I think an orchastrated Link to the past would be awesome 

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this is soooo epicccccccc

love this song but it takes to fucking long

one of my favorite songs both orchestra and non

Yasss! I'm so glad to have you back! Love this song.

nice, I've noticed you mixed a little of san's theme in there, good job.

Big Shot (Spamton Neo) -Rearrangement- (Orchestra Only)

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)

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 - Berdly & Smart Race

‘Change is the only constant’.  Regular listeners will know that although my tracks may be similar on a day to day basis, over time there is always change.  Evolution, not revolution, has been the guiding principle from day one.  However, it is interesting to ponder whether one can exist without the other.  What do you think?

19 May 24 Further Changes

This dual mix combines Undertale's soundtrack "Core" with ModeSeven's Sega Genesis remix "Blast Core Processing".

Music source: 

Core OST - http://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/track/core

Core Sega Genesis Remix by Modeseven - https://soundcloud.com/modeseven-1/blast-core-processing-undertale-core-remix

Picture source:

Flying Mettaton pixel-art by Nightmargin - http://nightmargin.tumblr.com/post/131939380861/the-secret-hidden-undertale-ending-where-you-pick

Youtube version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc41y8hFq7Q
 
You can buy the game and/or soundtrack here:
http://undertale.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540
http://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/

Also check out Toby Fox's Twitter and Tumblr for fan-artwork and overall good humour:
https://twitter.com/undertale
https://twitter.com/fwugradiation
http://undertale.tumblr.com/


Undertale Core Dual Mix

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

Deltarune Scarlet Forest String Player Gamer Violin Cover

My process arranging this track was a bit different. I spent most of my time experimenting with different instrument combinations and phrasings to get a feel of how I would ultimately tackle it. There's a bit of an identity crisis in my version, where you can tell I was flip flopping on whether to go for epic or silly. I thought both approaches worked well, and in service of circus/carnival music, just go for broke and pile it on!

For my research, I listened to circus/carnival music, as well as related game music and noted what I thought were defining characteristics. For percussion, there's the original beat the toby fox used with the kick and snare played really fast. There's also the trademark timpani and cymbal crashes that make everything really lively. For the melodic instruments, there's a ton of brass. I couldn't find any reason to put strings in (except for the violin solo), and pretty much took them out entirely. In addition, the instruments that really give carnival music its "sound" is the mini organ as well as the magnificent accordion. What an awesome versatile instrument it is. I can use it for harmonic chords, and also as a solo instrument with fast articulation, and can play 1/32 notes just fine. Speaking of speed, the only reason I had to slow it down slightly from the original speed is to accommodate the short notes of my VSTs so it wouldn't sound too muddy. 

Now to explain my approach. The original track starts with a couple bars of the ostinato and transitions to a chord. I feel that it happens to quickly and needs a bit of a buildup. I stretched out the ostinatos for a few more bars to make it serve as a better intro, but still wasn't satisfied with the result. Eventually I decided to add a new melodic phrase to the A section. I am very proud of the result. It’s layered perfectly on top of the original ostinato and the connecting melody. Especially in the second go around with the solo violin, it’s a bit reminiscent of “Kingdom Trial” from Chrono Trigger. I replaced the beat with the circus timpani/cymbal combo. Darn...you might be disappointed that it has a different feel from the drumset. But guess what, in the repeat, I bring it back! Aww yeah! And it comes after a great buildup with all the happy go lucky instruments having their fill.

For the B and C section, I went with as many instrument/beat combo changes however I see fit. I imagine each of Jevil’s attacks is like a different performer at a circus. Less the super impressive stunt performers like trapeze or balanced plates, but more the center ring of the stage where there’s just so much going on. Tigers jumping through fire rings, elephants running amok, clowns on unicycles, you name it. In Jevil’s own words, it’s chaos, and he can do anything! The music morphs from one texture to another without letting up. Interestingly, I didn’t want to use too much percussion toys, or it would distract from the actual music. I gave the brass a couple of counter melodies to play against the main melody, threatening to crash through to center stage and bring the whole tent down.

Also, drunken trumpets

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 - THE WORLD REVOLVING

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

So I shared my plan on the community page detailing the rest of the Deltarune tracks I planned to orchestrate, and a lot of people noticed Vs. Susie was not one of them and loudly voiced their desire for me to arrange it. I was thinking, ok I'll probably save it for last, but thought it would be cooler to surprise drop this track first!

The reason I did not consider this one was because the track has an intense heavy metal, and translating it to an orchestra would change the feel of it. I started out adding the electric guitar and designing the orchestra around it, but that didn't sound right either. Then, I thought, maybe I should approach it like I did with Megalovania and just go big with the Hans Zimmer-ish percussion, but I didn't want to retread similar ground. This was tough as I didn't want this track to sound like an afterthought.

While experimenting with the percussion, I came upon a winning combination: Cajon + Drumkit. I used this in Field of Hopes and Dreams with the drums as more of a support, but here I tried to utilize both equally. At my church, the hall we use for worship is not good for drums, so we have people use cajon for a better mix. It works well enough, and as I listen to people play and experiment with it, I feel like, even if we eventually incorporate drums into the band, the cajon could still be utilized to enhance the mid-high range frequencies. So here, the undercurrent of the fast and aggressive cajon is meant to symbolize Susie's rage. While it's a bit hard to hear specifically, I spent quite a bit of time writing out different rhythms and transitions for the development of each portion of the track.

If the percussion and the repeating ostinato represents Susie's exterior demeanor, then the soulful cello, high strings, and trumpet characterize Susie's inner thoughts. I thought it would be cool to really draw out the emotion and justapose it with the angry motif, as if these instruments think they're playing a different song. Until the ending, I kept the beats and harmonies intact, and a big challenge was to try and have the strings play long notes that soar above the general discord in the song. We can see throughout the game that while she's kind of a loner, she has a desire for friends, but she has trouble voicing her feelings and generally doesn't like to display much sentimentality. She also flip flops from hero to villain and back because she is trying to find her identity to excel as. It'll be interesting how toby fox will flesh out her character in the future.

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 - Vs. Suzie

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 Orchestrated - Scarlet Forest

The Second Narrator

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