Stone McKnuckleSo there's a story behind the basskick and all the silly samples in this thing. I basically wrote all of it as speed metal initially, but then added this one solo part with a strong 4th beat drive and thought "hey, xi-on uses techno samples for this kind of stuff, yeah? I should try that" and basically made the solo part in the style the song is in right now. Yeah, I liked it enough to rewrite the entire song. Bah. Anyway, so this is me experimenting a bit so this is a somewhat nervous upload. This song has some delicious riffs though so I'm hoping it'll pass.
I experimented with a new audio react template this time as well, and I'm really liking this one so far. It takes forever to render though, but looks really nice and has lots of customization options.
Touhou Fuumaroku - 幻夢界 ~ World of Empty Dreams (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-01-18 | So there's a story behind the basskick and all the silly samples in this thing. I basically wrote all of it as speed metal initially, but then added this one solo part with a strong 4th beat drive and thought "hey, xi-on uses techno samples for this kind of stuff, yeah? I should try that" and basically made the solo part in the style the song is in right now. Yeah, I liked it enough to rewrite the entire song. Bah. Anyway, so this is me experimenting a bit so this is a somewhat nervous upload. This song has some delicious riffs though so I'm hoping it'll pass.
I experimented with a new audio react template this time as well, and I'm really liking this one so far. It takes forever to render though, but looks really nice and has lots of customization options.
Visit my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleMega Man 10 - Against the Pressure (metal remix)Stone McKnuckle2023-12-25 | Well, my computer caught fire and destroyed a bunch of stuff... like, six months ago. Getting the workstation up and running again is a major pain in the arse, so I put it off for a few months and then I got busy as per usual. As a result, I don't really have anything ready for Christmas, so I'm scrambling to at least do something, so I figured I'd put something exclusively on patreon and then release the last uploaded MM track for the YT channel instead. So, yeah, I'm still alive and stuff and while I do have things in store I can't give an ETA as per usual.
This is one of my favorite tunes from MM10, a game whose soundtrack I found to be rather lackluster compared to the absolutely brilliant MM9 OST, and it's been requested a couple of times so I figured I'd tackle it. I think the result sounds pretty good!
Hope you guys had a great Christmas, and I wish you all a happy new year.
My patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleSuper Toss the Turtle Original SoundtrackStone McKnuckle2022-12-26 | Here's one of hopefully two of the December uploads. Probably the complete soundtrack maybe! I actually want to recall I made a full version of the trailer song but I can't seem to find it so I'm either wrong or it's named something like derpy_balls.mp3 and placed in some random backup folder somewhere. If it exists, I'm sure it'll turn up eventually and I'll include a download for it. It's been so damn long since I last played the game I can't remember what songs were actually used or not so I'm just crossing my fingers the playlist is accurate. Bonus material is a metal arrange of Cannonball Party plus an arrange of Toss 'em Up I made a hundred thousand years ago - or built the full song from, I can't remember - so even if you ignore the fact that most of the songs loop once there's still like 12 minutes of original material here for you guys. Listening through this thing once again for the first time in forever there's plenty of stuff I really like and some stuff I don't really like but aside from compiling everything together I'm not going to fiddle with the already finished songs. The plan is to also cram an arrangement in so you guys get your Mega Man fix, we'll see how that goes. Either way, merry christmas everyone!
00:00 - Trailer 01:17 - Stage Theme 04:55 - Toss 'Em Up 09:17 - Menu 10:54 - Tutorial (test) 12:38 - Mongo Mayhem (unused track) 13:56 - Cannonball Party (unused track) 17:53 - Cannonball Party (GT arrange) 21:58 - Toss 'Em Up short test arrangement
Here's a link to the game if you haven't played it already: supertosstheturtle.comStone McKnuckle - Machine King (original)Stone McKnuckle2021-12-23 | Looking at my current schedule I think it's going to be very difficult to finish the arrange before next year, so I'm going to go ahead and release this. I was hoping to finish up Unlimit instead to complete the "older than time McKnuckle song" trilogy (Petrol in my Veins and Lightgazer being the other two), but that's going to have to wait. This song ain't bad anyway.
