Rumblings of a New Album on the Horizon
Yes, I have another album in mind and in the works (conceptually, at least). Unlike the past few, however, this new album isn’t going to be new works. Instead, I’m going to recraft some old ideas (some of which are covers, too) into a single collection. Basically, between the rocking 4-piece instrumental rock stuff and the electronic grooves, I occasionally bust out an acoustic number here and there. I started my compositional hobby with just a single guitar with no accompaniment, and I like to return there now and then.
I’ve done many recordings of stuff you can play with a single guitar, but the record quality has always been all over the board as my situation and/or gear changed throughout the years. It seems worthy to make a single stop for that kind of music, and it makes even more sense to have them all share a consistent recording quality.
Thus, I’m going through my archives and picking out some golden oldies from the past (and maybe a few new ones) to give them a more polished treatment. No name has been chosen for this album o’ relaxed stringitude, but that’s the least of my worries right now: I haven’t even tried to play some of these pieces in years, so some practice is in order, for sure.
You Should Play Fez
An amazing game currently lives on Xbox Live Arcade, just waiting for you to fork over $10 and enter its world. That game is called Fez, and you may remember it from concept screenshots five years ago. Sometimes, genius takes a while, right? I’ve spent a good portion of time with this cute, deceptively deep, “two-dimensional” platforming game over the last week, and I’ve just started getting to really know it. I’m not going to outright spoil anything, but I can’t be held responsible for describing something you didn’t want described, so play the game first!
After beginning a new game, you’re first presented with a framed interior room, and the star of the show, Gomez, sleeping on a bed. The graphics are pure retro goodness, low-rez, but highly stylized and unique. Gomez himself (itself?) is represented as a white marshmallow something or other with a cute red fez on top. He doesn’t speak or really make much sound at all, but he’s visually expressive and has charming little “wait” animations when you don’t move him for a few seconds.
The landscapes you traverse all feature the same blocky aesthetic, as if everything were made of cubes, but the mood and tone varies depending on where you go. Life abounds, with frogs and birds and inchworms taking up residence most places. Other areas are bereft of anything but a seemingly empty, cold temple, replete with odd statues and unintelligble writing on signs.
No matter where you go, however, the sense of exploration, wonderment, and discovery you feel as you find new areas and warp between parts of the Fez universe is ever-present. One of the best things about the game is that it presents itself as a 2D/3D hybrid, brought together through an enjoyable gameplay mechanic that effectively quadruples the playing field of every level beyond its initial facade. Doors and passageways (and collectibles) hide and ensconce themselves in the 3 hidden views while you spin the world around trying to figure out how to exploit 3D space in a 2D plane to get to them.
None of the navigational problem-solving is too hard, but instead offers just enough challenge to make you feel like you’re accomplishing something. Actual puzzles are presented at times, and they’re often quite obscure and require some analytic brainpower. I’ve solved a few of them so far, but many still elude me, almost as if they are intentionally locked away until you gain a better understanding of the game as a whole, and not just the room they’re in. A unique, currently indecipherable language dots the landscape, even after “beating” the game. Those quotes are not there by accident, by the way. I’m hopeful I will eventually understand everything.
I really must mention the soundtrack, too, done by Disasterpeace. I’ve mentioned his name before, and even blogged about the pre-order for the soundtrack, so it’s no surprise how in love I am with the music in Fez. Each piece complements its scene (even dampening its volume when your character goes behind walls or inside rooms) pretty darn perfectly. I describe it as “melodically ambient chiptune” and that’s what I’m sticking with for now.
In short, the half-decade wait for Fez was well worth it. The only complaint I have is that the framerate drops noticeably during some levels, usually the larger ones, and is felt most strongly when transitioning between them. A minor complaint, but one that drags down the genius of Fez, regardless.
I can’t wait to have an in-depth discussion of this on TEM.
Introducing The Escort Mission
The Escort Mission is now live.
