Music Library: The Rest of 2004

 If all I had to do was throw zip files of these songs up, I'd have put  the complete collection up ages ago, but since I wanted to go through  and "annotate" each song, it takes considerably more effort than I  anticipated. In 2004 (the year I started messing around in FL Studio), I  did over 100 songs. Here's the good half.

Also, the obligatory warning: I did not compose or sequence any of these songs, I merely remastered them in FL Studio. Unfortunately, these are so old it's from a time before I started crediting the MIDI sources. My apologies!

In this 7zip  file:

Birth_Of_Milenko.mp3 (February 3rd, 2004) And this is why I don't try and compose original songs. This isn't a MIDI by anyone else. This is a MIDI that was by me, for a fangame I was creating at the time called Sonic Infinity. It's a simple "Those Chosen by the Planet" sort of song, but the beat eventually loses its timing and the whole song falls apart. I fade it out before it gets too bad. I think this is from the aforementioned "record with Windows Sound Recorder" method, incidentally. It's probably actually from 2002 or 2001.

slayer.mp3 (February 16th, 2004) And Cinossu introduced me to the FL Slayer plugin. FL Slayer attempts to do heavy metal guitar but it always ended up coming out the other end sounding like grungy muck. Here's a Castlevania 2 MIDI fed through it.

megamanzero_resurrection.mp3 (February 16th, 2004) Let's try an iconic Mega Man X song with FL Slayer. Results? Barf.

megamanx_highwaycredits.mp3 (February 16th, 2004) What about the Mega Man X credits theme? Does that work well with FL Slayer? Nope. No, it really, really doesn't. 

jazz_xmas.mp3 (February 17th, 2004) Surprisingly, since Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare's grungy guitar sound was already a crummy fake guitar, throwing the FL Slayer at it... is a semi-accurate replication of what that song originally sounded like.

megamanx_intro.mp3 (February 17th, 2004) Maybe we can, like, cover up FL Slayer with some flange effects or something? Would that work? Ehhh... I mean... kind of. 

jazz_theme.mp3 (February 17th, 2004) Hey, this version of the Jazz Jackrabbit theme doesn't sound so b--- AUGH, FL SLAYER!

SecretBase.mp3 (February 17th, 2004) Ahahaha, what on earth is wrong with the brass in this? I have no idea what I could have done to make it so weirdly off key, and it only seems to effect the first few bars of any given segment. This is so gross! Maybe I was using a synth plugin for brass and it was struggling with the notation or something. It's so depressing!

slayer_b.mp3 (February 20th, 2004) Castlevania 2 barf, take two. Barf harder!

tfh_invincibility.mp3 (February 23th, 2004) No, I'm probably not going to stop trying to find places to stick the FL Slayer any time soon, I'm sorry. This is obviously the invincibility theme from my old fangame project, "Sonic :The Fated Hour." 

tfh_runlikehell.mp3 (February 23th, 2004) Action! Adventure! Bad pizzicato strings and chruch bells! And a... tamborine? Was there always a tamborine in this song?

eggrocket.mp3 (March 17th, 2004) I remember being kind of proud of this when I originally did it. I think that's largely in part because FL Slayer actually slotted in here relatively painlessly, but I think the bug with the drums is rearing its ugly head again -- some of the beats are missing. Not a lot, but every now and then, one drum hit just vanishes. (From Sonic Advance)

big_earl_bump.mp3 (April 7th, 2004) The person who originally did this MIDI (Jarel Jones) accosted me for using too much reverb here. At the time, I didn't know what he was talking about, but I definitely understand, now. (From Toejam & Earl 2)

smbrock_3.mp3 (April 7th, 2004) Once again, I try to bury FL Slayer's shortcomings with lots of greasy flange. Gross.

undergroundzone_advance.mp3 (April 7th, 2004) A friend once told me he liked this version of the song. He's wrong. (A Sonic Advance styled version of "Underground Zone" from Sonic 2 Game Gear).

eggrocket_2.mp3 (April 12th, 2004) Tightening the graphics up on level 3 a bit. Drums are still dropping beats.

metroid_zm_title.mp3 (April 12th, 2004) That square wave doesn't really fit here. It's supposed to be a sine wave (which is more like the beeps you get when you punch in a phone number), but I didn't have any sine wave samples yet. From Metroid: Zero Mission.

zelda_rock.mp3 (April 13th, 2004) For a second this almost sounds good. And then it really... doesn't. And then it... WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE NOTES?

luigi.mp3 (April 14th, 2004) "I guess this sounds more like it does in Luigi's Mansion." is something I probably said while doing this. 

duke3d_theme.mp3 (April 26th, 2004) One day, we'll get past the point where I thought I could use FL Slayer.

pokebattle.mp3 (May 21th, 2004) I think I'd heard a super rad heavy metal version of the Poke-battle theme from the original Pokemon. I can't listen to this for very long, FL Slayer actually starts to hurt my ears. Fun fact: various versions of the Pokemon Battle theme was one of the very first things I started playing with in MIDI.