This is another hyper diaper old song written for a game that never ended up getting used anywhere, and the project file for it refuses to load up. Good thing I had an old MIDI render of it, so I rebuilt it from the that instead. It uses a ton of weirdo articulations for the leads that my normal libraries don't like so instead of rewriting it completely to play nice with my normal lead I decided to use RealLPC instead. I haven't used this thing since Dream Express, and man, it sounds way better than I remember. I remember this lead being tinny and weird sounding but that's not the case at all, it's got some oomph to it. Shreddage for rhythm guitar too, so it's all stuff I don't normally use anymore.
Anyway, hope y'all have a real merry christmas and an awesome end to the year!
Download it here: patreon.com/posts/machine-king-60260906Mega Man X - Sigma Stage II ~ Fortress (remix)Stone McKnuckle2021-11-27 | As usual, it's been forever. It's the usual crap, plus I finally bought what I'm hoping will be my final place of residence for the rest of my life, which while awesome hasn't helped my available free time.
Just like last year I'm gonna start pulling some long-ass nights to hopefully be able to churn out another double whammy by Christmas. Hopefully this isn't unrealistic.
Anyway, this has been the slowest progressing project I've had in a long while. Like 70% done a long time ago, I just completely lost track of where I wanted to go with it so I kept writing and removing new material from it over and over again until I finally decided to just stop. Kept some of the old ideas I shoved into it like the random FM section and mellow solo and I honestly think this song is pretty cool anyway so it's seriously time to let go of it.
I've had huge problems getting this mix to sound the way I want and I'm still not really happy with it, but I've been sitting on this for long enough as it is. I also had this cool idea for the intro section where the rhythm guitars would play kind of what the brass is doing but it just sounded terrible no matter what I did so I had to give up on it. :(
Unlikely Identity this isn't a straight-up cover, but even in this song I'm hesitant to screw around too much with the source material. I'm not sure I'll do much more SSH because of this, it's not very fun when I lack the courage to go off the rails too much. We'll see.
Patreon posts: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleStella Glow - Battle (Amatsu) remixStone McKnuckle2021-03-15 | Leftover from 2020. I like that this sounds a bit different from a lot of my other material, in part because of what the original sounds like but also because of the mix. I think the amp settings are from Joyride or something, but it's been fiddled with a lot.
I really wish I had a better shakuhachi library, the flute in the original sounds so dang good compared to that cheapo synth I'm using lol
This game's nothing special at all, but the soundtrack is by Yasunori Mitsuda and Shunsuke Tsuchiya and is something really special. Strongly recommend checking this soundtrack out.
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleStone McKnuckle - Petrol in my Veins (original)Stone McKnuckle2020-12-18 | Aaand that wraps 2020 up for me. Hectic as fuck December but for once I actually finished everything early instead of late, so at least I've got that going for me.
I wrote this maybe 12 years ago or something? Original version was all soundfonts at any rate so it's extremely old, and for reasons I can't remember at all I never ended up releasing this publicly, instead deciding to "remaster" it later down the line which of course I never ended up doing. This predates Tech Lab by a bit, being about roughly as old as Lightgazer, and together with a song called Unlimit is one of the three oldest songs I've written that are, like, actual pieces of music and not just some infantile MIDI plonkering. Granted, being as old as it is it does suffer from a case of identity crisis but it's a cool tune anyway. I will rewrite/update Unlimit eventually as well. These songs are largely updated and released for sentimental value, but I think they hold up pretty decently.
Merry christmas and happy new year to y'all. Hope 2021 sucks a bit less!
ps the segment between 3:50 and 4:42 is basically completely unaltered from the original. even to this day I really like this section and find it hard to understand how I wrote something that cool when I was still basically a babby
I wanna honk my horn and claim it's talent but listening to basically anything else I wrote back then it's pretty clear that's not the case lmaoS.S.H. - Identity (cover)Stone McKnuckle2020-12-17 | Welp, I finally did it. Possibly the least adventurous arrangement I've ever made, meticulously transcribed and tinkered with for quite a while. A tribute to my biggest influence, favorite artist and biggest inspiration, and hopefully one that won't let him or anyone else down.
This song was released 15 years ago and it completely and utterly blew my goddamn mind. To this day, it remains one of my favorite songs, period. You know, one of those tracks you can't ever seem to get tired of no matter how much time passes. A modern classic. I realize the theme of my channel should kind of force me to go for one of his actual video game soundtracks - and I'll do some stuff from Lost Child for sure, promise - but I feel like this should be the #1 pick for a tribute, so that's what I'm going with.