I’m in a podcast! Some friends of mine formed a little think tank/consortium/discussion group that gets together about once a week in the NebyooStudio to chat. My humble digital audio workstation powers up, microphones are properly checked, and games, television, movies, music, culture, or whatever else we want gets discussed, contorted, and hopefully hilariously dissected. Our opposing viewpoints both complement each other and diverge enough on the subjects we choose, which we hope makes for a good dialogue.
We’ve been having these kinds of discussions in a shared chat room online for years, but one day I realized that what we were doing was essentially like the gaming podcasts I’d been listening to. Both Chaz and Josh, the other two parts of our trio, have been listening to ‘casts for a long time, so I’m late to the party, but it was my idea to start our own! And they agreed! And here we are.
Check out our bloggy-blog for the deets on our new venture. We have two episodes recorded so far, with another coming up soon. Basically, I’m stoked and really enjoy the whole process. Despite being someone who does a lot of recording, I don’t normally record vocals, let alone only vocals, so it’s been a good learning process for my pro-am recording engineer side.
Fez Soundtrack Pre-Order by Disasterpeace
This is the stuff dreams are literally composed of.
Nebyoolae.com is Dead, Long Live Nebyoolae.com
The domain and website of my namesake is dead. Nebyoolae.com, the online home I’ve held to show off my creative pursuits for nearly a decade, is now merely an A record on a DNS server pointing to my new cozy spot at Bandcamp.
The folks at BC make it ridiculously easy, and maybe even a little fun, to upload, organize, and even occasionally sell my work to the Internets. Their artist template is plain, but effective. It’s iconic without really being sophisticated. And a lot of music I’ve listened to lately has come from there. I dig them. I dig them so much that I realized my focus was to just provide access to the music I’ve done and…basically nothing else. Bandcamp does that better than I ever have.
My initial goal when I first got serious about web development was to create an online database of all my music (and even instrumental characteristics) so that it was accessible from anywhere and easily searchable. I then went ahead and did that. And it was good! But it was also never quite done, nor was it even used very much. I’ve written a lot of music and cataloging it was tedious. A lot of it was essentially detritus, having no association with an album, nor even a finished form. Lots of sketches got onto the site just for the sake of completion. Over the years I came to find that it’s just not worth keeping such detailed track of every idea I come up with.
In the middle of writing both Zoetic and the Impulse (OST), I decided to get more serious about selling my music and trying to be “pro”. Most of my web development is being done at work, so I’m less ambitious about personal projects. I have not lost my obsession with making and recording music, however. So I just did what a lot of people do: I outsourced. This blog here is my main “hey, I’m on the Internet” vehicle now, and Bandcamp takes care of the music. It’s a good deal.
Will nebyoolae.com ever become grounds for a future web project? It’s definitely possible with the ease my mind changes gears, but for now it’ll be used as the front door to what I’ve really wanted it to be all along: the music I’ve made that you should really give a listen to. Check it out, will ya?
Back From Europe
This is not *that* post. You know, the one where I ramble for an incredibly long amount of time about my awesome visit to both London and Paris for a time period equal to about 2 Earth-weeks. No, that will come later.
This post is largely to say that my wife and I are safely back. We survived 2 11-hour plane trips, 2 2.5 hour train rides, and probably about 30 subway rides under and through two busy cities in Europe. All of those trips went pretty well save for the first plane ride from LAX to London. We couldn’t sleep on the airplane, so leaving at 5:30pm PST and landing at 3:30pm GMT (the next day!) was pretty wacky.
We saw lots of things that tourists saw. We took lots of pictures that tourists take. We ate at lots of places that tourists eat at. We also purchased lots of things that tourists purchase. We were tourists, you know.
I got about 1,000 pictures to sift through, as well as a few videos, so that’s gonna take a while. I think I’ll make a silly movie out of them all and write the music for it, too. Cuz that’s what I do. Robyn will most likely be more efficient than I and just post some highlights, which is all you really want.
It was a culture shock to be there, and it’s a culture shock to come back. It was totally worth it, though.
