Super Smash Bros. Anthology - Vol. 31: Nintendo & Friends

109. MEGALOVANIA

Berdly's theme and its variation in his boss fight are an interesting contrast. Toby fox has the first note used as a pick-up to the 1st beat, while in the fight it is the down beat. It's a little disorienting to the listener being shifted slightly. If we consider the theme to be more in line with Berdly's personality, then the battle theme can be interpreted to be Berdly acting not completely in character, as he is manipulated by Queen. Queen's theme is very classical/baroque sounding, with a hint of carnival, and I thought it would be cool to have the Smart Race portion of the track start more action/cinematic, but slowly transition toward more classical style music.

The Berdly portion of the track is coincidentally waltz style again. Perfect, since I just arranged Empty Town, and I think I got the instruments to sound even more natural and expressive. That being said, I only spent 5% of total work time on Berdly, because Smart Race is crazy…

I usually slow the orchestra down when the original is a chiptune, because it's usually too fast, but in this case I wanted to challenge myself to make the orchestra play just as fast. I settled at a blistering 145 mph (I mean bpm lol), just slightly down from the original's 150bpm. And I still have instruments play 1/16 notes. It's absolute madness! I knew this was possible to pull off after hearing the boss music in Final Fantasy VII: Remake translated to orchestra with increased speed! As the first fight with Berdly takes place on bumper cars on a track, I had F-Zero GX in my mind the entire time arranging this.

Even at this fast pace, I wanted to bring out the "classical/romantic" sound as I previously mentioned really show Queen's manipulation. I didn't really notice that her theme actually plays in the intro. I just thought it was just some flourish until I listened closely with my headphones. My unique approach here is that I arranged the orchestra section first without any percussion, like I was simply creating Mendelssohn-sounding music, but then later dropped in the percussion layer. Hope you enjoyed this technique because I am proud of how much nuance I put in the "performance." Different parts don't just play in harmonic chords, they have their own counterpoint melodies. I also probably did the most amount of "air conducting" to the music, just standing at my desk and waving my arms to feel each section come and go with the right emotion.

Deltarune Orchestrated will be available on iTunes/Spotify upon completion of the album.

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

Arrangement by Jeremiah Sun
Original Theme by toby fox

DELTARUNE Chapter 1&2 is currently free to download on PC and the Nintendo Switch!

Deltarune Chapter 2 Orchestrated

DELTARUNE Chapter 2 Orchestrated - Berdly & Smart Race

This was supposed to be one of those simple filler tracks that I add to round out the Deltarune arrangement album. As usual, I got too caught up and stuck with the arrangement that it took forever. In the first loop of the arrangement, I kept roughly the same instrumentation and really went for that marching band vibe. Ordinarily I would have just stopped there, but I felt that made the arrangement pointless over the original track. 

 

The trigger for the second loop that inspired me is the intro portion for Final Fantasy V's main theme. I just love how the hi-hat taps in and the arpeggio chords play from the harp. It really got me excited to go on the journey, and I thought it was pretty appropriate for Deltarune's beginning. I pretty much aped the opening completely here and just kept building off it. With some discipline, I'm gonna force myself to spend less time on future tracks.

Deltarune Orchestrated will be available on iTunes/Spotify upon completion of the album.

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

Arrangement by Jeremiah Sun
Original Theme by toby fox

DELTARUNE Chapter 1&2 is currently free to download on PC and the Nintendo Switch!

DELTARUNE Chapter 1 Orchestrated

DELTARUNE Chapter 1 Orchestrated - Beginning

My Castle Town but its a lofi remix (Deltarune Chapter 2)

Original: https://youtu.be/JMhOq8k0QH4?si=1KZpTLLbVMm0lxAQ 
Image: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=vTT9jxhTXg_9Uz4F

Trial By Fury Phases 1 & 2 - Undertale Yellow

shifty july 31 take 1 80 bpm

People have been constantly requesting more Undertale tracks, and I aim to please. The tracks most requested are all the boss fight songs, and since they are all very heavy metal/synth/rock style, I needed some time to figure out how to arrange. While doing a direct translation of the instruments worked alright for Heartache, I didn't feel the same approach would be as effective for MEGALOVANIA.

Apparently MEGALOVANIA is a combination of megalomania and Transylvania, and not a mix of Mega Man and Castlevania, as I originally guessed. Digging further, I saw that the piece was used as the boss fight in toby fox's Earthbound hack. Since Sans was never this brutal throughout the game, and he gave you many chances to turn back, I concluded that this theme is actually the protagonist's boss theme. Being that this music occurs during the Genocide run of the game, the music serves to highlight the intensity and evilness of the player gone mad with power.

Most of my time spent on this track was amassing the big percussion sounds to construct the epic "Hans Zimmer" cinematic feeling. I didn't want to use a simple drum kit like I did in Heartache because the original rhythm it would have sounded extremely repetitive in an orchestral context. So using a generous helping of Taikos, Epic Toms, Timpanis, Surdos, I came up with all sorts of rhythms to use as the foundation to give life to the piece. I took the catchy melodic riff and adapted it for percussion, with all sorts of variations. The end result does not fit into any specific genre. The middle solo section even has an unintended Asian feel to it.

I imagine this piece is something a high school band/symphony would play at a school concert. After performing the usual classical pieces, they close out with this piece for fun times. People are seen wheeling out the big drums and an assortment of ethnic instruments. The attendees clap along and some get up to dance. Lol

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

Original Song composed by toby fox

Undertale is available on Steam

Undertale Orchestrated - MEGALOVANIA

This was the first piece I wanted to arrange, along with Field of Hopes and Dreams (I haven't figured out how to approach that one yet!). What's really exciting here is that I got to build further on techniques and instrumentation I developed from pretty much all my previous Undertale arrangements. Plus I spent a considerable amount of time balancing every instrument, EQ'ing every track to get it sounding good.

My takeaway from the original track and the context of the boss fight is a mix of shock, terror, and some mischief. You know while ascending the palace that the king is not going to grant you access to the fountain, but what surprises you is his disapproval of his son. Not only does he show such disdain, he even relishes in his villainy. This creates a strong motivation to the player to abandon the pacifist method and go all genocide on him.

Hopefully you can tell from listening to my arrangement that I had so much fun with the percussion. After doing the I Am Setsuna track, No Turning Back, I had an itch to make another track with percussion that is intense but still quick on its toes. Nearly all of toby fox's original rhythm is preserved, and I merely layered on top of that.

For others wondering how to orchestrate music, think of it as remastering a game. You don't just copy the same notes and substitute orchestral instruments. That's like slapping on some high-res textures and calling it a day. Does anyone enjoy playing the Final Fantasy games ported to mobile with the smoothed out graphics? You have to remodel everything from scratch with more detail. So for percussion, a trick I use is to subdivide the original rhythm, and then cut it up and distribute it among a bunch of instruments. Give the big booming drums the down beat, and the higher frequency instruments the syncopated and faster 16th note beats. Here are all the percussion patches I used in this song.

Spitfire HZ01 Percussion - Boobams, Paper Djuns
Spitfire HZ02 - Sony Stage Drums
Soundiron Clacks - Bamboo Pole
Cinesamples CinePerc - Taikos, Concert Toms, Tambourines, Tubular Bells, Crash Cymbals, Ensemble Claps + Snaps
QL Stormdrum - Ambient Largeness, Lord of Toms Ensemble, Clacks (Taiko), Spring Drums

I used to only use the stage mic versions of the patches because I naively thought that was the best when trying to recreate the sound of a full orchestra. Here, I experimented a lot with close mic versions, and I discovered that with the right control I can really get the punchy sound of the drums out without having to raise the volume out. This extended to the melodic instruments too, and allowed me to give the cello the same percussive rhythm.

I repeated the first half of the song because it's my favorite part. I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to explore without repeating the entire track. I didn't want to rush into the more intense variation right away because it deserves a build up. If you listen closely, the percussion rhythm in the first run-through is inverted before being restored at the repeat at 1:35. Another first for me in this track is pairing up instruments from different families. I used to keep the woodwinds, strings, and brass separate in their motifs, but here I had them all make friends and do parts solos together, so you'll hear match-ups like Harpischord/Horns, Piccolo/Trumpet, String/Percussion, Brass/Choir. Hope you guys enjoy this!

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

Arrangement by Jeremiah Sun

Original Song composed by toby fox
DELTARUNE Chapter 01 is currently free to download

Deltarune Orchestrated

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - Chaos King

Original melody by Toby Fox, orchestral arrangements by Osirois Music.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/BJKzfdpCQDs
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3fsEHSLJVeff3aasSOQMgC
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/osirois-music/1432754313
Bandcamp: https://osiroismusic.bandcamp.com/

Legend

Deltarune - The Legend (Orchestral Cover)

Deltarune - Friendship (Orchestra). Original melody by Toby Fox. Arrangements by Osirois Music.

Youtube : www.youtube.com/osiroismusic
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/3fsEHSLJVeff3aasSOQMgC
iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/artist/osiroi…music/1432754313
Bandcamp: osiroismusic.bandcamp.com

Deltarune - Friendship (Orchestral)

I've been waiting so long for this remix and it's such a banger, so y'all know I'm going to listen to it on here. Jonny can do anything.

The World Revolving (Deltarune) - GaMetal Remix

I am a developer as well as a self-taught composer. My style is creating narratives in music through the use of strong melodies and unique instrumentation.

Primary DAW used: Presonus Studio One

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - Chaos King

The Second Narrator