#bitcrush

An online music group that composes specifically for video games who seek to create worlds where the members and other people can escape to.

Collab unit w/ headphoneactor.lps on insta

*Alma uses she/they

Creation Date: ~October 2023

Proseka "Release" Date: 3rd Anniversary

Though the four of them interacted through posts on a music sharing forum for months, it isn't until Chikashi invites Alma to make music together that bitcrush officially formed. Though Alma had moved to Japan by the time the group formed, they don't discover each other's real names or faces for some time.

Alma's sekai, the Farm SEKAI, consists of pixelated farmland that visually shows no end. However, once the bounds are reached, an invisible barrier doesn’t allow further exploration. There is a small, cozy town surrounded by pasture, crop fields, and an orchard. The sekai was formed by Alma’s desire to escape the real world and return to a place that was familiar.

Untitled Song: A World to Escape by AkuP

Unit Emoji 🎮/👾

Chikashi🍰/🐾

Alma🐦

Giku📐

so i've been rlly burnt out on composing and covers for a bit bc of college applications and other general life stuff, and this is sort of the only thing i've managed to cobble together in like, months. granted, i have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to try composing a musical idea away from my piano (i usually just mess around on my piano until i find a cool idea and go from there, and that works, sure, but it's rlly annoying how dependent on luck the whole thing can feel sometimes + i end up constantly repeating the musical idea i got from my piano and my songs sound sort of boring as a result.) it's definitely not done yet, since i'm still sort of stuck on how i want to order sections (also, i'm still sticking to one musical idea!!! i have to do a bridge section with a rhythm and progression that isn't just a minor adjustment to the main idea or i swear to god i will perish from this earth), so i figured that i may as well post what i have right now for tumblr (unfortunately bluesky is kind of finnicky with just audio files so i would have to do some very basic cover art to post it to there, and i'm saving youtube for the finished song.)

anyways, talking about the song itself now: i've been listening to authentic sky from tekken 4 recently (i've never played tekken 4, i literally only know about this song bc of the deltarune ribbit mod, which is amazing and awesome and which you should play!!! if you want!!), and i found the repetitive piano section very pleasing to listen to. it sort of reminded me that i haven't done a lot of layered piano stuff like that in, ever maybe (the half-baked christmas song i have on my youtube maybe counts? but i've gotten better since then and want to make something complete), so why not do it now?? so i just put together a 3 voice piano thing + some very basic kicks.

the issue at the beginning was that i just didn't like the texture of the whole thing very much. like, the piano harmonies that i settled on were *good*, sure, but the piano instrument that i had was sort of bad (hence why i was looking for a bunch of soundfonts recently, bc garageband instruments can be so constricting like this.) everything was either meh or way too muted to sound good in the sort of song i wanted to make. so, to fix this, i figured that maybe i should use some plugins, and i eventually settled on bitcrushing everything a fair bit!

the piano bit seemed good then, but i felt that a lot of the actual movement of the song wouldn't be carried by the piano since it's supposed to be somewhat repetitive and trance-like, so i mainly built the rest of the sections through percussion (moved kicks to a later section for emphasis and replaced the beginning with hi-hats and shakers, some drum layers with a specific electronic kit bc that one has a cool sfx that, when bitcrushed, makes a sort of crackly sound that feels pleasant and cool to listen to, etc.) then i made a very meh melody line (i wanted to use a zunpet for the melody since it seems fun, but i think that would be better suited to the bridge section since zunpets always map in my brain to tension, so it's not here right now and instead i just have the piano carrying the melody in an octave harmony and a bell instrument for emphasis.)

also i made a bass section that im personally very proud of, since i never get to do cool bass sections in my covers (aside from the bass in from now on, that was a good one). like maybe it's a bit too active for the laid back nature of the whole thing, but man,,,, it sounds cool to me and that's all i need. doing the bass sections also forced my hand for some pitch bends, so i could then take that to the main piano bit and have it pitch bend when transitioning between sections, which was way more convenient than getting a reverse cymbal to do it (i have to set up a new drum track and put the cymbal there and measure how long the sound lasts and then i have to merge that part with itself to even get it as an audio file and then i have to reverse it and cut bits/do some volume automation shenanigans to even get it to actually fit the measures i want it to stick with and,,, yeah you prolly get why i dont wanna do that)

Turning more of the Bitcrush gang into Pokemon cards