Saturday July 03rd 2010, 1:31 pm
Filed under: Music
As many of you may already know, I collaborated with The Fine Brothers recently to bring YouTube an 8-bit interactive Twilight: Eclipse game. I’ve had numerous requests from viewers for the soundtrack I created for the game, so here it is, free to all! If you enjoy this, feel free to check out 8-Bit Dr. Horrible, a recreation of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog as a theoretical Nintendo game. Also, you can listen to my album, 8-Bit Jesus, 18 tracks of blippy Christmas music that you actually want to hear (plus a bonus track)! Hear the full album at that link and grab yourself a physical copy with awesome art by Jude Buffum, or you can grab 8-Bit Jesus on iTunes!
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can now watch 8-Bit Twilight: Eclipse on my YouTube channel, free of ads! Here’s a hint – making the wrong choices is more fun if you’re like me and don’t care much for emo high school kids!
First off, a huge thanks to everyone who watched, loved, commented, spread the word, donated and bought 8-Bit Jesus albums! I feel so loved today and it’s all thanks to you guys! A few things that might interest everyone:
Honestly, I’m blown away by the positive response to this project from everyone, but especially those involved in the creation of the original, amazing and horribly awesome Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog.
A huge thanks to Maurissa Tancharoen (writer), Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. horrible), Felicia Day (Penny), Jed Whedon (Writer and Bad Horse chorus #2) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer) for tweeting! If anyone knows of other cast, creative contributors or crew of the original that gave mention, please let me know. I want to make sure to thank every last one of them.
Anyway, thanks again to everyone who showed their love for 8-Bit Dr. Horrible. It was (and still is) a lot of fun to make, and for anyone that wants to know when Act 2 is released, feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and get those updates as I post them.
Quick note: I keep getting comments and emails about a spelling error in the dialogue. I am aware that “motor” is not spelled “moter”. Admittedly, it was a typo that it is too late to correct, and it was not intentional by any means. However, I wouldn’t fix it even if I could because part of the goal with this project was to be as true as possible to the original NES game format which, as a result of the fact that Photoshop doesn’t utilize a spell-checker and I’m not a spelling bee champion, includes misspellings. For those that are curious, most old Nintendo games were released originally in Japan and then translated into English for American distribution. As you can imagine, this resulted in many spelling errors and mistakes. My favorite example of this is in Double Dragon where the name “Billy” is spelled “Bimmy”.
I decided it was time for a new look for the site, following the layout and color scheme I used for my new online portfolio. It’s a little simpler and more straight-forward, which I personally prefer to the normal ”cluttered” blog look that I see a lot these days.
If anyone has feedback, I’d be interested to know what you think.
Also, I’ve set aside some space above the blog content for the latest in project news. As of this post, I’ve announced that 8-Bit Jesus is now available for digital download on CD Baby and will soon be available on iTunes, Amazon and other sites. You will also be able to purchase physical copies through these sites, but I am now selling them for the same price, including shipping!
So as many of you might have seen floating around the Internet this past week, I’m working on an 8-bit re-creation / tribute to one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen online. If you’ve never seen Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, then your nerd license is herby revoked until you do.
I find it funny that I hadn’t yet posted about this in my own blog before it was picked up and tweeted by both Felicia Day and Maurissa Tancharoen, then re-tweeted by a slew of Dr. H fans, but better late than never, right? I already posted some tracks and “screen shots” of the hypothetical “Dr. Horrble” Nintendo game-in-the-making on the Autumn Society blog, so rather than post the same content here, hit the jump for some more info about the project, including more images after the jump!
Monday November 16th 2009, 5:09 am
Filed under: Music
It’s been a long wait, I know, but the new album really is coming along. My trusty illustrator/designer, Jude Buffum was recently bombarded by a ton of big jobs, so the album artwork is on the backburner for now, but don’t worry, I have something to tide over all the fine folks that have actually been following the progress on the album (plus anyone who happens upon my blog without previous knowledge of said album, and those who forgot about it and also stumble back this way).
Did I mention that the official title of the album is After These Messages?
Right…as I promised, below you will find a sample of title screens from the theoretical “games” that will be on the album. These will all be part of a Flash player that will be available with the official pre-release of the album, which will allow you fine folks to listen to the entire album online.
Enjoy!
This is less that one third of the tracks that will be on the final album, so this should be a real treat for all you 80’s TV Shows/Cartoons and Video Game lovers out there.
Friday August 28th 2009, 2:20 am
Filed under: Music
Okay, so a lot of you might have either forgotten or lost interest by now, considering I originally announced an end of May release for my 80’s TV Shows and Cartoons album, but seriously, it will be completed soon. I’m aiming to have pressed copies of the finished 30-track album in hand and ready to ship out by the end of September at the latest.
For those interested, the delay was caused by a few contributing factors. First, my computer decided to consistantly shut down on me without notice. After fixing that problem, the screen stopped working, so I had to get a new monitor. Within a week of that time, the sound on my Nintendo started crapping out. I took this as a sign that I should get my hands on a sound-modded NES to record the album, and make it the best quality possible.
Well, thanks to my new best friend Low-Gain, I will now have one arriving in the mail any day now! Also, Jude Buffum showed me a few WIP’s of the album art, and I have to say…this package just might be better than the 8-Bit Jesus album design.
Needless to say, things are finally coming together and within a few weeks I should have a teaser download available and be able to take pre-orders for the album.
Jude Buffum and I have been talking about collaborating on a number of side projects lately, the first of which was his idea for an 8-Bit Keyboard Cat video. If you’re not familiar with this phenomenon, I highly recommend you check out the official Keyboard Cat website. Once you get the picture, then watch ours!
While I was unable to hit my original end of May release goal, I’m getting very close to releasing the free digital preview download. A few things remain, the first of which being a name for the damn thing! If anyone has any ideas, shoot them my way. Whoever comes up with the best name, whether or not I use it, gets a free copy of the press!
Until then, I want to throw a few more teasers out there, the first of which is a video of the MidiNES at work, with one of the unreleased songs from the album, Airwolf!
For those who’ve never heard of MidiNES, it was created by a genius by the name of Chris Kann, aka x|k. This modified NES cartridge plugs into the Nintendo like any other cartridge, and via any external MIDI device, one can utilize the NES soundcard to create their own original chip-tunes using the authentic NES sound.
Needless to say, I’m excited to try this out with the tracks I’ve been working on for my upcoming TV Show and Cartoon Themes album, due for release at the end of May, 2009. Up until now, I’ve been utilizing plugins that merely simulate the NES sound, but this is the real deal!
I’m going to make my best efforts to convert all my current tracks to be compatible with MidiNES for a better sound, but with a move in mid-May, a busy work schedule and other projects going on, I may be cutting it real close.
For those of you who downloaded the Here Comes A New Challenger album put out by Game Music 4 All last year, here’s a little sneak peak of the album art I’m working on. For those who haven’t I recommend following the link above to download it for free and listen to it!
I don’t want to show too much, but as you can see, I’m not holding anything back on this one. I took a different approach from the hoard of custom sprites I did for the first nerdy compilation, but I’m really liking how it’s turning out. Check the links below to download sweet wallpaper for your desktop!
For those who’ve never heard of 
