Guitar

Music Production, Software

Guitar Loop Library ‘Acoustic Revolutions 2’ is Out Now

November 4, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Guitar Loop Library ‘Acoustic Revolutions 2’ is Out Now Share this

The music software company Impact Soundworks has launched a second volume of their Acoustic Revolutions series titled Acoustic Revolutions 2. The library features loops of an acoustic Taylor guitar and are designed to be useful for a variety of styles and genres. The loops, which are organized by tempo, time signature, and key, do not require a sampler to be played and the WAV files can be dropped and placed into any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

Acoustic Revolutions 2 is available on Impact Soundworks for $49 and you can buy Acoustic Revolutions 1 + 2 as a bundle for $65. You can head over to the Impact Soundworks website for more details.
Featured, Game Music, Music Production

Check Out This 17 Minute Tribute to the History of Videogame Music

June 2, 2014 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Check Out This 17 Minute Tribute to the History of Videogame Music Share this

If you frequently explore YouTube for videogame music covers, chances are that you’ve encountered the videogame rock arrangements by Jules Conroy, aka FamilyJules7X. If you haven’t, then today you are in for a treat. For the past three years Jules has been arranging and performing music from videogames and uploading videos of these arrangements to his YouTube channel. He’s covered games including Donkey Kong, Pokemon, Binding of Isaac, Final Fantasy, and Elder Scrolls to name just a few.

This year, to celebrate the three year anniversary of his videogame cover projects, Jules put together a seventeen minute long medley of game music. As the title suggests, “Replay: A Metal Tribute to the History of Video Games” is a guitar cover tribute to videogame music and covers the medium’s more than thirty year history. The medley starts off at the year 1972 with the original Pong, works it’s way through classic Nintendo and Sega games, and proceeds to go through every year up to 2014.

As if the size and scope of this medley alone wasn’t impressive enough, Jules completed this project, start to finish, in just eight days and during the same week as his college finals. According to his video description, he only had four days to record the guitars, one day to do the arranging, one day for the drums, one day to mix and master the music, and only one day to edit all of the video footage. He set it up as a challenge for himself and the results are quite amazing. It’s an impressive feat to get all of that done in such a limited time frame. If you’ve never seen or heard his arrangements before, definitely give the FamilyJules7X channel a look. Metal fans and videogame enthusiasts will not be disappointed.
Game Music, Reviews

Gritty Riches: Shoot Many Robots (Review)

July 4, 2012 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on Gritty Riches: Shoot Many Robots (Review) Share this

We VGM aficionados tend to classify composers, trying to make them into certain-shaped pegs so they fit the holes we expect them to. I had Rich “Disasterpeace” Vreeland pegged as almost exclusively a “chiptunes” composer. In my mind, he did chiptunes, usually in a math/prog-rock style. But no one composer is as one-dimensional as we assume them to be.

Case in point: Shoot Many Robots from Demiurge Studios and Ubisoft. This soundtrack is about as far away from the world of square waves as you can possibly get. I mentioned to Rich, in passing, that this soundtrack was way out of the norm for him. His reply? Apparently, it’s more common than we fans realize.

To learn what Rich meant by that, and to get some feedback on this new soundtrack, join us after the jump. (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

More Than Hoarse Narration: Bastion Original Soundtrack (Review)

December 14, 2011 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on More Than Hoarse Narration: Bastion Original Soundtrack (Review) Share this

“Listen: all this takes a lot of gettin’ used to. And you do get used to it, after awhile. There’s three things I’ll always miss though. One: not havin’ to watch my step all the time. Two: …ehh, forget about two. And three: I miss the songs.”

And with those words, the insta-classic narrator of Supergiant Games’ hit title Bastion kicks off Darren Korb’s mighty whirlwind of a soundtrack. It’s gutsy, it’s gritty, it’s hard-down country folk with a touch of capital-W World music and some electronic inspiration to match the mere fact that this is music for a game.

But yes, for the most part, it’s Korb and an acoustic guitar, playin’ the blues so you can sing along. After the jump, my take on this strange and wonderful soundtrack. (more…)
Game Music

Hand me my Retro Goggles: Ninja Gaiden Love on YouTube

October 21, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Hand me my Retro Goggles: Ninja Gaiden Love on YouTube Share this

Our discussion of classic Castlevania soundtracks last week had me yearning for some other classic NES goodness, and what better series to jump into than Ninja Gaiden, which also experienced a drastic change in direction (and an incredibly negative one, in my opinion) a few years back. I absolutely adore the music from the first three Ninja Gaiden titles on the NES, and while there have been arrangements created over the years on big sites like OC Remix and VGMix, I never really connected with them.

After digging into YouTube, however, I found the above piano rendition of the ending theme from the first game. If you hit the jump, I also found a cool Mario Paint version of “The Masked Devil” from Ninja Gaiden 2, and while there are tons of guitar arrangements from every which game out there on YouTube, I actually enjoyed the Ninja Gaiden 2 intro that yakmaniac created, programming his own percussion and bass backing instead of relying on the Nintendo sound source.

Let us know what you think of these videos, the music of Ninja Gaiden, the series’s change in direction, and if you know where to find more quality arrangements!

Hit the jump for more. (more…)
Japanese, Reviews

Japan’s Prolific Guitar Player: Kotaro Oshio’s Eternal Chain (Review)

September 24, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 2 Comments Share this

Well, I guess it was just over a year ago that we covered Tussie mussie, Oshio’s first cover album of pop standards that I got a huge kick out of. While Eternal Chain was released shortly thereafter in August of 2009, it marks our third review and his third full-length album release in the period of a single year. That’s pretty impressive, and it’s all quality work.

For those who missed out on our reviews of You & Me and Tussie mussie, Kotaro Oshio is one of Japan’s most well-known guitarist, working magic with just an acoustic guitar and his fingers. While you’d categorize his music as mainly “easy listening,” there are certainly some melodies that will have you humming along and even bopping your head as you progress through his latest outing.

Hit the jump for our review of Kotaro Oshio’s Eternal Chain. (more…)
Game Music

Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and More on Guitar

June 29, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and More on Guitar Share this

Yes, we have more YouTube videos for you. I actually spotted this link over at Soundtrack Central some time ago, but only got around to checking it out in depth just now. YouTube user CalebElijah has posted a number of videos of himself playing some of my favorite tracks from Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and a number of other titles on electric and acoustic guitar. He clearly has a great taste in music.

The lengthy and soothing performance of “Rose and Spirit” from Secret of Mana above was one of my favorites, although his energetic performance of Breath of Fire’s second battle theme on electric guitar may be more up your alley. He’s even gone as far as to include tabs for some of the arrangements. Hit up CalebElja’s YouTube channel and check out the rest of his videos. They’re well worth your time.

What do you think of his performances? Think Square Enix needs to take notice and put together an official project of their own?

[via Soundtrack Central]