Retrocovered
0:47:18Трек-лист
- NESformers
- Fami-Dance
- Song 6502
- The NESsage from Dr. Light
- New Year's Data
- Propane NESmares
- (Just What I) 2A03'ded
- NEStroid Metal Theme
- Say it ain't sixty-FO
- NES Me An Angel
- C_Drive
- Duke NES'em 3D
- ImpermaNES
Описания треков
Back in 1986, after a lot of childhood TV watching, the powers that be got serious with Transformers and made it more badass, darkening it some. They brought us a PG rating with big-people words, more dramatic character development, and decidedly a killer soundtrack (especially for the time), including a glam metal redux of the main Transformers theme.
Whilst air guitaring (the only form of guitar I play, probably to everyone's benefit) this theme in my mind and waxing nostalgic, as many 80s kids surely do, I decided I would flex my chiptuning muscle by writing a NES rendition of it in anticipation of the upcoming Transformers live-action movie. The Contra drums were a bit hard, so I tried the Super C drums out on this one. I think it came out rather well
Often when playing chipmusic for folks, I'll also show people how I do it, and in an attempt to do so, ask them a song to cover so I can do a few bars of it and they can watch everything come together. This started as one of those songs and for quite awhile I used it as a "name that tune" at shows, slowly turning channels on and off and giving away CDs to people that could guess it.
But, it couldn't be that way for long. This song has to be one of the number one nerd-anthems of 80's music. I got a lot of requests to finish it, and as it turns out, covering this song into NES really just makes it even more into a nerd anthem. To boot, a few synth things match up perfectly just like some of my other tracks.
If for some reason you don't know, Famicom is the Japanese name for the NES, from whence the title stems.
This was written alongside my Weezer track to have another crowd pleaser at my first show. It worked pretty damn well. And then I used it as a "movement experiment" at my Play N Trade show which also worked pretty well. Probably the most instantly recognizable track I've done so far. A C64 should be fully capable of reproducing this.
By the way, yes, I know the Commodore 64 contains a 6510 and not a 6502, but if you know your chips you also know the 6510 is just a modified 6502.
So there I was, hanging out with THE MEGAS on the Internet and telling Greg about my latest chiptune when he said it would be cool if maybe there was an NES cover of a song by THE MEGAS. Well damn, I was thinking the same thing! So now we've gone full-circle.... from Nintendo to Vocal Rock back to Nintendo, with all the added original material by THE MEGAS.
If you've never heard of THE MEGAS, sweet jesus, go over to www.themegas.com or check out their bandcamp at themegas.bandcamp.com right now. This track is on both Get Equipped and Get Acoustic.
THE MEGAS' all capital lettering scheme has been brought to you by our good mutual pal: Tony McNameDrop
lyrics
Chorus:
be-beep beep be-beep be-beeeeep
beep be-beep beep
beep be-beep beep
beep be-beep be-beeeeeeep
beep beep beep be-beep be-beep beeee-beeep be-beeeeeep
beep be-beep beep
beep be-beep beep
beep be-beep beeeeeeep
beep beep bee-beep be-beep beep beep be-beep beep beep
If there's one thing I've heard a lot of in my life, it's U2. This probably goes for a lot of people, but especially me. You see, my dad's quite the fan, to the point where he has pretty much anything U2-related that's ever been released, even remixes, covers, and everything from the fan club. So, quite a bit of U2 music has made an impact on me throughout my life.
This song used to be an inside joke of sorts, as it was intended to advertise the chiptune concert at MAGFest which did infact happen on New Year's. I didn't really have the song done in time, though I did play an early version of it at the show. I hope you like it, since I've spent way too long on it. =]
To those that are curious about my technical process, I really find the keyboard elements and bass line to be key in recognising this song. Adam's tone resembles the triangle wave and Edge's keyboard notes sound a bit like the 50% square so I did my best to preserve them on the NES without sacrificing the vocal melodies or the interesting things U2 always does with guitar "effects". I used the Gyruss/early Konami snare since it has more snap.
This one's a pretty nice (and so far the most recent) example of my non-expanded NES work instead of C64 like my last tune, this is a pretty much direct cover. I've kept on with the campy titles for now. Short story? I like the track and it was playing in everyone's car ever in 2009. Stuck in my head like whoa.
Commentary video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zRGwmRtqkw
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This is the second of the three Cars covers I started on and by far the most frequently aired -- at least, locally -- so it was the next-most pervasive one to pop out of my machine. I had a lot of fun writing this one despite a little bit of a block towards the end. No real new techniques or anything here, I just wanted to write something happy and put people in a good mood.
The oddly-timed bridge sounds very natural in their song but threw me for a loop (no pun intended) a few times until I nailed it. I was very pleased with the way the heavy vibrating synth at the end turned out, which is ironic/amusing because I wrote that part first. The filter was left off for this one. I'm trying to atone for my sins from C_Drive, here.
Original: The Cars - Just What I Needed
band that has both played MAGFest and I am in decent communication with. This guy [nick]named Stemage, he's a pretty nice guy, and he did all of these totally metal, progged out covers of Metroid you can get at metroidmetal.bandcamp.com and they're damned awesome.
So now, he plays with a full band. With thanks to his bandmate Kirby, we talked to the crew at PAX East before their next (now past) show, and managed to arrange for them to fade out in preparation for Metroid Metal to play....but then they would play my track before they opened the curtain. With the plan to give the cover to Stemage in motion, I had to overcome one major hitch: I was already at the event.... and...ackk...not done! If only I could finish!
Well, I did. Ten minutes before they went on. I ran in with a preliminary WAV render on my cellphone and we hooked it up to the mixing board. The crowd went nuts, but they didn't know that Metroid Metal was behind the curtain going just as crazy. It was awesome. lyrics Will you quit looking for lyrics and headbang already?
Original: Metroid Metal - Theme Original Original: Metroid - Theme Original Cover Art: Robbie Player