My one gripe is that slides have a tendency to crap out in it. Both bass and guitar slides randomly go "lolno" for some reason. I'ma throw a fit. Still, I'm happy with this result, and I hope you guys have a friggin' blast listening to it.
UPDATE: SSH now has his own YouTube channel, so go check him out! youtube.com/channel/UCsntxFsEKlZPQDxoAnvKy_wContra: Shattered Soldier - Relic of Moirai (metal remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-12-07 | Before Doom came out this game was the ruling king of heavy-ass metal soundtracks and I highly recommend checking its tracks out. This particular track is one of the few mellow tracks on the soundtrack, and I mean, who needs those? So here's a metal version of it. 3/4 time and less gain on the guitars makes for a pretty rad sound IMO. Hope y'all enjoy!
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleChaos Seed: Feng Shui Chronicles - Battle 3 (remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-11-24 | This one's been "done" for a while but I'm not a huge fan of it so I've been working on other things while occasionally fiddling with knobs and different synths and stuff in this one to try to get it to sound the way I want. I guess the good news is that I have more than a few almost-ready projects as a result of this, of which two are SSH tributes/covers/whatevers that I want to release.
I'm just going to let this go now so it can stop bothering me.
There's more stuff coming in December, as is tradition.
For those who haven't played this game - I'm assuming that's most of you - I've mentioned it on the channel whenever someone talks about Lufia 2. This is by the same team, has the same composer, and is better. It's also weird. Recommended!
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleMega Man X - Sting Chameleon (metal remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-11-18 | Not 100% happy with this still, but man, finally got this sucker down. I've said before that pretty much all the MMX songs left to do are hard ones to arrange the way I want it and this is certainly no exception given that I've always wanted all the channels from the original intact. Had to compromise a bit on the tempo, but other than that this sounds pretty good to me at this point. Unusually I'm not a big fan of the solos this time and it's another one of those idiot tracks that won't render properly, but oh well, can't win 'em all.
Check my patreon out: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleFinal Fantasy: Mystic Quest - Battle 2 (metal remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-07-25 | One out of two down, and one I'm really happy with too. Next up is Sting Chameleon for those of you who've been waiting for it. Felt appropriate with all the Terminal Montage fans running around here lately!
I'm going to try to calm down and work on other things before I run out of vacation time, especielly considering I've placed a hunk-a-junk car in the company garage while everyone's on vacation that definitely can't still be there when people get back. I'll still push for one more release before I get back to work though, but that definitely won't be this month.
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleRosenkreuzstilette - Staff Roll (remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-07-19 | Do you really like Mega Man but you're a little bummed out over the fact that you can play it in public without having anyone judge you? No? Regardless, this game exists to fix that problem.
Speaking of problems, I have one: I keep starting up new projects instead of finishing old ones, and at the rate I produce shit I'm starting to realize I'll never get anything done if I keep this up, so I'm going to try my damnedest to restrict myself to finishing stuff I've started instead. Had some problems coming up with an ending for this thing so I kept adding solos instead which is why it's so damn long hah
Also while making the midi track for this I realized just how chock-full of errors and dissonant notes it actually is. OOPS. Oh well, I couldn't tell before dissecting it so I doubt anyone else can either but it's still a bit of a bodyblow. It's in a key I'm really unused to writing in so that's probably why. I used to just re-key songs to make it easier to arrange (and to drop the tuning down for more metal) but people started moaning about it so nowadays I usually stick to whatever key the original is in which in this case is herpderp-minor.
Visit my patreon for downloads and shit: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleMega Man Zero - Departure (remix)Stone McKnuckle2020-03-01 | This used to sound pretty different. Halfway through I decided to experiment and go for a more rock-ish sound, despite the BPM being pretty high. As a result, this is gonna sound a bit different from my usual stuff. I didn't go completely nuts and rebuild everything I'd already done to it though, so the approach ended up a tad unfocused. I hope you'll enjoy it all the same. I particularly enjoy the solos in this one.
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleStone McKnuckle - Tech Lab (original)Stone McKnuckle2019-12-26 | Aaaaand that marks the end of the year! Didn't make it for Christmas and only had today left to finish this song, so I'm glad I managed to pull through. There are a couple of transitions and a few niggles here and there that I'm sure nobody's going to notice but me, but I was too worried I wouldn't have time to finish this before the end of the year if I kept messing with it.
