bitbybitsound

Healer #193 Jingle - Level Up/Item Get/New Party Member

Happy Friday Party Members!

Today's post is a touch different but I think you'll like it! I received a suggestion yesterday from my buddy Mondune for an 8-bit level up jingle. I really liked the idea since I hadn't done many of those, but I wanted to take it one step further. Sooo....

Included in this post is 4 VERSIONS of the same jingle: an 8-bit version, a 16-bit version, a 32-bit version and super artist emotional piano version. I started off with the basic 8-...

Warrior #174 Lost

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

Ok sooo I know I normally don't do a bunch of horror music until October, but I was messing with some new sound design methods yesterday and this popped out. To be fair, it doesn't have to be applied in a horror setting. It's just a very downtrodden kind of song. Plus the main atmospheric pad I made definitely gave Silent Hill vibes. :D

The first melody line to come in sounds like a woodwind instrument, but its actually some bowed crystal. It sounded r...

Healer #192 Library

Happy Friday Party Members!

Today's song is an oldie...well it's an oldie where I come from. Ye oldie style that is.

Was playing guitar the other day and I came up with the main idea for this tune. Really the whole progression just fell into place. I went for a less is more approach and just added a simple melody line over top and skablam: Medieval Library tune.

I think I was taking inspiration from Daguerreo (FF9), although my take is a bit more sad/melancholy. Hence the na...

Warrior #173 Eclipse

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

Hey did you guys know there was an eclipse yesterday? I've barely heard anyone mention it...

My workday/workflow got slightly interrupted yesterday because of all the hubbub. I actually forgot that it was happening until yesterday morning, so I was ill prepared. I worked on a few ideas (4 actually) but wasn't sure which one to pursue. Then when I was reminded of the event happening, I thought I would go with this idea to coincide with it. :D

It's...

Saturday Surprise - My First Patreon Video!

Hey! I'll keep the summary brief since it's all in the vid.

...ok that should be good!

But uh yeah give it a watch and let me know whatchu think!

-Bert

Healer #191 Wrestling - SNES style

Happy Friday Party Members!

Yesterday I got a suggestion for some 16-bit wrestling scene music. Some of you may not know this, but I've been pretty big into wrestling the past few years. I watched it as a kid, and then stopped watching until 2020 when I got back in to it.

So naturally, getting a request for 16-bit wrestling music sounded like a fun idea to me. I used a mix of soundfonts from Mega Man X and the WWF Raw games. I knew I needed that chugging guitar riff sound and a dr...

Warrior #172 Save

Happy Tuesday Party members!

If you're in my Discord, you may have seen my message yesterday about it being a "tough writing day." I went through a few ideas early in the morning, but nothing was really sticking. Usually when this happens, 4-5 times I know it's time to dive in to my songs folder to see if I can find something that I started but never finished.

Luckily I found this gem pretty quickly, and really it was like 90% done already. I added in the flute sound and the weird...

Healer #190 Forest Mines

Happy Friday Party Members! Hope you've been doing well.

I'm running late so I gotta keep this post short. This is a cool little forest/mining ditty I came up with the other day. It's got a lot of layers that gradually build up over the song. It's always fun when I can take a simple little idea and stack other simple ideas on top of it to create something that sounds really complex.

Anyway, I really like the way it sounded, so I hope you do as well! :D

As always, thanks so m...

Warrior #171 Council - Orchestral

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

I've been dabbling a bit more into orchestral stuff recently. I know I've released quite a few orchestral tunes in the past, but I've never really felt like it was one of my strongest genres. So I figure, the only way to get better is to just keep doing it, regardless of if I think I'm good at it or not. :D

In particular, I'm trying to get that PS1 orchestra sound, because of course I am. Honestly I don't even know exactly what that means. I just know ...

Healer #189 Inventory

Happy Friday Party Members!

Today's tune is short and simple, but it's effective. There's something about muffled, slow backbeats that just resonate with me. :D

I called it taking inventory, because it feels like one of those tunes that would play in a ps1 survival horror, where you are recapping the plot, or you're in a safe room stocking up on health items. If you ever played Legend of Dragoon though, you might even think of it as an inventory menu tune. That game had a great tu...

