Dig Your Way Out

My idea for this entry was to make 90s style "mines" level music the way that I remember it, and with a modern instrumentation and style rather than the way it was. Given the games I played in childhood the biggest influences in this area were unquestionably Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, and David Wise's pieces "Life in the Mines" and "Mining Melancholy", but also mining adjacent cave levels like Sonic 2's Mystic Cave Zone, and the music for that level by Masato Nakamura.

(NOTE: I did not listen to any of these pieces until I was completely done mixing, and I'd suggest you listen to this first and then those--it's really funny how our memories can polish and warp things like our favourite tracks.)

On this track itself, I used ambient sounds of a mine and mining equipment as that was a big stylistic choice of David Wise that stuck out to me even when I was little. There is an elevator, a rock grinder, and a mine cart which (if you're listening in headphones or speakers) moves between the left and right and back and foreground throughout the piece. In a game situation I think this would work nicely, so long as it wasn't played in 3D :).

The percussion is a mix of the aforementioned mining equipment, anvils, timpani, and taiko (and pitched down versions of both), and a delayed synth sound that pulsates in time with the mine cart, but has pitch so it's in key with the rest of the piece.

I chose a solo trumpet for the main melody because that seemed the most useful in a cave (and also the most dangerous!), and the pitched percussion is a mix of xylophones, marimbas, and a pitch-corrected sample of me hitting a water-filled bowl with a spoon--try it yourself, it's fun! The trumpet line intentionally features lines that would put a trumpet player nearly out of breath, to simulate being stuck in the mine.

There are also touches that made it more retro in my brain--a bass solo, sampled "MMM" voices, some arpeggiating flutes, and some brass counterpoint and harmony. 

Really enjoyed this week's jam, hope you all did too!