The original Nintendo Entertainment System has always been near and dear to my heart, having started me on the exhilaratingly fun time-sucking vice of video games at a very young age.
Probably the most enduring part for me is the music: despite only having control over five possible wave instruments (square, 12.5% pulse, 25% pulse, triangle, noise), the NES composers managed to create some of the most memorable and catchy tunes I’ve ever heard.
Not only do I love the sound of those primitive waves, but having to work within those constraints is a great help for a beginner like me, so I decided to give it a try. I’ve created a song to a Nintendo game that never existed, and I’m calling it “Good Ending” because it’s quite happy sounding and would probably go well with crawling credits.
I was going to just post it as Steve Cochrane but there’s already a musician by that name, so I’m going to be somewhat pretentious and use my gaming alias Ruins Everything. The song was made by rather simple means: it’s all waves from the Magical 8bit Plug software synth, pecked into my MIDI keyboard and sequenced with GarageBand ‘07.
Warning: this is my first attempt ever at original musicianry and I have no formal training in music theory whatsoever (though I’m about to read a book on it). The key to listening here is to set your expectations really low.
No, lower. Good.
Listen to Ruins Everything - “Good Ending” (1:56)
If you do happen to like it feel free to download the mp3 (2.68MB) or the GarageBand source file (34KB, both are under this Creative Commons license) and do a sick remix with Justin Timberlake vocals over it or something. Be sure to let me know if you do though, I wouldn’t want to miss that.
Update (November 17, 2008): Ruins Everything now has its own site.
3 Responses to “Good Ending”
Feb 6th, 2008
Awesome. I love it.
Feb 16th, 2008
Wow; nice job!
Feb 18th, 2008
This was great. I could totally see it as a song in the River City Ransom sequel that never was. Have you had much chance to take a look at the NES synth patch? I downloaded it as well a few months ago but haven’t spent much time playing with it since I decided that trying to learn guitar and synth at the same time was too much. I think I’d like to spend some time getting to know it a little better, though.
On a side note, I’m glad you decided to go with the name “Good Ending” rather than “Happy Ending” for somewhat obvious reasons.