Warrior #170 Coastal - Travel Theme

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

I was toying with a couple of ideas yesterday morning, when I saw Hikitsune Red post in Discord my updated song count. He's got things categorized like Battle, Dungeon, Town, Event and Travel. 

Well the number of travel songs I've done was lowest, sitting at only 38, so I thought today I could bump that number up to 39. XD

It ended up being a very tropical sounding theme, and that's probably because Chrono Cross is one of my fav games ever a...

Healer #188 Platformer

Happy Friday Party Members!

I only have a couple of minutes to write this so I gotta make this one short.

I had an idea in mind for today but I put it on hold because I just wasn't feeling it, and it wasn't finished. So I started from scratch yesterday afternoon and came up with this cool little groove.

It reminds me of something you'd hear in a late 90s, 3D Mascot Platformer. Something like Bomberman 64. Or possibly even New Tetris on the N64....ok basically anything from t...

Warrior #169 Mystical

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

I had a couple of candidates for today's tune, but I felt like this track was the stronger choice of the two.  It's got that mystical forest vibe...Idk what it is about harps but they always do that to me lol.

I thought I would call it "Questionable Paths" to lean into that, but also to imply it's use as a cutscene theme. This could work well if you have a moment where your characters are going over what they've learned, or the options laid out in...

Healer #187 Grove

Happy Friday Party members!

For today's tune I was aiming for that PS1 vibe again. I always come back to that really, it's my favorite era of gaming after all. It's an earthy, atmospheric tune. Obviously could be used in dungeons but could also find its way into an overworld or village section, if done right. Listening to it makes me want to play Chrono Cross again for the hundredth time.

We are coming up on song 200 for the healer tier!! Hard to believe that man...it's been a lon...

Warrior #168 Space

Happy Tuesday Party members!

Today's tune is giving me title screen vibes for a dramatic space game. It's a bit of a slow starter but really layers up quite a bit in the latter half. It's almost 3 minutes though, which is a bit overkill for a title screen track, so it could definitely be used in a more prominent spot in a game.

What are some placement ideas you guys have for this track?? Let me know! I'm always interested in hearing your thoughts on these tracks. 

As al...

Healer #189 Battle - Perilous Tower

Happy Friday Party Members!

What started off as a slow trotting, holy chapel style song, became an upbeat, 90's action tune. I knew I wanted to do something based around a choir at the start of this. So I set my tempo and came up with a choir line. But as I developed the tune, I started wondering how it would sound if I increased the pace a bit. Well I did (quite a bit...like, + 60bpm) and it took things in a different directiont.

Once I got that and the basic structure down thoug...

Warrior #167 Ether

Happy Tuesday Party Members,

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to a loved one. I don't really want to go into details but yesterday afternoon I got to go and visit her one last time. I knew it was coming so the writing session yesterday was...well it was a bit hard to focus. 

I just wanted to do something calm and peaceful because of all that. And that's how this song was born. 

Shorter post today I know, but not really sure what else to say right now. So, as always.....

Healer #185 Factory

Happy Friday Party Members! 

So I got a new virtual instrument pack the other day. It's a bunch of augmented/modified piano patches that sound really cool. I was messing around with that and found a couple that sounded like there was machines working in the background. I really liked the vibes it gave and instantly laid the foundation for this tune.

Just about every instrument in this is from that new instrument pack, so basically it's all modified pianos. I did add in an act...

Warrior #166 Villain - False Deity

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

Time to face the BIG BAD! Or at least head through his castle...or maybe watch a cutscene with them in it. Idk you get the point.

This track actually has some call back elements to "Warrior 112 Epic Battle," so the two could work well together I think. I didn't set out to do this intentionally but as some of the melody bits came in to play they reminded me of that track, so I just leaned in to it and tied the two together.

I always get myself int...

Healer #184 Memory - Flashback Scene

Happy Friday Party Members!

Got a simple but effective tune for ya today. I was looking through my songs folder yesterday and found a file called "Very cool piano in 5." Well I gave it a listen and the title wasn't wrong lol. It was just a short little riff so I extended it out a bit and added the string swells at the end. 

I thought of a couple other approaches to it but it really felt like it was one of those simple, short segment tunes. I could have added different section...

