this feels like a zelda boss reveal, this is incredible

Hello, I was always iffy about arranging this track because the melody sounded too fast for an orchestra. My basic self from earlier usually just hands off fast melodies to the violins or some kind of keys instruments and they would just carry the whole thing. That felt wrong for this particular orchestration and wouldn't add much from the original. So my biggest challenge in this arrangement was to preserve the melody in its original form, while being able to hand it off to nearly all the instrument families of the orchestra. It wouldn't be too ridiculous sounding for any section, including brass to have a burst of speed and dexterity right?

In this last year, my master class professor has basically been the Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack. The team of composers have arranged 10+ versions of the iconic battle theme, tweaked into many different styles to suit the different locations and contexts of the battles that take place. I kept this in mind and imagined in the full Deltarune game, perhaps there would be many variations of the battle theme. I wasn't going to do 10+ versions of this, so I only explored each of my ideas for a couple measures, then moved on to the next idea. The final track may sound decently cohesive, but the way I utilize the instruments changes from section to section. For example, in one section I may want the piano to support with the syncopated rhythm, and in other places I want it to play like it's baroque period Bach, and have other instruments follow suit or even fight it off.

My orchestral libraries have been able to handle roughly 80% of all articulations, but doing the fast melody while still leaving room for expression really challenged me here. I've always been lazy with the woodwind and brass side, so here I forced myself to utilize samples from 2-3 other libraries for brass and woodwinds, to make them discernable at such high mph, making more use of solo instruments for clarity. I settled at 133 bpm speed for the song (vs 140 in the original track) that I felt is a realistic speed for an orchestra to play that doesn't sound like it's tripping over itself.

The inherent silliness of the arrangement adds to the comedy of the battles that at many times feel more like slapstick hijinks, or even tender character moments. I wanted the instruments to feel like they're goofing off, with none of the intensity of the boss battle tracks I've previously done.

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 01 is currently free to download on PC and the Nintendo Switch!

Deltarune Orchestrated

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - Rude Buster

So, I am still figuring out how to best arrange the main tracks from Deltarune Chapter 2. Since the majority of setting is the Cyber City, I gotta evaluate if I should incorporate some synth with the orchestra or not. In the meantime, here's an orchestration of a track that has some distance from the cyber synth sound. The general flow and structure is very similar to An Ending from Undertale. You have this repeating motif played softly that gets more and more agitated, but when the lush harmony kicks in, it overwhelms the listener with emotions and warmth. Because of this it was easy enough for me to arrange this track in the same way…

OR DID I??????? My immediate observation from playing Chapter 2 was that it had a real sense of momentum. I was always moving forward, dodging cars, riding giant teacups, crashing into obstacles at high speed. Ralsei, Susie and also Noelle are so nice and encouraging to Kris, they liven up the mood so much. The game over screen shouldn't break my momentum, but instead propel me to get back quickly on my feet! And that's why, listening to the game over track, I thought to myself that an EPIC VERSION would still fit the spirit of the track. I generally don't like epic-fying a track for no reason, so if you guys notice me doing it more often for the "clicks" CALL ME OUT ON IT. It'll get stale fast.

I'm still practicing with Hollywood Orchestra OPUS Edition, while adding all that good Hans Zimmer drums and percussion. I still can't get the woodwinds to express as much as I'd like, but the overall balancing of instruments is a bit easier. In the first softer loop, I worked hard to avoid having the harmony hold long notes underneath the melody the way I did in An Ending. You'll also notice that I changed the baseline a lot compared to the original. Most of the track consists of the same three-note motif down the scale, so I pulled out all the stops to prevent it from sounding too repetitive.

For the epic percussive part, this time I limited myself to only a handful of drums that I used, because I wanted to break the habit of just piling it on. Listening back to my previous Undertale/Deltarune boss music, I cringe at how messy and aggressive all the drums sound. I remember reading an interview with Hans Zimmer where he said when playing drums, never hit it too hard, because the "slap" you get on the high register can clash with the overall sound. Thanks for the advice, Hans! I made sure to really just tap the notes on the keyboard, and with some general EQ and reverb tweaking, tried my best to make each instruments distinguishable while still filling out the space.

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 - Faint Courage (Game Over)

Happy Deltarune Chapter 2 day!!! It's a pure coincidence that I had this track finished today. Once you see this video, I'll be loading up chapter 2 for the first time and see how the new music is!

Does this track sound a lot different than my entire library of music? That's because I'm using a completely new sample library: EastWest Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition. I still love all the Cinesamples and 8Dio stuff I've been using, which is much easier to get that rich, luscious feel right out of the box. However a lot of times I want to be much more specific with the kind of articulation I want out of the instruments, so I used this track to practice on EWHO. Each instrument's base level is a lot flatter, and requires a lot more parameters to adjust to get it to sound how I want, but I can see the potential. I created a new project template that has a whopping 275 tracks!!! 40GB of RAM used if I activate every sample lol. Even the reverb I'm using is completely different, and I'm hoping as I improve, my music sounds more and more like a live performance.

