Source: "Elle's Theme" from Terranigma
Requested by Suzumebachi

First was going to do an orchestra with a string quartet playing against it, but then decided I wanted a bass synth in there somewhere and scrapped the orchestra entirely, ending up with a kind of bizarre fusion of synths and string quartet. The synth solos were done with a Korg Monotron. Strings are VSL -- the automation programming isn't as polished as I'd like, though, because Sonar kept crashing.

The title is a pun on the word "arco," a string bowing technique, and "Ark," the name of Terranigma's protagonist.

Title: Darkness Fears the Light, and We Fear the Darkness
Game: Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand
Track: Dark Boy
Length: 5:33
Requested by Mirby
VSTs used: Vienna Symphonic Special Edition Plus, Stormdrum 2, BlueTubes Analog TrackBox (analog amp sim), M30 Reverb, SIR (reverb), Sonitus:fx multiband compressor


There's a lot of great material to work with in this track, and because I had a relatively clear idea of where I wanted to end up, the arranging wasn't particularly difficult.

I do wish that I could have fleshed out the orchestral arrangement a little more, but I'm running on an aging laptop, which makes juggling lots of samples a pain. The stripped down orchestra that I used (clr, bsn, hns, tpts, tbns, tmp, perc, vln 1, vln 2, vcl w/ cb doubling) let me work without having to do much in the way of VST freezing or sample unloading.

For anyone curious, the chaotic string swells at the beginning were created by layering tremolo, trill, and sul ponticello tremolo samples.

I'm generally pleased with how this turned out, although if I were going to sub it to OCR, I'd probably be a little more meticulous about the production.

Original at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2q23M5t8Vo

Game: Jill of the Jungle
Original Title: Song 5 (Castle Theme)
Requester: Amayirot Akago

The original melody isn't changed much, but it exists in an entirely different context now with some fun meter changes from 4/4 to 12/8 and back.

There are some transients that prevent volume-level optimization for the finished mix -- I'd compress them out if I had the time. Just turn up your speakers if you need to.