Warrior #165 Rain

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

Yesterday was a rainy day. And not like, "Oh it sprinkled a little bit and now it's just a little misty out," I mean it was RAINING heavy basically all day.

Not gonna lie, I love days like that.

They suck when you to go out and about in them, but when you can stay at home and just listen to that all day, man I love that.

So I got up early, did my normal morning routine, and started in on this song. And the rain inspired the main piano line ...

Healer #183 Forgotten - Ancient Garden

Happy Friday Party Members!

Oh man I'm excited to share this one. I've been going for vibes recently and I think this ones got it. Ancient forgotten grounds/temple/garden vibes. It's really atmospheric (thanks reverb!) and I think it would work great in a variety of styles of games. RPG, Adventure, Metroidvania...heck even a Horror game could make this work. 

I've really been trying to up my game for you guys in general, so I hope this accomplished that goal. But if nothing e...

Warrior #164 Dungeon - Hidden Mines

Hey Party Members! Hope you had a great weekend.

I'm keeping with my recent trend on this one. I've been leaning into a songs atmosphere, rather than focusing on elaborate melodies and chord progressions. Seems like this approach has been enjoyable for you guys so I'm just rolling with it.

I think this approach came about since I played Hollow Knight. That game was great dude, and I loved the unique atmosphere oozing from each area. The artwork was a big part of that but it was re...

Healer #182 Sci-Fi - Identity Crisis?

Happy Friday Party Members!

I really like how today's song turned out. It's a bit different than what I've been doing for a while. Which is the best segue I can think of right now...

A lot of tracks I've done have been attempts at mimicking other great songs. I mean, that's really pretty common in most creative fields. You try to mimic the artist/musician/writer that inspire you. And along the way you start to find your voice.

But recently, I've started to wonder if my musi...

Warrior #163 Cyberpunk

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

If you saw my post in Discord yesterday, then you already know that this is the most 80s song I've ever written. Well, actually it's more like...what the 80s thought the 2000s was going to be like, if that makes sense. It may not sound like it right at the start but stick with it, that 80s flair really starts to show up around the 1:00 mark.

This is a non-looping song. I didn't want to force a loop by fading out the drums. BUT if you guys REALLY want i...

Healer #181 - Ancient Grounds

Happy Friday Party Members!

There's been a couple of instances I've noticed recently while gaming, where the music for a section was just drums. It's not the first time I've heard this obviously, but it kind of stuck out to me the other day. One instance was playing Hollow Knight, at the Colosseum...The other was probably Tales of Arise but I can't think of the location, if so.

Anyway, I thought I would do something similar this week. I couldn't do JUST drums though, I ha...

Warrior #162 Down

Hey Party Members, Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday as I was trying to finish a song, I kept jumping back and forth between ideas. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but I kept coming back to this one. It's got that Parasite Eve energy again (something about the drums with a low pass filter just does that, in my mind). So yeah, I just ended up rolling with it.

I think it turned out pretty solid. Definitely a tune for cutscenes, when your characters are going over information, or re...

Healer 180 #Shop

Happy Friday Party Members!

Welp, I had what I think is a first happen to me this week. I had a different song together for you guys, but for whatever reason, the file became corrupted. (I'm really not sure what went wrong). This is a bit disheartening, because it was shaping up into something pretty cool. 

Out of frustration, I just wrote something new. Blessing in disguise I guess because this shop theme is pretty nice! I went with the Final Fantasy Tactics vibe ag...

Warrior #161 Atmosphere

Happy Tuesday Party Members!

This was a cool track that kind of just fell together. Found a cool groove and layered in a few elements on top and bam! Got ourselves a tune with a pretty cool vibe.

It was my monthly reminder that sometimes less is more. I had the song basically together as it is now, and kept trying to add in more elements, but nothing really seemed to fit. I was just overdoing it. 

Feels like its a track that could fit in something like Soul Reaver, or O...

Healer #179 - Save - The Journey So Far

Happy Friday Party Members!

Whelp, I made it around the sun once again. That makes it 36 times now. I'm getting pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

In light of that, I thought doing something like a save/load screen theme could be fun! I actually had something else ready to go and decided to hold off on it, was going to be too dark  for today haha.

Definitely took some inspiration from Final Fantasy Tactics on this one. That OST is just too good, I need to do that...