corneria.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) This is one of those "I want this to be real so I'm going to try to make it" sorts of things, with a nice updated version of Corneria from Star Fox using a "real" guitar. You can probably guess how it goes. We'll be revisiting this a couple times in the years to come.

volcano_4.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) This was for a friend's fangame, "Sonic Flash." I have no idea what the original song even was. Note: he requested it sound like this.

beach_2.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) More Sonic Flash shenanigans. Still no idea what the source song was or where it's from.

boss_2.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) Sonic Flash. Kind of a catchy song. I wonder where it's from?

base.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) Sonic Flash. Surprised by how big this batch is.

metal_3.mp3 (May 22nd, 2004) Sonic Flash. 

sigmabattle.mp3 (May 23nd, 2004) I think I did this song while I had another deadline I had to complete, and a friend was really mad that I took the time to do this and not the deadline thing he was waiting for me to finish. Oops! (From Mega Man X)

lockjaw_3.mp3 (May 29th, 2004) I knew "Lockjaw's Locker" from Donkey Kong Country 2 would be out of my league, but I still tried. 

hotcrater.mp3 (May 30th, 2004) I think this was another one a friend told me they liked me. Desperately in need of some EQ work at the very least. Yikes, that screeching FL Slayer. (Hot Crater from Sonic Advance 2)

leafforest_2.mp3 (June 1st, 2004) Another song that didn't sound awful until the FL Slayer came in. (Leaf Forest from Sonic Advance 2)

sad2_bosspinch_2.mp3 (June 1st, 2004) Just throwing garbage at the wall and hoping something sticks. It doesn't, really. (Sonic Advance 2 boss theme)

tfh_invince2_2.mp3 (June 30th, 2004), tfh_speed.mp3 (June 30th, 2004) With my new found FL Slayer abilities, can I.... actually, you know what, no, I can't.

eggbase_5.mp3 (June 30th, 2004) Getting the harp/pizzicato strings at the start of this song to sound "right" was a huge challenge I came back to repeatedly. (TFH)

flash_title2.mp3 (July 2nd, 2004) Sonic Flash's title screen song. I was surprise when my friend came back and wanted me to do more with the FL Slayer.

epoch_muzic07.mp3 (September 15th, 2004) A sort of soaring version of the Robotropolis music from the fangame Sonic Epoch.

epoch_haunted.mp3 (September 15th, 2004) Yeah, sure, that grim, dark time travel story about Sonic the Hedgheog ALSO contains a haunted mansion, what of it?

go_eat_snakes_4.mp3 (September 21st, 2004) It's always good to try pushing yourself, and in this case I wanted to see how close I could get to a song that didn't necessarily need remastering - a song from a Metal Gear Solid 3 trailer. Doesn't sound too bad until the clearly MIDI trumpet comes in.

hotcrater_4.mp3 (September 25th, 2004) What a bizarre take on Hot Crater from Sonic Advance 2. I kind of want to track this MIDI down and see what I can do with it nowadays, I love the sense of energy it has. It's just, you know, spoiled by FL Slayer.

ssbm_select_4.mp3 (October 12th, 2004) You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where they open the Ark of the Covenant and everybody dies? Imagine Indiana Jones is ACTUALLY begging Marian not to listen to this rendition of the character select screen from Smash Bros. Melee.

emeraldhill_2.mp3 (November 11th, 2004) Emerald Hill from Sonic 2, but it could use some better brass at the start. I did good with the bass and chorus, though.

gauntlet_metal_4.mp3 (November 14th, 2004) "Man, I wish there was cool heavy metal version of the Gauntlet theme!" - Unfortunately, this isn't it, for reasons you can guess.

scrap_brain_4.mp3 (December 5th, 2004) A pretty cool version of Scrap Brain from Sonic 1 that was unfortunately struck with the drum track bug.

halotheme_3.mp3 (December 11th, 2004) Yep, that's a MIDI version of the Halo theme, alright.

satam_knothole.mp3 (December 14th, 2004), satam_powerring.mp3 (December 14th, 2004) MIDI versions of the background music in episodes of the Saturday Morning Sonic cartoon. Though to be honest, I don't remember hearing the Knothole song in the show at all.

hotcrater_act2_4.mp3 (December 26th, 2004) Another stab at doing Sonic Advance 2's Hot Crater. At some point I get fed up attempting to do this song justice, trust me.

route_99_act3.mp3 (December 26th, 2004) Get ready to hear more of me attempting to do Sonic Advance 3's "Route 99", because like Hot Crater, I got stuck on trying to do this song justice for a good long time. I kind of like the way the synth stuff turned out, though. It's got a real plucky sound to it.

goldeneye64_jbtheme_3.mp3 (December 30th, 2004) We close out 2004 with another attempt to make the FL Slayer sound good, and it almost does sometimes. But it's still just the FL Slayer.