Song written over 10 years ago for a game me and my friends worked on that we never finished. Always liked it and thought it was a shame to just have it sit around, so I dusted off the ancient project file and began rewriting it. I always underestimate how long it takes to "update" old songs, really wish it were just as simple as redoing the mix and switching libraries but nope. Kept the old Sytrus synths for nostalgia tho!
Anyway, here's a belated merry christmas and an early happy new year to y'all! Won't be able to keep the pace up or I'll die from overwork within a year, but I should have a day, maybe two every week that I can at least partially dedicate to composing from now on so updates should get more frequent.
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckle Download link: patreon.com/posts/tech-lab-32634093Mega Man X - Boomer Kuwangers stage (remix)Stone McKnuckle2019-12-21 | I promised I'd tough it out and finish this, what, over a year ago now? Anyway, I toughed it out and finished it. Haha. Hope it was worth the wait to those of you who kept requesting this. Now I've only got 3 days to finish this year's freebie in time which is kinda bleh. Might push my own deadline to "before the end of the year", we'll see.
Audio react by KiwiVFX: http://www.kiwivfx.comSHIKI - Death Scythe (remix)Stone McKnuckle2019-12-13 | "I'm gonna try to tough it out and get Boomer out the gates". I said that a year ago. Huh.
I posted a preview of this on patreon like a hundred eons ago asking if this'd be OK since it's from a rhythm game and stuff which is kinda pushing it IMO (brb doing dragonforce because guitar hero is a game amirite) but it got the green light so here we are. This arrange is weird and all over the place with random SID shit and koto's and whatever the hell I could think of, but I still kinda like it. Original's from Maimai Green for those interested.
Boomer's out on patreon for those of you who've been waiting for it (for forever) and I'm really hoping to get that out on YT before the end of December. So I'll be going for 11 months of radio silence to, hopefully, three releases in one month. I don't know if that's a realistic goal, but it's a goal all the same.
Art is by Huke and has nothing to do with the song but whatever. His pixiv:
pixiv.net/member.php?id=9794Stone McKnuckle - Chainsaw Romance (original)Stone McKnuckle2018-12-21 | Keeping up with traditions, here's an original song for Christmas. A pretty mongo and ultra-heavy tune at that.
I personally think this track is rad as hell, but I know it's not gonna be everyone's cup of tea since it's a little strange. Hope you'll still enjoy the change of pace compared to my usual sound though.
Yeah, it's pretty much totally unrelated to the song. Whatever. I couldn't find any good chainsaw pictures.
Download link: patreon.com/posts/chainsaw-romance-23478695Mega Man X - Launch Octopus (metal remix)Stone McKnuckle2018-12-20 | I'm not even gonna say how many of these I've made. I really wanted to try to keep the underwater feel of the original somehow but after a thousand different attempts that I believe all sucked I just went "eh, screw it" and did my own thing. Also, man, this is way overdue. Really sorry for the wait.
Shoutout to GameroftheWinds for playing the flute section in this song and to preta for holding the reins on this project for so long.Sorcerian - Bloody Seal (remix)Stone McKnuckle2018-11-13 | So this ended up being 6 minutes long. lol. Haven't done that since Battle Against a True Hero, so that's nice. Though I gotta say this is nowhere near as mood-swingy as that song so hopefully you guys like songs with ADHD.
Oh, also, does anyone actually use soundcloud? Like, for anything other than just downloading songs? Considering dropping that crap since I can just allow downloads from patreon instead.
Check out my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleLast Period - Wiseman Theme (remix)Stone McKnuckle2018-09-16 | First song I finish in forever and I can't even find the words to describe it. Unfortunately I'm a stickler for obnoxious shit like this and when I heard the original tune I just felt like I wanted to have some fun and put guitars here and there. Since there is something fundamentally broken in my head, I somehow ended up spending around 20 hours on it. Thinking back, I said about four months ago that I'd do more Megaman and then I sit around for forever until I finally release this thing instead. Don't take it as a middle finger or anything, 'cause it's certainly not meant to be.
I'd uploaded the vocal version first but that didn't make it past YouTube's filter so here's the off-vocal version instead. The vocal version can be found on my patreon as well as on Soundcloud, see links below. Give that one a shot if you really like obnoxious weeb vocals.
