Super Mario Bros. 3 Medley, New Equipment, and Dragon Roost Island Preview

Hello, and sorry for the prolonged absence again!  After working on Gruntilda’s Lair and the SMB3 medley back to back, I decided to try to pick something simple to work on to give myself a break from all the heavy labor, so I chose to record Dragon Roost Island.  Unfortunately it turned out to be one of the most complicated things I’ve ever recorded, which is why it took me another two months to upload a video.  My next project should be fairly simple, though, so after this I think I should be able to get back to posting at least one video per month.  I also wanted to post an extra free video for Christmas, meaning that I’d post two videos for the month of December, but I’ll have to see if I have time to squeeze it in.

SMB3 Medley Finished Audio

Unfortunately since this is a medley, it’s way too expensive for me to distribute since I would have to license each composition that’s used in the medley.  So whatever you do, don’t download my personal backup of the finished audio, which can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/u222u14wuf0a2s8/taco.zip

Just a heads up, I’ll only be leaving that link up for a month to prevent my MediaFire account from getting any strikes.

New Equipment

It’s been a while since I last posted an update, so I have a lot of new stuff to show you.

First off, check out this PVC “pan flute” that I made for Dragon Roost Island!  These are just a bunch of 1/2” PVC pipes that I cut to various lengths using a guide that I found on YouTube.

The bottom of each pipe is sealed off with a piece of plastic that I cut out of a plastic water bottle cap.  I stuck the cap to the pipe with hot glue, which was thick enough to form a nice, air tight seal.  The lower notes are made out of 3/4” PVC.  For whatever reason, when the 1/2” PVC pipes got too long, they would produce weird overtones when blown rather than the intended note, so I had to switch to a larger diameter pipe for the low notes.  The 3/4” pipe produced the correct notes, but it was incredibly difficult to get your lips in the right position to blow it, so I decided to separate the pan flute part into three tracks to make things easier.  The pan flute part is just a bunch of three note arpeggiations, so I used one track to play the low note of each chord, a second track to play the middle note, and a third track to play the highest note.

I also purchased a castanet machine for the castanet part.  I settled on the machine over a pair of hand castanets simply because the machine is easier to play.  I was doing some reading, and apparently castanet machines and handled castanets are fairly common in orchestras since orchestral hand castanet players are difficult to find.  But anywayz, check ‘em out:

These are pretty straight forward.  You just use the wingnuts at the back of the instrument to modify the tension on the rope, which in turn modifies how wide the castanets are open.  Then you just tap the castanets with your finger tips.  It’s actually really fun to play, and it’s very easy to perform rolls with this thing.

Lastly, I purchased a Nuvo Clarineo.  I mentioned the Clarineo in a previous update, and the temptation to buy one was too strong, so I finally caved.

Here it is!  I wanted to see how this thing compared to the Xaphoon and the jSax, and I’m really glad I bought it, because it’s a great companion to those instruments.  The Clarineo and the jSax both sound like the instruments they were named after, and the Xaphoon has a tone that’s somewhere in between the Clarineo and the jSax, so between these three instruments I should be able to find the tone I’m looking for.

What I really like about the Clarineo, though, is how easy it is to play, and I also love the extended range compared to the Xaphoon and the jSax.  The lowest note on the latter two instruments is a C4, but the Clarineo goes all the way down to an E3.  Apparently it can go all the way up to an A6, although I’ve never tried playing that high, so I don’t know how easy it is.

I bought the Clarineo with the intention of using it for an arrangement of the Doki Doki Literature Club theme, but I also wanted to try using it for Snakey Chantey from Donkey Kong Country 2.  Unfortunately that piece is kinda short, so I’ve been trying to figure out ways to stretch it out a bit.

Dragon Roost Island Preview (Unmixed Audio)

Here’s a link to a preview of Dragon Roost Island!  All of the audio tracks have been recorded, but I think I want to touch up the bass part a little bit:

https://soundcloud.com/user-789983357/dri-premix/s-UtMaY
 

As I mentioned earlier, this ended up being pretty complicated.  Nearly every part was challenging to record, but I think my biggest problem was assigning the lead to an instrument that I don’t know how to play (lol).  I played the flute briefly in my Spiral Mountain video, but the part only used like three notes and spanned over a few measures, so it was pretty easy to learn.  The flute part for Dragon Roost Island was a lot more complicated, so I actually had to learn how to play the flute, which took several weeks worth of effort.  But I finally got things down well enough to record the part that I needed, and now I’m eager to be able to move on to some other projects.

That’s all for now!  And thank you so much for your support, I can hardly believe that the contribution total has gotten as high as it has.  Every time I buy new equipment I think of how nice you all are for helping me out with production costs even though you have zero obligation to do so.  So thanks!  I’ll see ya next time.