excited to see how the final product is going to turn out! This is by far the most unusual project I’ve ever done, so I’m looking forward to all of the creative opportunities I’m going to have during the mixing and video editing processes.
Oh, and just a quick note about my 30,000 subscriber Update Video/Song Request that I talked about a couple months ago, for anyone who happens to be wondering where it is. I'm holding off on starting on that until summer ends, as I live in Texas where summer temperatures typically reach 10,000° (F), which makes recording audio very difficult, as I can't have the A/C running while I'm recording anything, so it gets really hot in my studio. So for now I'm just focusing my energy on making my regular videos, but once things cool down around here, I'll start working on the channel update video.
That’s all for now I guess. As always, thank you for giving me the opportunity to take on more complex projects and for allowing me to continue to improve the quality of my videos! Cheers.
Comments
Kasplat
I'm so happy you answered my comment! That's a really cool process, I'm surprised how much of it is done by just feeling it out I guess. You answered my question really well. Good stuff, and thanks for the music :)
Cool, I'm glad you think so! I think I'm going to post a picture of one of my storyboards next time, as I think that might be pretty interesting to see also. This project was a little unusual with regard to how I chose the instruments. Usually I just listen to the original recording and use it to guide my instrument choices, but this time I essentially just looked at all of the instruments in my collection and grouped them into small ensembles according to type. So the first section is just all of my guitar-like instruments (plus the xylophone since it didn’t really fit anywhere else), the second section is all of my free-reed instruments, the third section is my wind instruments, and the fourth section is my chime instruments. After grouping all the instruments together, I tried to figure out which part of the lair each group might represent, and then I used that information to further guide my choices. For example, the glockenspiel/toy piano combo sounded most similar to the Freezeezy Peak variation, so I decided to add some sleigh bells to that section to make it sound more like the Freezeezy Peak version. The Clanker’s Cavern section is the only one where I actually listened to the original recording and tried to emulate it with the instruments that were available to me. And the instrumentation in the last section is actually based on an arrangement of Klaymen’s Theme from The Neverhood that I did a few years back but never finished recording. Based on that unfinished recording, I knew that all of those instruments would work well together, so I decided to use the same ensemble for the Furnace Fun variation. Hope that answers your question!
Kasplat
The production check list is super interesting! How do you figure out what instruments you want to use for a specific section?
Thank you! Actually I don't even remember why I originally changed the key signature, lol. I think it might have been because the original key of C minor has a bunch of sharps/flats, and I wanted to avoid all those weird fingerings in the recorder section since I was fairly new to the recorder at the time that I originally arranged this.
Man, you did a superb job on Grunty's lair. What was the reason for the key change? Just curious.
Holy fuck, this Gruntilda lair is AMAZING! Can't wait to see it with video and last tracks!
Worthikids
grunty's lair is one of my favorite VG tracks ever!! super excited for the video! :""" D