Zoetic’s New Cover Art
As mentioned in my previous post, the cover image for Zoetic was hastily thrown together the day of release as I was still waiting for the proper art from a cohort-in-creativity. Well, she finally finished it and it’s now been uploaded to Bandcamp. Thanks to Kathy for the art, yet again (this is her second cover art contribution for me, the first being for my video game remix album, Gamey Remix).
Announcing Zoetic, Written Entirely By Moi
Introducing Zoetic, now available at Bandcamp!
About 10 years ago I created my first “real” album of original music. It was called Clocks Striking 13. No, it wasn’t an ode to 1984, as I had actually forgotten about that reference at the time. I really just thought it looked cool, and gave me a good visual to base a cover off of.
CS13 was just a bunch of actual, fully-realized instrumental rock compositions I’d cobbled together over the years and then was able to record and mix together in a month. I created it in Cakewalk Guitar Tracks 2 on a Windows XP machine, using a limited amount of drum loops and a cheap microphone to capture some live guitar. Bass was handled by recording guitar and then EQing it. The albums sounds pretty dated now, but I’m still proud that I pulled it off.
Fast-forward to August 2011. I’ve got quite a few more guitars, basses, and other musical playthings. I’m much more of a one-man band now. I use a Mac primarily, and my sequencer of choice is Logic. I’ve bought several sample packs and have a couple MIDI controllers for input. A nice multi-input audio interface sits under my LCD monitor and some large audio monitors festoon the sides of my desk, ready for output. A lot has changed in 10 years.
The beginning of Zoetic began like lots of other projects: my thoughts coalesce into a single vision at some point, and I realize I have a few sketches or ideas between the new things I’ve recorded here and there for fun and some failed projects of yesteryear. I think to myself, “I might have something here. I might have an album.” And thus a Google Doc detailing a tracklist is born.
My initial idea for the album was going to include some electronic or experimental stuff alongside the usual instrumental rock that my brain constantly develops. However, I ran into some creative trouble on anything that wasn’t my stock guitar/bass/drums combination, so those ideas either went to the Impulse (OST) or to the digital archive bin. Over the next 7 months, tracks got cut or added at my whim, finally ending up at that magical number 11. The garageband that is me in a room with some guitars, mics, and a sequencer chock full o’ samples was all I needed. Except for a few samples here and there (and the drums, obv), Zoetic is all me.
And it’s available on Bandcamp.
You could say that this is a post-neo-grunge album, minus lyrics, but sprinkled with vocals. I don’t often sing, and I rarely write lyrics, but I really felt like adding some vocal accompaniment was needed for this project. Thus, I dug into my reserves and found some vocal samples here and there that seemed to sweeten the mix. “New Settlement” probably uses them the best, actually seeming like a melody that goes along with the music, and not just padding. Initially, I had no vocals at all, but since adding them, I can’t imagine these pieces without them.
One last thing: much like my soundtrack for Impulse, I’m putting Zoetic up for actual money. I usually think that my music isn’t worth anything, but I’ve come to feel like that’s the wrong attitude. For people to take you seriously, you must first take yourself seriously. I’m going to start that by putting a nominal fee on the downloads of any album I make that ends up at Bandcamp. Anything else that is more of a “single” or throwaway idea that’s still worth sharing will go to SoundCloud for free listening/downloading. My personal site at nebyoolae.com will soon just be a jumping off point for these services, and I won’t be hosting every single song I have like I’ve been doing for years. BC and SC do their respective jobs better than I could ever do, and I’m gonna start supporting that.
In sum, go and enjoy the music I have made. I hope you do.
Announcing the Impulse Original Soundtrack, Written Primarily By Moi
Making that profile on IndieGameMusic.com 3+ years ago finally paid off.
A few months ago I was approached by an independent developer who had created a new, free, space-themed puzzle game. He said he had placeholder music, but wanted original creations. He also wondered if I was interested in making said creations.
I responded politely, professionally, and most enthusiastically with what amounted to “Hell yes, sir”.
