(Originally posted on Blogspot on Sunday, April 17, 2011)
Portal 2 comes out Tuesday (or Monday due to the Potato ARG)! In honour of this, I programmed Still Alive in 8-bit!
There is an incredible amount of crappy fake 8-bit covers of this on YouTube… kind of disappointing. Anyhoo, this one took a bit of time to program because of all the sections, layered/changing instruments, and the overall length of the song. I’m pretty satisfied with the results, though!
A few things of note: I love the bass roll at 45 seconds. I programmed a separate instrument for those few notes. Also, near the end, there was a tricky bit where all the instruments are going, including the electric guitar. I almost left the guitar out… but then I figured a way to include it without totally removing the backing instruments. To accomplish this, I have the electric guitar take over the Square Channel 2 for a moment (which is what I was using the the ukulele sound). Then I used Square Channel 1 (used for GLaDOS voice) to pick up the Uke melody. By doing this method, the Uke is only gone for a few notes, and since the emphasis is on the Electric Guitar, you don’t even realize it’s gone. (This is a technique I actually use on a lot of my 8-bit songs.) It makes it sound like I have 3 Square channels in a way. Here’s a picture of what I did:
As well as an audio file:
(Square 1 by itself first, then Square 2 by itself, then both Square channels together, and finally all five tracks.)
Well, that’s mostly it! Here’s the finished product!
Enjoy!!! Thanks for reading!
-Pouch!