Creative: The Making of the Layton Album

Art by AdamOne (the 3rd) Cartwright

The creation of the album we've dubbed Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher was an adventure, a trial in the face of extreme adversity, and an experience of personal growth for those involved. Though extremely cliché, these words are nothing short of truth. It's hard for me to recall many of the specific details, they were extensive, but I’ll do my best to convey them here. Some time back in November, 2011, after Juja and I had recovered from making Pixel Glass, gone on tour, and got back to our regular lives, we starting entering into Dwelling of Duels again, making tracks for the sole purpose of entering into the contest and becoming better musicians in the process. We never did particularly well, but it was a lot of fun and over the next year or so Juja had the idea to make a Layton vs Dexter themed song for one of the site's regular "free month" contests. I forget exactly why but there were a lot of delays involved with arranging the song, and somewhere through the process, perhaps in early/mid 2012, we thought it would be cool to maybe make an album based on that song concept. Being a bit over-excited, I had the artwork made the next week by my friend Adam, while Juja and I put together a list of the songs we wanted to record. 

We originally intended it to be sort of a "best/worst of Dwelling of Duels entries, plus the Dexter vs Layton song", but the more time we put into arranging the Dexter song, the more months of DoD we entered (which took away from arranging the title track), and the more track ideas Juja and I had for recording and including on the album... We just sort of had a bunch of fun ideas of “oh, let’s do this”, which is how we normally operate, and worked towards recording those songs, quickly bringing an 8 track album to 17 tracks, to 20. It didn't help that Juja was also helping me record tracks for original songs I was working on as well. We were busy guys, just having fun putting together music, learning more about recording techniques with each passing month. At one point I got Juja a better interface so he wouldn't have to record with a 3 second delay, and got myself a really nice headset so I could get an accurate feel for the music we were mixing. I also learned how to program drums, making my first attempt on a Puzzle Theme, but eventually getting pretty alright at it. I also learned a lot about editing, pitch correction, and mixing/mastering while experimenting on this project over the years.

Picture of the 36 hour recording rig

Somewhere in early 2012 I got really depressed for 6 months and stopped working on music altogether (except for shows with RE). I can't remember why I got so depressed, I don't want to. It hit me hard and didn't let up for a very long time. When I finally got out of my depression an unfortunate loss hit Juja and he couldn't really be reached for a few months either. We both got out of our slumps briefly to put together a December entry for DoD then Juja and I stopped talking for another 3 months. It wasn't that we fought or anything, we were both just going through personal stuff and didn't really make any progress on the album. Juja didn't play guitar, I didn't play accordion beyond any band-related obligations I had... But with time we both were able to recover, probably thanks to a call from my good friend Helios, who was moving back to the US from South Korea after 6 years of being away. In addition to being the other founding member of Random Encounter, Helios is someone I genuinely consider family, though we're not related. Over the years he’s pushed me to be a better musician, helped me find a direction, musical outlet, and encouraged me to keep at it when no one else (except my dear mother) would. The thought of him being a mere 3 hour flight away really inspired me... And after talking with Helios on the phone for the first time in a year or more, he agreed to fly in for a weekend and record whatever I wanted on piano, the instrument he had gone to college to perfect the art of. I booked the flight and spent a few weeks arranging the music, mostly the stuff he and I had always wanted to record as Random Encounter but had never got to properly do before he moved away... As Helios was engaged at the time (they got married later), and Juja wanted to also be involved to some extent, we decided to stream the weekend-long recording session. Despite 5 really important piano keys breaking in the opening moments of the recording session the weekend was a success. We recorded for a total of 36 hours, averaged 20-40 viewers (even well into the early hours of the morning), and finishing a whopping 30 songs!!! Despite being utterly insane, the experience reinvigorated us (at least myself) to get back on the proverbial horse and finish the album we started almost two years prior.

There was another huge delay in starting our album, the acceptance of Careless Juja live to Nerdapalooza, which in itself was an immense undertaking, but I already had most of my parts of the album recorded, and it would be good practice for the dreaded Layton solo, so I didn't see it as such a bad thing. In short, Adam (the artist), Juja, Helios, and a half dozen other musicians played some of our songs in a live setting. It was awesome and it was about this time that we hired Brandon Strader (who wrote his own version of the making of the this album here), a really talented guy we knew from DoD and from his album called Random Encounter (which I'd discovered while looking up my band on google). He seemed fairly approachable, so we tried to get him to help us arrange, mix, and master our title track, which needed to sound amazing... But in working with the guy it was really clear to Juja and myself that he understood what we were about, that he's really talented, and that he was just as passionate about our music as we were. While we didn't intend to outsource mixing our entire album, he was a lot more talented than us, extremely friendly, and open to the idea. Now, instead of simply re-releasing DoD tracks on an album, we'd be properly mixing them, re-recording parts, editing others, and really making every track sound as good as possible. Strader finished arranging the Dexter theme while Juja and I worked on the logistics of the live show.

