Here is my entry into the 6th round of the Blockchain Music Contest! I ended up missing the last one and I am still kicking myself for that, so I had to sneak my entry in just before the deadline! haha
The theme for this round is "Video Games". As some of you may know the last piece of music I put out was an EP called "Inspired By Anime & Video Games" but that project was far from the first video game-themed project I have put together; it's just the only one I ever put out! haha
If I had left myself more time towards this I probably would have delved in and tried to make something new for this, but by the time I got around to it, I only had a couple of hours left before the deadline. However, I knew I had one, in particular, that would fit this theme super well and it's also one that I would like to get people's thoughts on as this is one I have guarded and kept under wraps since I made it in 2016 haha.
So I opened up iTunes and tracked this one down pretty quick, but while I had "video game" typed in the search bar I decided to give all my other video game inspired beats from over the years [ranging from 2008 to 2018!] a listen and I must say it was quite the fun time. It caused a bit of a dilemma since I was already set on this track but I found a lot of other great contenders in there [one of which was from 2009 which surprised me that I liked an old beat of mine that much now haha] but in the end I went back to my original thought!
There is quite a bit to this track in terms of all the little sounds throughout so I won't cover everything. It starts off with some familiar sounds to anyone who played Super Mario World, as you have the kick and stomp serving as a kick snare type combo and the dragon coin serving as the percussion. It was a cool touch to instantly give it that video game feel and worked surprisingly well throughout the song. Other video game sounds are coin sound effect from Super Mario Bros. 3 which you hear every 4 bars and of course Mario saying "Let's A Go' which is taken from Mario Kart 64, covering 3 generations of Nintendo consoles :) . I also had the stage clear theme from Super Mario Bros. 1 in there loaded up. As I recall I was going to use it in the outro but it just didn't fit.
The drums are your typical Trap affair with rapid hi-hats, a banging 808, snare rolls etc. I also have a gunshot sound hidden in there that you may hear from time to time. I was considering it as a "signature" sound of mine for a few months around the time that I was making this beat so it made it's way into pretty much everything I was putting together...glad that ended haha.
Instrument-wise I used a few very video game like sounding synths all utilizing the same melody with a little variance from time to time. These would be a Lead,Arp, Strings, Poly and a very Dr.Dre like piano that I absolutely love. There is also a pluck that I use as a build of sorts, I really like using plucks as a lead in, into my choruses. An old roommate of mine [who is a rapper] always really enjoyed my plucks and so did I so I definitely credit him to pushing me to use them more!
For the chorus, I chopped up some vocals hoping that with it being titled Get On My Level I could trick people into thinking that is sort of what is being said haha, funny how well that can work sometimes! There is also a 1-Up effect that isn't from Mario it was just from some huge video game SFX library I had and some dub-scratching sounds in there to give it that Hip Hop flavour and subsequently date this song with its slight Dubstep influence haha.
For the 2nd verse, I also bring in a rather triumphant DJ Toomp sounding French Horn. I always pictured the 2nd verse being a rather accomplished rapper spitting some game.
In fact, my dream collab for this song would be to have Classified on the 2nd verse and myself on the 1st. I was going to mention it earlier in this post but trailed off before I did haha but this beat was made for a project that I have been working on since 2012. Over time many beats have been claimed for this project much to the dismay of rappers I work closely with haha. I think it's pretty much a running gag at this point with friends and music friends of mine, this long talked about video game inspired rap project of mine that claims some of my best beats that never see the light of day haha.
I am really hoping to take a stab at putting it together and narrowing down what beats I will use this year as I finally am able to fully work at music as of the past few months. A re-worked version of this beat will definitely be one of the beats on that project though, for sure!
I made this song in FL Studio which has been my DAW of choice since early 2006!
Looking forward to listening to all of the different entries in this as I think the theme will bring forth some really awesome tunes!
► Listen on DSound
► Listen from source (IPFS)