Name: Maoyu - Vaikarona Orchestra by blakerobinson
Duration: 2 min 7 s
Description: A recreation of 'Vaikarona' from the Anime "Maoyu"'s soundtrack. There's also a little bit of improvised orchestration towards the end just to spice things up.

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Distant

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MP3 and FLAC available for Patrons. ► https://www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator

"I am Setsuna" is a game that tries so hard to be the next Chrono Trigger, which is why I am surprised why the soundtrack is piano only. I am going to guess that the soundtrack being all piano was more a budget decision than an artistic choice. The art direction and lore contain a lot of Japanese influence, so having a western pianoforte instrument at times sounded a bit out of place. Nevertheless the soundtrack itself is very beautiful and the piano evokes so much sorrow and a quiet hope that the world in I am Setsuna will find peace.

The battle music, more than the other tracks, felt like it was itself a piano cover of the mythical true full instrumental soundtrack that we never got to hear. To the composer's credit, the piano handled the rhythm, the melody, and all the flourishes you expect would come from a flute, or a harp, or whatever, and I could almost hear it from just the piano. Pretty impressive. So this is my attempt to restore the full version of the song. To make it hardcore traditional Japanese, I used an ensemble of Taiko drums and the Shamisen. And boy, was this so much fun.

While I tried to translate everything from the original track, the one thing I totally redid was the rhythm. Using about 5-6 Taiko drums of varying sizes, I came up with a ton of different rhythmic loops. I don't like how lots of JRPG battle music have the same beat that just keeps on repeating. You start to tune it out. I wanted to constantly change it up, so the listener is always on his/her toes enjoying the unpredictable nature of the percussion, reflecting the tension in a battle.

I originally chose to add the Shamisen just so the piece would have that traditional Japanese flavor, but while playing around with the sample library I liked the sound so much I upgraded it to be the star attraction of the song. I listened to a ton of shamisen performances, including the Yoshida Brothers, for reference. There's so much nuance to the way a pro player slaps and plucks and slides the strings that I can only do a pale imitation on my cheap library. I like how you can use the shamisen as either percussion or melodic. Almost makes me want to go learn to play the real thing.

For those that know about Beat Saber, once the official level editor comes out, I am totally going to create a custom level for this track!

Arrangement and fan art by Jeremiah Sun

Original Track composed by Tomoki Miyoshi
You can buy this game for PS4, Steam, or Nintendo Switch

Resurrected Memories

No Turning Back Orchestrated (Battle Theme) - from I am Setsuna

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▸ Sorry for the delay again, trying to get everything back on track. Here's a cue I wrote for an animation, it was the first time I used live instruments, hope you all enjoy!

▸ Background Artist: 流浪汉LZY

▸ Patrons: Scott Reszel, Autumn Rain Glading, Portlyn

▸ Hardware used: Kurzweil PC88 Electronic MIDI Keyboard
Mac Mini (2014), 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM

Program used: Logic Pro 9

Plugins Used: Albion ONE, Cinewinds CORE, Cinebrass CORE, Adagietto Strings, Piano in Blue, East West Orchestra Silver Edition, Piano in Blue

Setting Out

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A recreation of 'Vaikarona' from the Anime "Maoyu"'s soundtrack. There's also a little bit of improvised orchestration towards the end just to spice things up.

Orchestral bits and bobs

Maoyu - Vaikarona Orchestra

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GANG Awards
2012 / 2013

Category:  Best Original Instrumental 
Track: Apotheosis
Album: Journey

Composer:  Austin Wintory
Score Produced by:  Austin Wintory, Keith Leary and Monty Mudd

Publisher:  Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developer: thatgamecompany

"Apotheosis" from Journey - Original Soundtrack

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I've been tinkering with music since I was a kid, composing tunes for fun. Nowadays, I mainly write orchestral scores for video games. Alongside this, with an extensive career in the games industry as a tools programmer I've now focused my skills on developing next-generation sample libraries and music software.

Maoyu - Vaikarona Orchestra

blakerobinson

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