I had a lot of difficulty deciding between the original Suck a Sage, this one, and just doing my own thing. I ended up with a bit of a mix between the latter decision and the X2 theme, and honestly? I really like the result. NO RAGRETS. Also dusted off my old Ripper Direct guitar for some hella slides and palm mutes and it sounds fuckin' cool as shit. I really need to use this thing more often instead of letting it be part of my previously purchased library graveyard 'cause it's really a blast to use and it blends very well with the v-metal lead.
Also ironically I thought this thing sounded funny during the end solo but couldn't figure out why until I made this video - it's the bass channel doing some weird pitch automation that I dunno why it's even there. Drugs are bad.
Check out my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleTerminal Velocity - Ymir (remix)Stone McKnuckle2018-02-08 | Late as shit, but hey, 400 lbs. Hope you guys like compression, 'cause that was the only way I could fit all this bass under the same roof.
I've had people request songs from this game before which is kinda cool since it's not particularly well-known but I played this a ton back when I were a kid and the soundtrack's hella cool. It's also unfortunately not really a good fit for metal, but I think this turned out alright even though it's a bit messier than I'd like. I'll probably do the main theme from this game at some point as well.
Audio react by KiwiVFX: http://www.kiwivfx.comStone McKnuckle - SSR Courage (original)Stone McKnuckle2017-12-26 | A double upload seems like a good way to end the year, yeah?
This one's gonna be on Blasted Knuckles eventually. I'm not super happy with how nasal the lead sounds in this one still, so it'll get updated properly with a completely new mix by the time the CD comes out in 2958.
If you guys wanna download this track, go to my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleBrandish - Warrior Report (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-12-26 | I wasn't actually planning on making this one the next release but it seemed fitting to put it out decently close to Ys anniversary. Yes, even though they're unrelated. Sometimes my brain just does things. Annoyingly, this ended up being another one of those songs that I initially like but grow weary of after a while so I hope it holds up.
Audio react by KiwiVFX: http://www.kiwivfx.comGuilty Gear XX - The Midnight Carnival (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-12-13 | Uploaded on Patreon September 26th. Yeah, I've been busy.
The song likes to switch to a scale that I'm not at all familiar with making it very difficult to write transitions and insert original content and solos and whatnot. Interestingly, the new riffs I added also really trip V-Metal up for some reason so it was very difficult to get it to render somewhat properly. I'm going to need to figure out some way to cobble problematic sections together at some point so I don't have to deal with dropped samples and similar crap. Or I could just learn how to play the guitar, I know, shut up!
Simply put, I had way more trouble with this song than I'd like to admit. The end result is pretty cool anyway, and I'm super duper happy with the solos in it.
Art is by wickedalucard and can be found here: wickedalucard.deviantart.com/art/The-Midnight-Carnival-265143914Megami Tensei II - Death Match (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-09-26 | So after telling people I've been dialing down on speed and attitude a bit as of late I've been told to man up and stop being such a pussy. Not by many, and not often, but since I am a complete child once or twice is clearly enough. In other words, no punches pulled here. This song's a torrent of energy. In fact, this particular tune's been done to death already, so I wanted to make it more aggressive than all the other versions to make it stand out from the crowd a bit. Not entirely sure if I accomplished that or just made a mess yet...
Check out my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleChou Aniki - Sexy Dynamite (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-09-17 | Been plenty busy as of late, but hopefully I'll be able to pick the pace back up soon enough. So this is a pretty weird addition to the roster, but hopefully you guys'll enjoy it all the same. Next one'll be "normal".
It's been bothering me for a while that my music isn't sexy. Hopefully this'll remedy that. Seriously though, I've been wanting to do this song for a while but haven't really been able to due to the lack of vocals. That's when patron Anton stepped up, providing some sexy vocals for this song. May your muscles never let you down, brotato.
Off-vocal version: drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-CpdkXQADZNURfNVZ4b0tFN0kMega Man X2 - Absolute Zero (X-Hunter Stage 1) remixStone McKnuckle2017-09-03 | So MichaelVstheWorld recommended this one and it was surprisingly fun and easy to work with so I managed to finish it quickly. I really wanted the added the penultimate segment in this one to be the ending, but the song ended up being 2 minutes and 50 seconds long with that which is obviously unacceptable.
Tried a different approach to the video creation this time with live fretboard footage recorded from V-Metal. Unfortunately, my computer kinda shits the bed a bit when I'm previewing the project file and recording video at the same time so the result is a tad laggy... not sure I'll be doing another one of these. It doesn't look that great anyway. Some feedback from you guitarists on whether this stuff is helpful or not would be nice, otherwise I'll just keep doing the tried and true audio react stuff.