My approach to this track is a pre-cursor to another track I want to take the same approach to that I will arrange soon. See if you can guess what it is (one of the Final Fantasies). I didn't read too much into the context of the town before Ralsei's castle, and just wanted to make a track that romanticizes the town from a time when it was thriving, full of activity and celebration. While you walk through the deserted street and hear this music, you get a tinge of sadness, melancholy, and want to reminisce about the happy days.

I made 2 iterations of this track before I settled on what you hear. The first version was a straightforward soft waltz orchestra, where I listened to a ton of waltz examples from Strauss and Tchaikovsky. That probably would have been a more "faithful" arrangement, but I liked the idea of telling a story with the music. Also, I count this as a "do-over" of my The Legend arrangement. Hopefully you'll find this arrangement more dynamic and interesting. It's admittedly a little overboard, as you can pretty much leave the area in 30 seconds and never hear the music again. HAHA.

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 Orchestrated - Empty Town

This is an alternate/re-remix of my "POWER OF [[NEO]]" track I posted a bit ago.
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSppviwSUko]]
I got inspired to make this by "BIG SHOT with [[BIG DRUMS]]" by Ragathax on Youtube.
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELJFyBHfeeM]]

But I decided instead of simply changing the drums and adding another set on top, I could make it sort of Chilled too. So now this is a "Big Chill Mix"
There is some other changes like the instruments and effects and some placement of some other samples here and there.

Art used: [[https://twitter.com/Bathtub4Rats/status/1449133292523950080?s=20]]

POWER OF [[NEO]] (Big Chill Mix)

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

DELTARUNE Chapter 1 Orchestrated - Gallery

In my planning of this orchestration, I felt that a traditional transition would sound too similar to the original track, especially if I used the same drums. Seam has this pretty chill indifferent attitude to the player, but the melody here is pretty fleshed out. It hints at some rich backstory, and you see them again in Chapter 2. I imagine if you ever made a spin-off with Seam as the main character, you'd see the character theme that while originally a throwaway motif, get spun out and developed even more, and that idea is what I decided to go with.

In my arrangements and compositions, I've usually been afraid of having pure slow songs, partly because I find it difficult to use long sustained notes without it coming off as flat, and it's really easy to expose the artificial sound of virtual samples. Here I forced myself to embrace the slowness and really work at layering and fine-tuning each instrument's expression. I used more Distant Worlds arrangements for inspiration, particularly the Dark World arrangement from Final Fantasy VI.

Deltarune Orchestrated will be available on iTunes/Spotify upon completion of the album. This is 13/20

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 1 Orchestrated - Lantern

Enemy Approaching Yellow but with a few tweaks to fit the Snowdin area of the game!

Composed by Toby Fox and remixed by me.

Remember to check our fangame Undertale Yellow: gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925

Undertale Yellow - Enemy Approaching (Snowdin)

Get the piano score free at https://www.patreon.com/posts/22855853

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Everyone please remember to show appreciation to friends, family, and even your enemies, because they built your character. For now, let's talk about Friendship. I always get the urge to just churn out a ton of piano covers for easy views, but I think about the possibility of missing out on an elaborate arrangement like this one, and convince myself not to.

I went full Studio Ghibli on this one, and took a lot of inspiration from Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. The phrasing at 3:55 is the first thing that came to my head, and I totally got that from the Spirited Away theme. In addition, the my instrumentation pulls a lot from the symphonic arrangement of Princess Mononoke. Just so I don't leave out any other familiar influences, other pieces I might have subconsciously took ideas from include Love Grows from Final Fantasy VIII Piano Collections, In my Life from Les Miserables, and some Chinese Christian hymns!

In contrast to my previous piano arrangement An Ending, I decided to have the orchestra play a more active role. Friends come in all shapes and sizes, and having a variety of instruments surrounding the piano like people making themselves known seems very fitting. The melody here appears almost everywhere in the game, and to me the world in Deltarune is a generally peaceful place that's just unfortunately ruled by a BAD GUY. It's a relief at the end when all the subjects come to save you from the king after he takes advantage of your mercy. Slower and softer songs are still a challenge to me, and I can't just cover everything up by having the piano take center stage like I did in An Ending. I find that I have to always keep changing it up with the orchestra, and avoid using the same harmonies or rhythms. To enhance expressiveness of the music, I spent a lot of time agonizing over the ritardandos in the piece, which in a virtual setting is impossible to get just right. You would have seen me air-conducting the music like a maniac, trying to see what exact bpm I need to slow it down to. The tempo chart in my DAW looks like a seismograph!

I made the piano parts much easier to play compared to An Ending, so you're all welcome for that. I didn't feel it was right to make it too show offish, because you shouldn't be overshadowing your friends. For some portions I gave the melody to the orchestra and just have the piano playing a supporting role.

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 Piano and Orchestra - Friendship

Man, this was one tough track to produce. I spent more time on this than all the other deltarune tracks combined!  Not that this piece was particularly difficult conceptually, but it uses a musical style I am unfamiliar with, and getting it to sound good enough forced me to finally learn how to mix better.

