Author: Matthew
StarCraft Terran One 8-bit Cover (VRC6)
This week I covered Glenn Stafford’s “Terran One” from StarCraft’s soundtrack. Converting this piece to FamiTracker was tricky. Even with the VRC6 chipset, seven channels still isn’t a lot to work with. Side Note: Even though the VRC6 has eight channels, I decided against DPCM entirely. The original piece is sample/synth, so this seemed a bit redundant.
When working with limited channels, I stick to the basics first. This meant melodic, percussion, and basslines material took priority. Next, I focused on the track’s special effects and notable sound events. These ranged from various echo and phaser type effects to emulating big reverb sounds. Lastly, I created multiple ADSR envelopes for each waveform I used. These shaped the sound’s volume, pitch, and duty cycles.
This was a great lesson in both transcription and production. Not only did I learn what made the original track tick, but I gained a lot of experience in building mock instruments out of basic waveform shapes.
What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment in the video and let me know.
Breath of Fire II – “Clean Hit” FamiTracker Cover
I have a pretty big repository of works I’ve written and transcribed sitting on my computer. This collection consists of original pieces, transcriptions, and old music for various projects—lots of FamiTracker stuff! I’ll be sharing them here as often as I can.
Today’s entry is a remix of “Clean Hit” from Breath of Fire II. It’s by composer Yuko Takehara and uses FamiTracker to emulate Konami’s VRC6 chip. It was a lot of fun trying to create instruments that would work for the cover. Let me know what you think. 🙂
Bravely Second Musical Analysis
Is Bravely Second’s “Hold Your Breath” an original piece of music, or is it somehow related to Final Fantasy IV’s “Into the Darkness”? Let’s do a musical analysis and try to find out!