Bet that's what you're thinking. There's a trick to it: I delayed the public release of Flame Stag 'cause I was too busy playing video games to spend 6 hours rendering the video. Sorry!
And man, it sure helps having good source material. I've wanted to do this for a while but kinda dreaded picking it up since I expected it to be very difficult to arrange. Didn't actually take that much time since I didn't dare fiddle with the source material too much. It actually used to be around a minute longer, padded out with original content. I threw all of that shit out 'cause anything I tried to add just made the song worse. Bleh.
Audio react by KiwiVFX: http://www.kiwivfx.comMega Man X2 - Flame Stag (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-07-27 | Way back before I released Armored Armadillo I mentioned I had two awesome WIP projects. Armored Armadillo was one of them and this was the other one. Yeah, it was pretty moldy when I picked it back up, but I think I managed to revive it well enough. I'm really not as big a fan of this now as I was back when I wrote half of it, but oh well.
I had originally planned for this to be a double-kick megashred thing, but in the end I actually managed to get very little of that stuff in there. I lowered the BPM on To Make the End of the Battle before release, and now this... I wonder if this is going to start being a trend for me when I dial down projects like this. Maybe I'm just getting too old for non-stop madness.
I also gotta pat myself on the back for what is probably the ugliest video I've made so far. Oh well.
Check out my Patreon channel: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleYs I&II Chronicles - To Make the End of the Battle (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-06-26 | This was an absolute nightmare to work on. Most of it was written with the sequencer preview at 80 BPM since going any higher would melt my CPU. Solos written note by note at a very slow speed with all channels except lead guitar and bass disabled, etc etc. Man, what a mess. To even understand what the hell I was doing I had to render the entire section I was currently writing to be able to hear what was going on. Battle Against a True Hero was exactly like this as well, but this one doesn't use a boatload of orchestral samples so I don't really understand what made me drown in buffer underruns... but oh well. The end result is still pretty damn good. Though I feel it's slightly lacking compared to Yukihiro Jindo's brilliant arrange (mostly due to the harmonics and backing track in his being way more awesome than mine), it's at least longer and more aggressive. This entire thing was based on the SC-88 track, though practically all of it was rewritten from scratch anyway, but it helped with drum mapping and transcribing. I don't even want to guess how long this would've taken to write had I gone about this the way I normally do.
Finally, the audio react template is by KiwiVFX and can be found here: http://kiwivfx.com/ultimate-asMega Man Zero 4 - Straight Ahead (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-06-12 | I'm as happy with this result as I was disappointed with Gadobarhdasjderrerar. I really, really like this arrange. This kind of came out of nowhere, I know, but not only did I only have to transcribe the solos since King Meteor had a really good midi handy but I was also on one of those rare rolls or whatever you wanna call it hehe. The mix just sat well immediately, no problems transcribing anything, and the new content rules. All the pieces fit together nicely. I love it when shit like this happens.
Finally, the audio react template is by KiwiVFX and can be found here: http://kiwivfx.com/ultimate-asBrandish 2 - Gadobardorerr (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-05-29 | Fuck this song's name. :p Honestly not too happy with the result on this one, but oh well. I think the original's pretty weaksauce but I can't help but compare this arrange to Toshinori Himaratu's masterpiece and I just feel like I'm coming up short no matter what. Oh well, time to move on to more interesting songs.
Visit my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleBroken Thunder CODE-RVR-03G -Sword Breaker- (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-05-21 | Good news: Beyond poor at the moment, so music uploads will happen more frequently.
I promised more from Broken Thunder, yeah? Here's more. Not done yet either, but I'm going to try to get something from MMZ out since people keep requesting that. Anyway, enjoy!
The audio react template is by KiwiVFX and can be found here: http://kiwivfx.com/ultimate-asSparkster - Final Boss ~ Missile Core (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-05-16 | Been hella busy and stuff, but I'm gonna up the pace starting now.
So this one's something I've wanted to do for a long time but my previous attempts have been less than great. Finally I'm somewhat happy with it at least. Additional changes have been made to the Joyride mix and applied here and I think it sounds pretty good!