YouTube user "I'm Very Angry it's not Butter!!" (yes that whole phrase is the username) suggested I try to incorporate a bit of Irish Jig into the piece, which I thought about and decided it would be a good fit. I did a bit of research on the instruments used, and listened to a lot of Irish/Scottish folk music, as well as similar sounding music, like Rend Collective, Hiroyuki Sawano's soundtrack for Seven Deadly Sins, and Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers soundtrack. I learned that Jig music is normally 6/8 time, while Scottish Reels use the 4/4 common time, which fits Field of Hopes and Dreams' time signature. While I incorporate some trademark elements of Irish Jig and Scottish Reel, I hesitate to designate my music as that style, as I am all over the place with my arrangement.

Breaking down the original track, there are three distinct parts: the establishing beat, the main deltarune theme, and the bridge solo. The rhythm is easily my favorite part of the track, and hearing the percussion come in while playing deltarune for the first time was just sublime - a much stronger first impression than Undertale's opening. And naturally, this is the area I played around with the most, as the repeating rhythm and motifs could be extended as long as I want, unlike the melody of the second and third parts. It is here where I added the fiddle violin. I created a simple phrase and tried my hardest to jam it everywhere in the track. When you hear it, it's your cue to drop everything and dance! However, with that said, my favorite part of the arrangement is still the middle main theme portion. It's just really catchy!

The setup for the Irish Jig / Scottish Reel sound is as follows. In addition to the fiddle violin, I used the mandolin, accordion, tambourines, Bodhran drums (Irish frame drums), accoustic guitar, cajon, and Kick drums. When mixing the percussion, I supplemented the Cajon/Kick drum beats with a regular drumset. I designed the space of the instruments by placing the Jig/Reel instruments in the front of the stage, with the orchestra behind them. I believe the final sound is much more balanced than the previous THE WORLD REVOLVING track. Because I want to preserve the awesome beat of the track, I finally went to learn and practice how to mix percussion correctly. A common complaint with my arrangements is that everything sounds a bit flat, and a big reason for that is that the drums are never punchy enough. And so here I am utilizing all the techniques I learned: Parallel EQ'ing, Parallel Compression, Saturation, Triggering. I still haven't fully mastered the technique, but I am improving!

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 and by Jeremiah Sun

Original Theme by toby fox

DELTARUNE Chapter 01 is currently free to download on PC and the Nintendo Switch

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - Field of Hopes and Dreams

Apologies for the long wait. I worked on this track for the entire eight months since last my last update and it was stuck in some serious writers block. First, I am not a big fan of the original track. The harsh strings setting the rhythm in the original, the revolving round, and the reuse of the main theme just made everything feel too repetitive. I decided to just not bother with the last section. Second, I decided not to use any gimmicky instruments, and just stick with the traditional orchestra setup. No piano either. By dealing with a softer, at times slower piece, I needed to spend exponentially more time getting each note nuance to sound right, as they would be under much more scrutiny to a listener. I basically took away the usual tricks I use to mask the imperfections of my orchestral samples, and this was such a headache to deal with. On black friday I went online and bought a ridiculous amount of new orchestral libraries that I anticipate will make my life easier in the future (they are not featured in this track).

My two big reference tracks to draw from for this were the Distant Worlds orchestration of Final Fantasy VI Phantom Forest, and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Phantom Forest in particular I feel does such a good job of evoking the mood of a mysterious forest, and if you close your eyes, you can kind of picture when each instrument flies in and leaves, are like all the lush vegetation stretching to infinity and animals running around everywhere. Pizzicato strings sound much better for the rhythm, and can be pulled back more to give space for the rest of the instruments. The nutcracker shared a similar instrumentation, and I especially like how groups of instruments would just swell in and then leave. Everywhere is just teeming with life. If you were to explore a dense forest on your own, you can look choose where to turn your head, where to approach, where to focus your attention on, see something completely unique. So to imitate that, which toby fox has also accomplished with the round, is you can in the same way focus your ears on listening to a particular instrument, and they are playing their own melody or motif. I try at times to have either a counter-melody, or just basic riffs and chord progressions that if you were to isolate, could sound good on their own. A lot of times I've mixed them all the way down, to the point where you might not really hear it clearly at all, but the knowledge that they're there is satisfying to me.

I guess another big change I should talk about is the overall melancholic and sorrowful tone in my version that's way more pronounced. The sad strings and bright flutes were basically the two things in toby fox's original that I did enjoy, and just speaking musically, I just didn't like that it got more cheerful when it transitioned to the main theme at the end. To fit the scarlet forest better, he probably should have made the strings a bit more happier and mischievous, but he didn't and so I took them and ran with it in the opposite direction. I altered the notation a bit in my version, expanded the middle, and wrote a new ending that just makes you want to cry. It's great!

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 01 is currently free to download on PC and the Nintendo Switch

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - Scarlet Forest

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 Chapter 1 Orchestrated - Gallery

The Second Narrator

Recent comments

gibbous_time

Domestos🇺🇦

Riachuelo

Related tracks