Careless, Helios, Juja, and Ben (my nephew) at Walmart…

Shortly before the Nerdapalooza show

After the Nerdapalooza show, thanks to a mix of Strader's enthusiasm and the good vibes we got from playing the show, Juja and I immediately got to recording. I had just picked up a new recording technique called "recording with dynamics", which made my accordion sound significantly better than any previous method of recording, so though it was really unenjoyable to do, I felt it was right to go back and literally re-record many of the songs I'd spent the last 2 years recording... Including the dreaded Professor Layton solo that literally look me 3 months of daily practice to perfect, and 6 hours to record the perfect take. Sort of like the salmon commercials boasting that they "endure the worst to bring you the best", during the making of this album I broke two accordions (reeds popped out, mics broke), my home completely flooded with 2+ inches of water, twice, my water-pump system & AC broke the same day during the start of my big 4 day "heat-wave recording session" (no AC and no water to the building for 4 solid days of recording), the piano broke 4 additional keys when I started to record the touch-ups to Helios' parts, the computer with all the recordings for the entire album died, the backup hard drive with all the recordings was physically dropped (by me, carelessly down a flight of stairs) and destroyed immediately after the file transfer, there were technical failures at just about every recording session, everyone involved caught some pretty intense sicknesses, and Strader's car was shot with real gunfire after two of his neighbors got into a scuffle and decided to kill one another... I'm sure there are worse horror stories out there for album creations but I just wanted to illustrate the literal blood, mucus, sweat, and tears rendered into the tracks of this album.

Careless Juja

Around Nerdapalooza we hosted a Kickstarter, got lots of help from 8bitX and Nerdapalooza advertising it, and reached our goal in the final hours. I really can't emphasize that without the help of our Kickstarter backers we really couldn't have afforded to put the album together... While putting together a track listing a few weeks later, as we looked at a 35+ track album, we deduced that the average Compact Disc can only hold 70 minutes of music, and that we'd promised to deliver all of the 35 songs. It didn’t take Professor Layton to tell us that we needed to change what we had a problem on our hands… I firmly believed that a two disc Layton album would be a bad idea because I felt the Dexter vs Layton theme wasn't dynamic enough (we didn't have enough music from Layton and didn't want to add more songs as we were already behind schedule) for an epic 2 CD's of music. We also didn't think that people would want two back-to-back discs of our music and didn't have any new ideas for additional album art that fit the theme. Still, we wanted to make sure that all our backers got everything we promised, so in the end I came up with a pretty interesting idea for another album concept, which we could work on after Juja, Strader, and I finished the Layton album.

Interior Album Art

After the recording phase was complete in April (it took a lot of time to coordinate our efforts with the various guest drummers/artists), Juja and I were fairly burnt out (I also juggle Random Encounter, a half-dozen musical collaborations, and Juja works on other music projects too), so we took a breather of sorts while Strader worked his magic... Well, that’s actually sort of a lie... I was working with my good friend Peter Pepper to write the script for the "other album" while Juja and myself were arranging/recording songs for it. In early June, we got a message from Strader saying he was almost done and we spent the entire weekend of June 14th in back and forth conversations in a three way chat, listening to tracks, finalizing, and tweaking the entire album. It was at this point that we decided to throw in the Punch Out song, because it sounded good and Juja had jokingly posted the song to the Careless Juja facebook page as “something that has nothing to do with the Layton album.” This is also where Strader went from “really awesome mixing guy” to “really insanely awesome mixing guy” in my books.

Victory picture from the Airport Terminal I slept in

During that weekend I realized that I’d forgotten to record the intro jingle to our intro track and recorded it using the musical typing feature (literally using my computer's keyboard) while on a flight from Atlanta to Boston. I got a bunch of looks from other people on the plane... Also, at the last possible minute of the final day, Juja informed Strader and I that the intro piano bit in the Layton song was completely wrong... He had apparently transcribed it wrong years ago and had forgotten to fix it. Luckily Strader is a super chill guy and literally 6 hours before the final mixed/mastered tracks were to be submitted to the CD printing company, I recorded the updated version of the piano tracks, he mixed them in, and they made it into the final cut.