The audio react template is by KiwiVFX and can be found here: http://kiwivfx.com/ultimate-asOvertake - Joyride (remix)Stone McKnuckle2017-04-05 | Well, this one's overdue to say the least. Nobody's probably played this game, but I still might do one more song from it since I love the shit out of the soundtrack. We'll see.
Also, for those curious, here's the rest of the soundtrack: Give Exceed a spin! youtube.com/watch?v=TA_WOCHUhKsMega Man X - Storm Eagles Stage (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-12-16 | ok most requested mega man song so biggest risk it'll betray expectations. I don't really have much to say about this one except that I've been sitting on roughly half of it for like 2 years and never finished it because it was strangely difficult to arrange but hey now it's done and stuff so I hope y'all enjoy it. Next one'll be something a little different.
The audio react is by Andrin Rehmann. Check out his channel: youtube.com/user/RedXPoisonMega Man X - Introduction Stage (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-11-04 | At this point I've got an insanely long WIP list of semi-obscure video game music that I'd love to start posting, but after dragging my feet for this goddamn long I feel like pandering a bit, and there's definitely no shortage of people asking for more Mega Man songs. So yeah, I guess that's what I'll be doing for a while now. I even included a little teaser/preview segment in this song which, in hindsight, might cause it to drag on for 16 measures more than it really should... but eh. You'll understand which one I'm planning on tackling next!
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleTouhou Kaikidan ~ Mystic Square - Plastic Mind (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-10-25 | I've had plenty of requests for more Touhou songs ever since I did Dream Express, so here's another one. I've always liked this song and thought it would make for another one of those cool high-speed orchestral shredfests that I like to make, but I totally screwed that up. As I didn't feel like starting over, I tried my best over the weekend to bring some energy back into it. It ended up late as a result, but oh well.
While I'd definitely like to do more Touhou - Civilization of Magic or Lullaby of Deserted Hell or something - I've been so slow at releasing now that I'm going to start pandering a bit as a sort of apology. So yeah, there'll be more Mega Man.
Check out my patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleSegagaga - Steel Squad (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-09-10 | I've gotten a number of requests for Metal Squad from Thunderforce and I've turned these requests down several times saying "SSH already did that one" etc, but uh. Yeah. I dunno what came over me. I randomly decided to do Steel Squad, the sister tune of Metal Squad, since I love the crap out of this song. What's also nice is that, unlike Metal Squad, this tune doesn't have a ton of arranges, likely due to it being far less known. It's in my opinion the better of the two songs too. That said, it's been done by both SSH and Toshinori Hiramatsu aka Sword of Justice, so I'm kind of feeling a bit like a fifth wheel here anyway heh
Work's starting to calm down a bit so I'm going to try to get back on schedule now. In the meantime, I'm hoping this is worth the wait to the guys who kept requsting Metal Squad. I know it's not quite what you asked for, but I think this arrange is pretty good.
Support me: patreon.com/stonemcknuckleBroken Thunder - Full Metal Goddess (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-08-26 | Sorry about the super slow release, but I've seriously been too busy with work to really think about anything else. Summer season really, really sucks for me. Anyway, I did say I was gonna do more Hyakutaro Tsukumo stuff, yeah? I think I'm the first to ever remix this actually, so that's pretty cool! It was an absolute bitch to transcribe too, thanks to the soundtrack's crappy audio quality. Oh well, I think I did a pretty decent job here. There are a few gripes, but I've been sitting on this for far too long already so I feel it's high time to let it go. I hope you enjoy this one.
Soundbutt's shit the bed again, so download link will be bandcamp only. Enter 0 as price for free download.
Summer season's here and I'm swamped with work as usual which is why I'm slacking on the uploads. I'm more concerned with not letting quality drop too much than I am with releasing stuff in a timely fashion, so summer's going to suck for all of us. Life's a dump etc.
Anyway, this is a theme that I've always wanted to do and one that I've actually attempted a couple of times before. There are already a ton of arranges of the regular arcade/NES main theme versions, but this one's been strangely neglected despite the fact that it's an awesome tune. I'm not too happy with the solo in this one, but after rewriting it once already I think I'm just going to have to accept it, and I'm really happy with everything else so I guess I've at least got that going for me.
Visit my patreon: patreon.com/stonemcknuckleYs Origin - Genesis Beyond the Beginning (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-06-17 | Totally new mix in this one with a heavy focus on the orchestral crap. As a result it doesn't quite "punch" as hard as I wanted it to, but there are like 30 channels in this thing all doing their own thing which made it very, very difficult to get everything to sit right in the mix. Although the ending feels a tad underdeveloped and the solo could use a bit more variation and better transitions, I really don't want to postpone this for another week for those minor blemishes, so I'm going to go ahead and release it now and hope the following week ends up being less brutal. All that said, I'm actually pretty happy with the result here as this has been one of the most difficult mixes I've done so far.
Check out my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stonemcknuckleDOOM - E1M1 - At Dooms Gate (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-06-03 | I was one of the very many who were surprised to find that the new DOOM isn't a piece of crap. After the incredibly worrying E3 demo I'd basically given up hope, so seeing actual, proper gameplay was really nice. In honor of this, Hungover Hero requested an arrange of E1M1. Interesting. I've done this song before and it's always kind of sucked, and Mick Gordon already took plenty of liberties with his arrange, so I decided to use the old E1M1 from the original DOOM as a base and basically build on it. I crammed so much crap into this thing that it would drop samples and shit the bed if I tried using lead guitars as well, so there's hardly any lead sections at all which is seriously unusual for me. I also experimented with some new toys to try to convey that 2spoopy feel, and added two more guitar channels in order to not lose any of the facecrushing violent energy that any sane person would normally expect from an E1M1-arrange. I think the end result is pretty interesting.
Now for the one gripe I have: One of the rhythm guitars shits its pants and randomly start using harmonics when I try to use palm mutes half an octave up. This is only really evident towards the end, and while it certainly does sound a bit strange it's nothing dealbreaking. I decided to ignore it when I realized I couldn't fix it.
Anyway, hope you guys like this one, it was fun to write!
Soundbutt's being a dick again, so you'll get a bandcamp link again. Enter 0 as price for free download.
Off vocal version: drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-CpdkXQADZQmZ1elBiR2RPaFkHyakutaro Tsukumo - HELLHOUND (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-05-27 | I've been on a bit of a binge lately, consuming all the Hyakutaro Tsukumo and Toshiharu Yamanishi stuff I can find and I JUST CAN'T STOP. Definitely planning on arranging more of these guys stuff eventually. Broken Thunder maybe? We'll see. Anyway, DragoonEnRegalia recommended this CD on my channel and it's absolutely amazing and I had the opening track stuck in my head for an entire day so I arranged a couple of segments from it hoping to get sick of it so I could move on to other things but that never happened and I ended up doing the entire thing and jesus christ this sentence is long oh well. So anyway, this track technically isn't from a game, but it's by a composer who's made some totally awesome VGM soundtracks in the past and it sure as hell sounds like it belongs in a game, so there.
Listen to the original track: youtube.com/watch?v=VILpsLo9xjQMega Man X3 - Opening Stage (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-05-19 | Here's another one that doesn't want to render correctly, but I think I managed to get an encode with nary a single hiccup in the end anyway so that's nice. I think I got a little confused/sidetracked in this one with the acoustic part 'cause it certainly ended up longer than I'd intended. I'm not stoked about the fit either, even though it uses the same chord progression and borrows some melodies from the source material I can't help but feel it sounds a bit out of place. I wanted to try to be careful about making something that sounds too much like Metalltool's arrange and I accidently went pretty crazy, but I think it sounds pretty nice in general so hopefully you guys will like it as well.
Also Soundbutt has decided to completely shit the bed. It won't let me upload anything no matter what I try, so there'll only be a bandcamp link this time. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Audio react by Brad Grantmyre: youtube.com/user/XnSTriLl3rrElemental Master - Cursed Destiny (remix)Stone McKnuckle2016-05-07 | I'm sure most of you haven't played this -- I hadn't either until just recently. This game is kind of like a serious version of Cho Aniki in the sense that they (Technosoft) took their top down shooter formula and decided to try to apply it to an RPG setting. It kind of works, but it's... weird. Plays like any other top down shooter except instead of a space ship you're a dude. The game's pretty obscure, so there's absolutely no art available for it. As a derpy little last resort, I used the Elemental Master from Elsword for the hell of it since pictures of her are basically all that shows up when I google Elemental Master anyway. The game's pretty good by the way.
Anyway, the soundtrack is by Toshiharu Yamanishi, aka the dude who wrote the Thunder Force III and IV soundtracks. Needless to say, it's totally awesome and I'd love to do more from it, but considering the fanbase this game has I doubt I'll revisit it.