Cover of Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie. Made with LSDJ but unfortunately not played via the original hardware. This was recorded via line out from a DS. Someday I might be able to redo it properly.

Soul Meets Body

An arrangement of the Christmas classic "We Three Kings" in the general style of Nintendo games made by Konami.

We Three Konami

An arrangement of the Christmas classic "12 Days of Christmas" in the style of the Nintendo game "Mega Man 2".

8 Days Of Master Robots

Get the full album on Bandcamp or pre-order the vinyl!

http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/in-the-rp2a-over-the-sea/index.php

An arrangement of "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel from my upcoming album using the RP2A03 sound chip inside of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, the album will be pressed to clear vinyl record complete with a gatefold jacket, black poly-lined inner sleeve, double-sided album insert and a protective outer poly bag! The goal with the album is to push the limits of the NES sound generation to recreate the overall feeling of each track on the original record while adding some personality reminiscent of classic 8-bit video game soundtracks.

The album is titled "In The RP2A Over The Sea".

The RP2A03 sound chip has five monophonic (one note at a time) channels: two pulse, a triangle, noise and DPCM (low quality sample). This provides a good variety of sounds for such a simple sound chip but also creates challenges in many ways.

- The pulse channels have the most flexibility when it comes to volume changes and sound, usually being used for leads and harmony but the low end range is limited with a#3 being lowest note able to be generated. Regardless, the low end, when the range and key of the composition allow, can still produce tight bass lines with volume fade and a number of different sounds by changing the pulse width, and are utilized intermittently with the triangle to provide fuller sounding compositions.

- The triangle has much better low end and is commonly used for bass lines but lacks volume control. For this reason, the triangle will occasionally be utilized as a lead or backing part rather than a bass line where more 'punch' is desired.

- The noise channel is essentially a random noise generator that sounds like radio static at different frequencies but when used creatively can create sharp sounding snares, high-hats, crash cymbals and kick drums in sequence. By forgoing longer notes and resorting to 1/4 step or shorter spans, the monophonic nature of the sound chip can be creatively subverted to have multiple frequencies seemingly played simultaneously. This is accomplished by alternating between these much shorter notes on multiple frequencies (arpeggiation) at speeds swift enough to fool the listener into thinking each intermittent line of notes is a solid one. In addition, this particular arrangement means that manual volume envelopes need not be drawn but rather the note velocities of each short note can be assigned to reflect the fade, echo and sizzle of various drum types - this works because the noise channel has a very subtle attack and therefore multiple shorter notes placed in sequence will sound similar to a single, long, solid note.

- The DPCM channel is great for supplemental percussion but the low bitrate results in muddier sounds that are often best utilized in tandem with the noise channel for a cleaner drum kit sound. The specific sample set being utilized came loaded on the MidiNES cart but includes a good variety of kicks, snares, crashes, hats and other percussion instruments such as toms. These are most useful as creating a tom sound with the noise channel alone is not ideal.

The combination of these five channels to create interesting tracks is nothing short of a balance of creative use and technical consideration but I very much enjoy working within the limitations and pushing them to see what's possible.

In The RP2A Over The Sea (NES Arrangement)

An arrangement of "Starting Over" by The Crystal Method, from their 2004 "Legion of Boom" album, using only the five monophonic channels on the Nintendo Entertainment System's sound chip.

Starting Over by The Crystal Method (NES Arrangement)

An arrangement of "Black Sheep" as sung by Brie Larson (written by Metric), from "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World", using only the four monophonic channels on the Nintendo Gameboy's (DMG) sound chip.

Having primarily composed/arranged for the NES previously, a lot of the techniques translated well while others didn't. Pitch bend was trickier but since the Gameboy has stereo sound, I played a lot with that separation in many parts. I also love the versatility of the WAV channel (instead of the TRI channel found on the NES), which affords the ability to change volume, pan, and 16 different shapes from triangle to square to saw.

Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my pro-sound modded DMG so I recorded the track from a stock one and cleanup the track up after the fact. It sounds comparable but not quite as good as a clean, direct audio output.

Black Sheep by Metric from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (DMG Arrangement)

An arrangement of "Money Runner" by the Italo Disco band Scotch using both the Nintendo Entertainment System and original Gameboy's sound chips.

By using both systems, extensive pitch changes and stereo effects were implemented to give a proper dance/club feel like only music from the Italo Disco scene could.

Money Runner by Scotch (NES + DMG Arrangement)

An arrangement of Danny Elfman's "This Is Halloween" piece scored for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" using only the five monophonic channels on the Nintendo Entertainment System's sound chip.

You might be wondering why it starts out like with the "Legend of Zelda" theme - during the month of October, I created a pixel art animation of a different mythical creature every day and posted it to my Instagram. Each was drawn with the color palette and in the style of the sprites from the original Legend of Zelda for the NES so I decided at the end I would put them all into an animation together and created this track to go along with it. Rather than simply tack on the "This Is Halloween" portion of a new track to a recording of the LoZ title theme, I recreated it - this is evident due to this track being a few half-steps above the original composition (in the same key as the original Elfman piece).

https://www.instagram.com/doctoroctoroc

This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman (NES Arrangement)

Visit the Kickstarter to get notified when the campaign to press the album to vinyl goes live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctoroctoroc/soft-bits-in-tribute-to-the-flaming-lips-0

An arrangement of "Race For The Prize" by The Flaming Lips using both the Nintendo Entertainment System and original Gameboy's sound chips.

By using both systems, extensive volume/pitch/duty changes and stereo separation were implemented to recreate the haphazard instrumentation and fill the sound space as closely to the original as possible.

This is the first cut of this track - the full album is available now on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctoroctoroc/soft-bits-in-tribute-to-the-flaming-lips?ref=5lx663

Soft Bits In

Race For The Prize by The Flaming Lips (NES + DMG Arrangement)

Visit the Kickstarter to get notified when the campaign to press the album to vinyl goes live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctoroctoroc/soft-bits-in-tribute-to-the-flaming-lips-0

An arrangement of "Waitin' for a Superman" by The Flaming Lips using both the Nintendo Entertainment System and original Gameboy's sound chips.

By using both systems, extensive volume/pitch/duty changes and stereo separation were implemented to recreate the feel of the original track and fill the sound space as closely to the original as possible.

This is from the final cut of the album available now through Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctoroctoroc/soft-bits-in-tribute-to-the-flaming-lips?ref=5lx663

Race For The Prize by The Flaming Lips (NES + DMG Arrangement)

DoctorOctoroc

Related tracks