I write all of this before the album has been released, little over a week before our album premiere/release/listening party on 8BitX.com [update: posted 1 day before the release], before anyone besides the three of us has really heard any of the tracks, and I'm unsure how our album is going to be received… I do know that I'm proud of our new album, that we probably couldn't have made it any better. My personal goal of creating & releasing these songs to the world has been a success, so I am without regret, though admittedly it would be cool if people beyond us enjoy this too. Juja and Strader are of a similar mindset, and we sincerely hope you enjoy our latest creation: Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Video Game Review: Rogue Legacy

I'd like to say a quick hello to my readership in Germany and France! Thank you guys for your continued interest :)

I was strolling around on the internet this weekend when out of nowhere my buddy Stomphoof shared a youtube video featuring gameplay from a cute little game called Rogue Legacy. You can watch the video I saw here, but in short it's a new side-scrolling action game with a toonish style. The game concept sort of interested me, and the music (specifically the song Pistol Shrimp, featured in the trailer) pulled me in. Despite being compared to Ghosts 'n Goblins (which I dislike) and looking downright impossible to play in the trailer, $15 on GoodOldGames.com and maybe 8 or 12 hours later...


Gameplay/Plot: Rogue Legacy is Metroid-Vania style game I'd equate to "Castlevania without the Dracula..." You, the descendant of... well, the first character you played as who died... enter a dark and spooky castle to avenge the death of your ancestor(s)! One of the big game mechanics is that you are always playing as a unique character. Let's start with the basics: Every generation (every time you die) you get to select one of three heroes/heroines. Each of these characters fits a quasi-typical fantasy genre character class: 

Basic/Upgraded Class

• Knave/Assassin: Low stats, high chance to get critical hits.
• Knight/Paladin: Standard Hero.
• Barbarian/Barbarian King: A walking tank. Low damage output.
• Mage/Arch-Mage: -50% health, +50% mana. Each Kill gives you mana.
• Shinobi/Hokage: Low defense and HP. No critical hits. Extra high damage.
• Lich/Lich King: Starts weak but gains health with every kill.
• Miner/Spelunker: Very low stats, but everything gives you more gold.
• Spellthief/Spellsword: Steals Mana from enemies with each hit.
• ????: A hidden unlock.

In addition to being randomly selected from each Class, each character has a few traits. These can be seemingly useless things like a compulsion to curse every time you're hit, no peripheral vision (which doesn't affect a side scrolling game), or being a savant at something to being really serious. The more serious traits your character can have are a great memory (allowing you to remember how many enemies are alive inside every room you've been to on the minimap), be nearsighted (making everything far off extremely blurry), have Alzheimers (which means you don't get a minimap because you're generally lost), be balding (which the game will ebb at your sanity regarding), or just eb adb ta spllenig tinhgs (wihch jsut srot fo cmopicaltes thngis).
In addition to your random class and traits, your character choices also come with a unique weapon (daggers, axe, watch, scythes, etc. ala Castlevania). 

After picking the 1 out of the 3 randomly generated descendants you want to play as you enter the castle, which is constantly rearranging itself. I don't just mean that you encounter the same rooms in a slightly different arrangement, I mean that everything completely changes every time you enter, meaning that though you can upgrade your character using the gold you found on the previous run through the castle, and though you have awesome gear, you're now going through unknown territory.

Far from the entirely unenjoyable experience of Ghosts N' Goblins in terms of difficulty I'd say that Rogue Legacy is no more difficult than a typical SNES side-scroller. It's fluid, the controls are very responsive, and the niche-upgrade system can cater to your personal style of gameplay. For instance, I never use Magic Items, I love using the triple-jump and levitate runes, and I constantly upgrade my sword because I want to do as much damage with each swing as possible. In an odd way the customization reminds me of Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, only with a sense of humor and references to Batman, Skyrim, and a dozen other things I won't spoil.

The Upgrade Screen

"Freedom": This game is as free as an exploration-based side scrolling game can be. You can fight bosses in any order you like (though you'll likely get schooled), you can upgrade your character in any ways you'd like (visually represented in the form of a castle), and there are countless little freedoms you'll notice while playing the game. For instance, a character known as "the Architect" will allow you to go through the same castle you went through (meaning the rooms/monsters are the same configuration) in your most recent playthrough at the cost of 30% of your earnings this time through. Noticeably the castle always seems to take into account what abilities/gear you have so there's almost no need to ever backtrack. Everything also completely rearranges the next time you enter the castle so there's also really no way to backtrack.

Portraits that resemble Paladin Lobos from Lords of Thunder!

Art/Music: The music was the initial reason I was pulled into this game so I'll vouch that it's extremely enjoyable. The SNES-era style character and bright flashing numbers indicating damage (ala Cave Story) were also things I greatly enjoyed. Should you want to check out the soundtrack, which I highly recommend, you can do so on the game's bandcamp page.

There are a lot of silly Easter eggs for you to find in this game that you'll likely appreciate. Everything from Nerdy Glasses (that fix being nearsighted) to Santa Clause. There is also a diverse array of enemy types, attacks, and minibosses.

The Bad: If you're looking for a really deep plot you're a bit out of luck as this is a generally carefree game. Luckily I wasn't. My only complaints with Rogue Legacy are that some of the upgrades are kind of expensive the further along you get. It's probably balanced, I'm just not used to "leveling" in an action-adventure game (at least not since Kingdom Hearts) and found that the rising upgrade prices tended to be tiresome after awhile. Some of the randomly generated maps were also particularly cruel, bordering unfair based on my gaming style or the class. Just the same the unfair parts of the game were completely gone by the next playthrough.