Now, I’ve never written music for an actual game before. I have written music for a fake game, Ebben Flow, which I envisioned, but never planned to make. Creating a game is tough business, and I doubt I have the skill and patience to create something that…substantial. Music, on the other hand, I can and have created in spades. Having someone else make the game so that I can score it is really the ideal plan, and that’s what’s so great about this.
Through the last quarter of 2011 I worked in spurts, creating 7 tracks of moody, spacey goodness, all for creating an environment suited to blasting a pod through the blackness of atmosphere in search of a green exit. Hopefully, anyone who plays it will think similarly. On that note, you should play it.
I’ve put up the soundtrack I created on Bandcamp, my first offering to them. For the first time (save for Pure Yellow Colour), I’m putting a price on my music. The price is not very high, but I feel like people take something more seriously if you put a price on it, like you think it’s good enough to part with some coin in order to see/hear/experience something. I’m loathe to do this, since I know everyone is conditioned to expect free stuff on the Internet (myself included), but I feel the price point is low enough to not be a barrier. There are a lot of great musicians on Bandcamp, too, and maybe I will be your rabbit hole. It’s what I’ve always dreamed about, really.
Thank you to Joel for contacting me, thank you to Apple for Logic, and thank you to the myriad sample and synth makers who create tools for making sound do my bidding.
Learning Bastion’s OST on the Guitar
Bastion is a game by Supergiant Games. If you haven’t played it yet, you really should.
The music playing in the background? It’s a pleasant mix of spaghetti western plus modern electronica. Darren Korb, the in-house composer, says he used Logic (and I can hear some Apple Loops in there, too) to sequence it. That gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, being a fellow Logic user. However, there are two spare tracks, just guitar and voice, that really cut through the thick morass of distorted guitar, snappy synths, and breakbeats. They are technically simple, but they resonate emotionally, much more than the rest of the soundtrack. They’re also the only songs that one person could conceivably perform by themselves (the one exception being the track where the narrator hums the first piece’s melody).
Watch this video to see one of them, as well as a third piece that’s a mashup of the first and second one.
Darren plays these songs in an open tuning, really giving them their characteristic “open-ness”, a sound that rings out because of all the open strings sustaining constantly. Now, I learned to play the two main songs, “Build That Wall” and “Home Sweet Home”, in regular tuning, mainly due to Internet tabs written as such and laziness on my part, and they still sound fine. You hear the music and sing the words, and you get the gist. For a quick accomplishment and bout of satisfaction, it gets the job done. Such renditions are not really “authentic,” though. You miss out on certain notes that shape the music in a distinctive way when you play them this way.
Retuning your guitar to play a couple songs is annoying, though, right? 99% of the popular music out there is written with the good ol’ EADGBE, and that makes it versatile when you just want to play a bunch of songs. I just want to be able to pick up the guitar and play a bunch of stuff without having to think about changing string tension. However, alternate tunings do mix up your way of thinking and can make you write and play differently. I think my first real dip into the world came via Soundgarden in the late 90s, a band that often writes things in alternate tunings. Whether this contributes to their unique sound or not is debatable, but it makes you think about composition in a new way. Each alternate tuning is like a portal to a different world of musical possibilities.
Years later, I wrote a song called The New Standard, which is written in open C tuning. I don’t play this song a lot when I’m noodling around. Can you guess why? ;-P It’s a great song, and something I never would have written in standard tuning, but needing to retune 5 out of 6 strings just to play it? Not going to happen often. This is the inherent risk in writing something in a non-standard way, no matter how fresh or novel the tune might be.
To sum up my point, Bastion’s spare guitar songs are beautiful. They’re largely beautiful because they lay a bare framework for a fantastic and melancholic voice. The guitar parts can be played in standard tuning, and I don’t think the fundamental core of the songs are lost. Playing them in their original open tuning, on the other hand, is what makes it truly distinct and will remain the only true, authentic versions.
That being said, I think I’ll stick to standard tuning for the time being.
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