Conceptions & Considerations

You may have noticed the inclusion of the Piano being a big focus of this piece even though no one in the band plays Piano. If you’ve been following the band chats, you’d have noticed this new character, “Medy,” being a focal point of this song. Starting with the original song, the melody has only two instruments: a guitar and a synth.

My first idea was to replace the synth with Les’ Organ and call it a day but it never sounded good in my head without constantly jazzing up the Organ throughout the whole piece. My next idea was to use a synth but have the guitar and organ switch between the melodies heard from the guitar in the original. This begged the question, “what type of synth?”

From here, I kept coming back to a piano-type sound for the melody. It gave the piece a somber yet wishful tone while sounding like an ending theme. That idea really resonated with me as I thought it fit well the story of Sonic Battle and where the original track plays.

The issue now became having Lowen program this, which I was against. Given his nature, his synths only really take the melody to break up Picks and Les’ playing, so it didn’t make sense to have his synth heavily featured. I also thought that this piano tone didn’t suit his stoic and serious nature or the hardcore “Focused” synths I discussed in Light Dash’s band profile. 

That last point was critical for me. Most bands will be utilizing synths and differentiating their synth sound would establish a needed diversity in tone between bands over time. The only solution was the “guest star” approach which solved most issues I ran into justifying the Piano. Enter the fake character, Medy! The next goal was to write her into the lore I’d created for Light Dash so far. To fit the soft somber/hopeful tone I was hearing, I settled for the “parting ways” or “we’ll meet again” kind of backstory. 

Medy is a character who used to be in the band but never played an instrument. Seeing her enthusiasm, the guys saved up to buy her a synthesizer on her birthday so she could join in, but she was told that she had to move away. In their lore, Chapter End was the first and last song they got to record together before she left. The guys promised to hold onto the song until she returned to play but Medy felt differently thinking she was holding her favor band back.

The entire song was meant to reflect this lore while still remaining faithful to the core function of the music. A side note: I’m considering reintroducing Medy as a full-fledged character in the Sonic GBA Project, so I might rewrite Les’ backstory to reference her, as Les has the shortest and most simplistic story out of the four at the time of writing.

Creative Decisions

The inclusion of the Piano came with a fundamental issue in the writing style of Light Dash, which was the Question & Answer format I keep talking about. I ended up forgoing this method of writing as an exception to their sound. Instead, I designed the composition to highlight the Piano, guitar, and Organ equally.

This served better because I wanted it to sound like Light Dash was “being influenced by something” while maintaining that somber uplifting tone. Another factor contributing to this was the high emphasis of 7ths and 9ths chord extensions. Usually, I’d actively avoided these types of chords in Light Dash’s sound to avoid sounding like my fantasy RPG music. Still, these chords served this piece well.

To better sound like an ending theme, I pulled out a typical chord progression I hear often in anime soundtracks. It’s used when Les solos in the background of the leading hook. For you music theory nerds, it’s a secondary dominant 2-5-1 landing on the IV chord. This progression served the piece and mood I was going for very well. It also does a great job breaking apart the static chord progressions throughout the piece.

Struggles

I’ve noticed the trend of intensive repetition in many of the Sonic Battle songs, but I really felt it here. In addition, there are only 2 sections in the entire song, with only one not repeating the same chord progression. To differentiate sections from one another, I picked the section after the lead guitar melody to slightly change the chord progression. 

This was a struggle as most chords I created sounded too out of place or too close to my fantasy RPG stuff (7th chord extensions, as mentioned previously). In line with this, creating jazzy licks/rifts for Les was also a struggle. It was hard hitting a good sweet spot with the Organ.

Mixing the Organ along side the gliding synths was a struggle as well. Simply put, they kept fighting over each other in the mix. I couldn’t address one without causing problems for the other due to the frequency content, so I had to choose where each had priority. 

On the one hand, that gliding synth part plays a significant enough role in the original piece that removing it would cost something to the song. On the other hand, Les’ Organ needed certain spots to be featured by himself to help distribute presence between guitar, Piano and Organ. In most cases, I deemed Les being featured more important, but there was a spot or two where I could feature more of the synth than the Organ.

The last struggle cycles back to the piano samples I ended up using. As mentioned, I’m considering reintroducing Medy as a full-fledge character in the Sonic GBA Project. Given that she’s using her synthesizer as an instrument, I wanted a piano sound that intentionally sounded fake or synthetic; the obvious issue here being that I naturally already have that through sample libraries and virtual instruments.

My brain constantly struggled with “too fake” and “too real” Piano sounds when auditioning samples. Another consideration that added to this was the use of Piano. I have a few bands planned that I hear using Piano, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t use anything I knew I’d want to use later. Heat Up 3 had some pianos that managed to hit the sweet spot for me.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Please reach out for questions or ideas for the future of the Sonic GBA Project! 🙂