On March 2021 I was featured on the official Moog Music Inc. (also known as simply as Moog, one of the most important synthesizers manufacturer in the world) website with an interview when they officially released the video game inspired Moog Sub 37 preset pack I created for them.
The idea
Everything began when I started a YouTube series called Just with a Moog on my YouTube channel. I have always loved to stack up synthesizer tracks to create a complete arrangement. Check the beginning of Subsignal’s And The Rain Will Wash It All Away (00:00 – 00:20). Or Soul Secret’s Newton’s Law (00:18/00:37). The idea was there but I had to choose one song to begin with.
The choice was pretty easy.
Choosing the first song
Back in 1994 I was amazed by a video game my parents gifted me, Donkey Kong Country for the Super NES.
I didn’t want to have dinner the first day to keep playing it, I just couldn’t take my eyes and ears off of it. The graphics, the overall sound experience, gameplay, everything was so magnificent that I still perfectly remember that day.
The first level of the game, Jungle Hijinx, features as background music the so called Jungle theme. It was a theme the composer David Wise wrote for his audition, that included three different themes mixed together. Nintendo was so happy with the result that asked him to leave it unchanged, even if in fact it had three songs in it. That’s why there’s the slower part at the end!
In my opinion, Rare was so clever to put a setting sun at the end of the level to justify that change of mood. At least I’ve always had this feeling because even if they had no means or intention to synchronize the music with the player’s pace, I always arrived at the end of the level when the third theme kicked in and the sun set.
So, this was my first approach with David Wise’s level themes: an incredible sonic experience during a day I’ll never forget. Let’s celebrate it, then!
The actual production
The first track I produced for the Just with a Moog series was DK island swing, a.k.a. the aforementioned jungle theme.
The response to the video was great and (main thing!) I had a lot of fun in doing it. I’ve always loved video games soundtracks and I really think they shaped my musical tastes back in the day.
The rest of the series contains songs from lots of games, mostly from SEGA and Nintendo (I am a 90s gamer), and in the majority of the productions I wanted to recreate the original sounds on the Moog Sub 37. I love sound design, as I’ve always played in progressive rock/metal bands, so “strange sounds to be figured out” were the norm when learning songs when playing in cover bands.
The process
The process I follow to produce each video is this one:
- Transcribing the song
- Trying to rearrange the parts in order to have a maximum of 8/9 voices, sometimes less (i.e. Oil Ocean Zone), sometimes more (i.e. Opening Theme ~ Bombing Mission). Drums are generally MIDI.
- Sound designing
- Playing + recording part per part separately, generally starting from rhythmic instruments
- Mixing and mastering the result
- Synchronizing videos with the audio files. Sometimes the “automatic” sync is great, sometimes is awful and I have to make it happen manually.
- Publishing the result
Video game inspired Moog Sub 37 preset pack content
When you register your Sub 37 on the official Moog website, in you account you have access to all the presets, including mine.
Here is the preset by preset content in alphabetical order:
- 4’33” John Cage
- Animal Brassing
- Aquatic Harmonica
- Aquatic Pizzicato
- BK Banjo
- BK Fiddle
- BK Kazooie
- Cool EPiano
- Cool Saws
- Earthworm Bass
- Earthworm Driven
- Earthworm Lead Synth
- Earthworm Pizzicato Organ
- S1 Green Brass
- S1 Green Melody
- S2 Chemical Lead
- S2 Chemical Synth
- S2 Mystic Bass
- S2 Mystic Flute
- S2 Mystic Harpsi
- S2 Ocean Bass
- S2 Ocean Fourth
- S2 Ocean Lead
- Shun Di Koto
- Stickerbass
- Stickerbush Pizzicato
- Synth In Mines
- Tube Bass
- Tube Melody
- Voodoo Bass
- Voodoo Rising Brass
- World Basswer
- World Brasswer
All sounds are demoed here: