sine wave

Description

Turrican contains many excellent pieces of music, all written by Chris Hüelsbeck (sometimes spelt Hülsbeck or Huelsbeck). The "Level 2-1 Theme" is not easy to play, as it seems to jump from one key signature to another very frequently! And those high arpeggio bits are very fast! When I did my "First Attempt" at perfroming the spooky sounding "Level 2-1 Theme", I felt there was room for improvement. So, for my fourth performance in this series, I decided to torture my brain a second time and do an "Improved Performance" of this piece! I've uploaded my "First Attempt" as well, but I think this one is better. In this performance, my choice of sounds was more accurate and I played the piece with fewer mistakes. There's also one part of the piece that I didn't play quite right in my "First Attempt". I played the Roland W-30 and the virtual instrument Lounge Lizard, controlled by the Korg N5. The Choir sound I played on the Roland W-30 originally came from my old Yamaha EL-7 Organ. I sampled all the sounds from it years ago, shortly before leaving home for an independent life up North. When I chose the original notes to sample from the Choir sound, the keygroups were pretty much set in stone. However, the key-range I had to use for the "Level 2-1 Theme" didn't fit very well with the set keygroups. I'd have hardly used the highest keygroup at all and the lowest one would have spanned a very large range of keys. What I did, to use the keygroups equally, was to put each one down an octave. This made the Choir sound very muddy and lo-fi. If I'd have done the same on a slightly newer sampler, like an Akai, it wouldn't have given that same muddy sound. But that's technical stuff! The Choir sound is much cleaner on the Yamaha EL-7. And it actually sounds the same as the Choir sound in the original "Level 2-1 Theme". Chris Hüelsbeck could have used a different Yamaha instrument with that same sound. The Lounge Lizard specialises in Electric Piano sounds. The one I used has a real Sine Wave character to it, like a Theramin. It also has a built in delay. When I scrolled through the sounds and found that one, I thought it was perfect for the piece! If you want to see my other performance of this piece, the video is called "Turrican Level 2-1 Theme (First Attempt)". The intro music is a heavily effected excerpt of my recording of the "Turrican Loader Theme". I put Low Pass and High Pass Filters on it, to give it a mid range type sound, as if it was coming through a phone. I also put a Flanger and Reverb on it. Check out my video "Turrican Loader Theme (Slow-Load Version)" to hear the recording in full and without the extra effects. You'll also find the video clip I used in the intro to this video, along with several more, except not in slow motion. Thankyou cubex55 for allowing me to use clips from "Amiga Longplay [061] Turrican". And thanks to the game-player, ScHlAuChi. Here are the links to cubex55's web sites, mentioned in the credits: www.recordedamigagames.org www.longplays.org On another note, if you wanna see me in a couple more guises, check out the two bands I play in, Roxyrama and Remember Hillards. Both have Youtube channels and websites: Youtube: Roxyramaband Website: www.roxyrama.co.uk Youtube: themightyhillards Website: www.rememberhillards.com