GlaZ Title Theme

Hello YC, I recently got commisioned to compose music for a game called GlaZ. Coincidentally, the main objective of this game is somewhat similar to the game Marius is composing for, you control a metal ball and go through levels. The developer of the game told me to make a title theme for his game.

The piece is a fast pace, techno/dance music. It's just your typical techno music, the only twist to it is that it's in 5/4 time. If you're like me and never heard techno music that has a 5/4 meter, you have a chance now ;)

There are some parts in the piece where I kept it a little airy on purpose, to make sure that the title music doesn't sound heavier than the actual in-game music, hence the usage of the light synths in the piece.

And as a bonus, I had a little adding my vocals into the track. You can hear me saying "glazzzz" a few times in the piece. Spot them ;)

GlaZ Title Theme (Techno) - eSnips, share anything

Comments are appreciated as usual.

Hi Nigel. You have an very interesting piece here. I know Glaz project. I was supposed to do SFX because place for music was fulfilled, and now I know it was you. I'm very glad now knowing this.

I have only one issue about the piece. I'm not much in techno but meter 5/4 should have two sections either 2+3 OR 3+2 (quarters). And you have 2/4 in drum section so it sounds confusing.

Good luck.

I have only one issue about the piece. I'm not much in techno but meter 5/4 should have two sections either 2+3 OR 3+2 (quarters). And you have 2/4 in drum section so it sounds confusing.

Good luck.

Well, that was what I had to compensate. Since most techno music has a kick drum on every beat, I followed that. Then after a beat of kick drums, there's a beat of snare drum. So if you want to analyze the rhythm, it's not 2+3 or 3+3, it could be said as 10/4.

Let's not get too technical shall we? Heh:P

Hahahahahahahahaha!

ahahahaha *cough* *hack* bahahahahahahheeheeheehee

whooooooo!

A-ha...ha...hoo...okay, I'm good now. :P

Sorry, so hi there Nigel. I want to comment on this but the link seems broken - and when I searched Esnips for "GlaZ" I didn't get it either, so you might want to check to see what's up.

Anyhow, the reason I had my little outburst of amusement there is because, not three days ago, my employer messages me with the gamedev page of GlaZ saying "Marius, man, this is our competition!!" Apparently he played the demo or something and wasn't very impressed at all, but I found it really cool that we're both working on similar (and apparently competing) projects!

Did you get some more details about the release/progress/etc of it? I'd be interested to see if they managed to get a publishing contract or anything like that.

Congratulations with getting the gig in any case though, and let me know if you need any help. :)

P.S. Don't forget about fixing that link so I can comment. ;)

Hahaha, I never knew that.

Well, GlaZ isn't anywhere near as impressive as Spectraball, to be honest. So no worries there. And besides, I think I'll just be doing the title theme only for this game, since the game developer wanted a style of techno which is basically just noise for the in-game music, which I can't bear to hear let alone compose.

BTW, the link is fixed. Try it :)

I have to say, I rather like this piece. I'm not a huge fan of techno mainly because it usually lacks a melody and is often too repetitive. Both those problems I don't hear in your piece. It kept me interested throughout. The 5/4 is noticeable but not awkward sounding and it's nice to hear a techno track that isn't in 4/4. Overall, nice job. Sorry to hear that you're quitting the rest of the project,

Okay, time for comments then! I'll keep this nice and brief since my thoughts are quite simple.

I LOVE it, so that's a nice start. The edgy feeling of the beginning and ending contrasts beautifully with the otherwise airy feel of things, so I found that particularly nice. The rhythm really worked with the piece and I think that you established a strong sense of motion that you kept up. I might have varied the constant kick-snare dealie in the beginning section, but that's not too important.

Your transition into the middle section was a bit jarring, so you might want to consider smoothing that over a bit as a polish. Otherwise, the vocal effects added a really cool atmosphere to the piece, and you were nice and subtle about adding them in, which I appreciated. Great idea with that, by the way; I might have to do something similar for Spectraball. ;)

Anyhow, this is one of my favourite works of yours now, so congratulations on impressing me. Great work and thanks for sharing! :)

I thought of Street Fighter when I listened to this..

All that techno sounding stuff kind of made me feel a tiny bit disoriented. Which I think would be good?

To be honest, I think this is one of the least disorienting techno tracks I've listened to :PMaybe you're not used to synthesized sounds?

So anymore comments? I spent quite some time on this and would love to hear more input from you guys :)

Hey,

I see made you've good use of the swelling synths. The melody is simple, but interesting and you seem to vary presentation of it. I like when the pluckish synth comes in. And then the snare... Sounds almost like the music to a 80's pop song LOL.

Anyway... after that the raw synth switches the feel to a low octave with the swelling and phased (or morphing) synths playing over it with the pluck fading in and out.

Then at 1:06 you technically played the melody with the kick and synth with the other synths playing chords (and some of them are fading in and out, right?). The morphing synths keep some interest. You should try to progress the percussion in this section to make it even more interesting.

After that it appears you loop it.

Nice little piece with nice momentum. :thumbsup:

Are you composing the rest of the soundtrack or were you just asked to do the title theme?

Thanks for writing this! I've always thought that some of the complexity that they leave out of most pop music genres (like only ever writing in one meter) is just laziness rather than something necissary for the stlye- and here's living proof :D

Hey,

I see made you've good use of the swelling synths. The melody is simple, but interesting and you seem to vary presentation of it. I like when the pluckish synth comes in. And then the snare... Sounds almost like the music to a 80's pop song LOL.

Anyway... after that the raw synth switches the feel to a low octave with the swelling and phased (or morphing) synths playing over it with the pluck fading in and out.

Then at 1:06 you technically played the melody with the kick and synth with the other synths playing chords (and some of them are fading in and out, right?). The morphing synths keep some interest. You should try to progress the percussion in this section to make it even more interesting.

After that it appears you loop it.

Nice little piece with nice momentum. :thumbsup:

Are you composing the rest of the soundtrack or were you just asked to do the title theme?

I was asked to do the whole soundtrack at first, along with another composer. The developer said it would be fitting for the title theme, and wanted me to do in-game themes. But after listening to some samples on how he wanted thein-game music to sound, I turned it down. It's really just a loud, compressed drumkit loop + some synths here and there, and I really don't want to compose that kind of music.

It appears I looped it at a point, but there is also a modulation thrown in as well.

Thanks for commenting.

I'm still not 100% sure which part was your voice, heh.

Very nice stuff, the main melody (I think?) was quite catchy, although sounds a little familiar. I don't listen to this type of music much, but it seems like you used the sounds quite well. :) I take that it's meant to loop, right? If so, the ending still seemed slightly awkward to me, but it's no biggie.

I'm still not 100% sure which part was your voice, heh.

Very nice stuff, the main melody (I think?) was quite catchy, although sounds a little familiar. I don't listen to this type of music much, but it seems like you used the sounds quite well. :) I take that it's meant to loop, right? If so, the ending still seemed slightly awkward to me, but it's no biggie.

Nope, it's not meant to loop, as it's a title theme. You can hear my voice in 3 places: the beginning, and 2 parts in the middle. I was saying the word "Glazzzzzzz". IMO it should be pretty easy to spot. :thumbsup: