DELTARUNE Orchestrations by The Second Narrator

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

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

Thanks to my friend "onemorebrick" for providing the vocals. Follow his lego channel! - https://www.youtube.com/c/anotherbrick

The music for the first encounter of Spamton is really slick, with this catchy motif, much like Megalovania in Undertale. Outside of the rap vocals, there a two main A + B phrases. Like many of his tracks, toby fox's style is to repeat them ad infinitum while messing with the underlying rhythm, and sprinkling flourishes and other fun stuff here and there. So in my orchestrated version, I thought it'd be a challenge to see if I could preserve the phrases intact and use them in differing contexts. The phrases show up as background rhythm, or the main melody, or even just as a counter melody. Whereas the first half follows the flow of the original track, after the vocal rap, I change up the baseline so there's a more of a music progression. Our first encounter is more lighthearted, but the arrangement hints at a darker reunion somewhere down the line (if you choose to go that route!) and Spamton's desperation comes into further light.

The section at 1:40 was the first idea that popped in my head. It's like I could go to a band and just start off playing this, and all the other musicians could easily jam along, and improv to their heart's delight. The B phrase is really familiar sounding and I believe variations of it have shown up in lots of places. Playing this theme with orchestral instruments was tricky because immediately sounded a lot more messy and muddled compared to the punchy original. I didn't want my orchestra to pile it on or it'd end up really similar to what I did for Megalovania. I used a larger ratio of solo patches to try to mitigate that, and used only a drumset for percussion, and the occasional cajon for flavoring. Also, I was coaching my friend on how to replicate the vocal of the original track, but he kept coming off as aggressive rather than silly, so I just rolled with it. LOL

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 - NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A

Here's me doing an impression of jazz music haha. My only real exposure to playing jazz was during high school band, and I barely remember stuff about bass lines, minor 7 chords, syncopation, swing rhythm. I got this sweet SWAM saxophone sample library to try to integrate into an orchestra. Can't believe I'm only now using saxes. I went an listened to a big playlist of jazz music to kinda get the general feel of it. I'm sure not everything I did in this arrangement follows jazz convention correctly, but oh well. 

 

The original track has this bouncing beat that I wanted to preserve, cuz it perfectly encapsulates Lancer's playful mischievous nature. Toby fox's use of jazz is perfect, because while I was playing around with filling out the sound, I wanted to add a bunch of changes to the structure and texture that would make it really unpredictable to the listener. 

 

The funny thing is that I assume most jazz musicians are great at improv and can just fly off with their solos and articulations while being in harmony with all the other players. Being a jazz outsider, I had to instead meticulously sketch phrases and ideas out on my piano, and then translate them over to whatever instruments I thought sounded best. Some of the chords and flourishes I ended up using were a result of just brute force banging on the keyboard, trying out random notes and timing until I felt like I heard something nice. Finally, getting the overall mix to sound like it's in a cozy underground club posed another challenge. Most of my libraries were recorded/designed for large hall space. Even though I took out almost all the reverb, some instruments still sound like they're really far away, like the trumpets and trombones. Just pretend that the jazz stage is too small, so a bunch of players had to sit backstage. I got a newfound appreciation for jazz music. There's elements about it that I can see myself continuing to use in 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 Jazz Orchestra - Lancer's Theme

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

This is like the "filler track" that I added to expand out the Deltarune orchestration album. The K. Round checker guy makes brief appearances in EP 1 & 2, and I hope the next time we see him, he becomes even more powerful and silly. Perhaps in chapter 3, toby fox increases the intensity of the track, and I imagined my orchestration as an arrangement of that version.

The style of the track I imagined as somewhere in between Vs Suzie and Chaos King, and I kept the instrumentation roughly the same. My prompt for here was that I wanted each orchestra section to feel like they're all going in different directions, not really working together. Sometimes one section is playing the accent beats, while the other plays the super fast fill motif, and while one tries to sound serious and epic, the other is concerned with goofing off.

The funniest part is at the end, I had the idea of the strings trying to take more focus back and stumbled on a cool ending tag. It has major influences from Xenoblade II's Crossing Swords, and the general feel of an Octopath Traveler battle track. (OMG I can't believe how amazing the Octopath Traveler II soundtrack is!). From all the chaos and mess, the sections come together and play out a banger and leave.

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

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 - Checker Dance

hope toby fox can finish this game. Playing through chapter 01, I feel like the presentation and pacing is much stronger than Undertale. The soundtrack so far is catchy and memorable just like the original.

The Legend sequence in the opening lends itself to much gravitas. For the arrangement, I focused only on filling out the soundscape more. If there was one criticism I have of toby fox's music style, it's that he can repeat phrases a lot without any variation. This is understandable, as his soundtrack is still very extensive, plus he makes the entire rest of the game too. To make each repetition of the theme flow better, I altered the last measure in each playthrough to transition better to the next phrase.

I didn't use any fancy instruments beyond the normal orchestral set. For the final section, I interpreted it as a quartet, and added the double bass and viola with their own parts to fill out the sound. All in all, the final product has a primarily medieval/classical tone to it. This was a bit challenging to do, as slower music is not my strong suit. I have to really work on the articulations and texturing for long notes so they don't sound too flat with the virtual samples.

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

Arrangement and fan art by Jeremiah Sun

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

DELTARUNE Orchestrated - The Legend

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 - Chaos King

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

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