The 5-year international collaboration between Jeff “jmr” Roberts of Canada and Mikhail “streifig” Ivanov of Russia has brought us some of the best video game prog rock ever. You may have seen them at MAGFest or 8Static Festival in the past or heard their various contributions to numerous cover albums. Check out their covers collection of some less common, but excellent video game tracks.
Continue reading Marshall Art’s Prog-Rock Covers Collection “Gallery” Out Now
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new video game remix from the master of jazz Joshua Morse. His last release was VLAD, a four track Castlevania EP released for Halloween in 2013. His new album, Arcade Attack, is twice as long and features remixes from fan-favorites Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man 2, Chrono Trigger and more.
This playlist will update with new tracks as they become available
Arcade Attack is available for streaming on YouTube and Spotify, and available for purchase from Loudr, iTunes, Play and Amazon.
The SNES definitely has a lot of memorable tunes. Amazing compositions in games like Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger and many others have left 16-bit tunes running through our heads for years. This is where video game music started to take a turn toward the epic orchestral sounds we’re so used to today. However, you might have noticed that a lot more people are making NES, Genesis and Gameboy chiptunes and not SNES tunes. Why?
Well, the overall quality of SNES music isn’t really that great. It’s all samples. Many people will say it’s hardly any better than your standard MIDI. It is true that it doesn’t have as much character as 8-bit synths. However, there is some charm to be found in these degraded 16-bit samples of strings, flutes and guitars. I mean, the amazing, lush songs on some of the SNES’ RPGs just couldnt happen on the NES or Gameboy. I really love the snappy compressed drums in Secret of Mana too. Today, we’ll look at how to get these samples loaded up in your DAWs and also emulate the SNES’ classic reverb with a basic tape delay controller.
Continue reading Tutorial: Emulating the SNES Sound In Your Favorite DAWS
2 Mello, producer and DJ from Lexington Kentucky has just released Chrono Jigga, a mixtape of Jay-Z and Yasunori Mitsuda’s Chrono Trigger soundtrack. And the Internet rejoiced. Catapulting to the top of reddit’s r/music and being feautred on media outlets such as Polygon, Vice and The Verge.
Promoted by Scrub Club Records, this mixtape definitely pushes other VideoGameDJs to hustle harder. Jay-Z’s acapellas were released for free back in 2011, and while Jay may or may not have heard this album yet, we think he would agree it’s dope. 2 Mello produced this album with Acid Pro and Ableton Live, using samples from Native Instrument’s Kontakt to pad the Chrono Trigger samples. 2 Mello has been producing and MCing for over ten years, so youngin’s take notice! Hard work and determination pay off.
Download the album for free from ChronoJigga.com