Closing Thoughts: I very much enjoyed Rogue Legacy and highly recommend it.

Music/Creative: Challenges with making Pixel Glass

Original Album Cover Concept

This is the part three of my personal growth of as a recording musician, aka a cautionary tale of things to think about before going to a studio...

Where we last left the story, Random Encounter had just released Unavenged and was planning a US East Coast tour for the summer of 2011. Somewhere in the planning process it became really apparent that our guitarist Konami wouldn't be able to join us for most of the tour, so on a whim I'd invited my friend Juja (a guy I'd met on youtube, had never seen a picture of, and had never spoken to outside of emails) to join us. Let's back-track a bit... Juja and I had spent roughly 11 months working on the Sonic Suite by emailing each other back and fourth through yahoo mail. It was only a month after Unavenged was released that we thought to collaborate on a second song, just for fun. We talked it over and decided that we wanted to do a cover of Phantom Temple from FF VII. After chatting with my bandmates (Random Encounter) it was concluded that they were all too busy to take part... That or I just had a lot of time on my hands... Either way Juja and I put together an arrangement in midi and completed a version of the song, blended it with two other songs, made a silly video, and posted it here on youtube in under a month. Fast forward to the aforementioned invitation to go on tour.

This Became Disc Art

Juja was happy to accept our invitation to go on tour (5 weeks before the tour). I randomly suggested that we make a short album together that we could sell to help cover his airfare from Utah to Florida (and back), having absolutely no idea what that would entail. I suppose I was just looking for an excuse to use my newly acquired editing/mixing/recording talents so it seemed like a really great idea at the time. He thought it was a good enough idea and because Juja didn't care much about the visual aesthetic of the album, I put together the visual theme and contacted an artist I'd known since childhood to work on the art while stuck on an airplane somewhere. The artist had 4 weeks to design "stained glass style art" of various scenes I had in mind, which seemed like more than enough time for someone who was working part time and not involved in any other serious activities. Juja and I worked on a list of songs we thought it would be cool to include, largely working off pieces he'd already done for his Youtube account. With minimal additions and some light remixing, nine tracks of the album were completed in a weekend but we had some bigger goals in mind... Juja had done an Acoustic Version of Zelda 2 which was how I'd found him in the first place that we'd wanted to re-record with a full band feel. In addition, Juja wanted real drums on a couple of other tracks so I asked my friend Adam "One" if he could help us out. For reference, Moose and the rest of Random Encounter were fairly busy and lived 3 hours away (43 hours away from Juja) so collaboration with them was not really feasible. Adam, recently employed by the same publishing company I worked at, had fairly available hours and drove down to my apartment to record his parts. It was quite an experience.

Recording Drums Low Tech

When recording drums on your own it's important to have multiple microphones, multiple inputs on interface, and software capable of recording multiple inputs at a time. I lacked two of these things... So it with 3 microphones EQ'd through a portable mixing board, outputted to a single channel, Adam and I recorded drums for the entire album (except for Dancing Mad, which had been recorded during the Self Titled album drum sessions). While recording Castlevania we encountered some other difficulties because the neighbors (who regularly blast expletive-filled rap music at all hours of the day and night) were upset that we saw fit to record drums on a Saturday afternoon (a time they regularly blast their music) and complained that their baby was asleep. So the last track in the rock drum recording session was quickly switched to a light jazz-style recording session in an effort to not wake their baby. Three takes through Castlevania later it was complete and the neighbors stopped banging on my door. Before the drums were EQ'd you could actually hear them banging on the door and yelling at certain parts... Which I'd have cared about if they didn't blast their music at 2am the previous night despite my very friendly requests for them not to.

Temple of the Ancients Sunrise Surprise!
Can You Find The Hidden Snail?

The rest of Zelda 2 was recorded in one very full day and mixed the same night by my longtime friend Roman in NYC. It's worth noting that we submitted the "pre-dinner mix" of the song (4:30pm) to the Dwelling of Duels contest and somehow robbed better musicians of 4th place before we passed out. I woke up around 2am and had a yahoo messenger chat/feedback/edit/mix session with Juja and Roman until the song was finally concluded at about 4am. Even after Zelda 2 was compete there was still no time to rest. I'd wanted to record a rendition of Dancing Mad and that would take the rest of the work-week. Not much weirdness there because it happens to be my favorite song and one I've been practicing since I first picked up an accordion. The only thing worth mentioning is that I wrote some lyrics for the song and had them translated to Latin by a friend.

Long Nights of Recording...

Initially we included 'The Entire Soundtrack to Castlevania' in our list of songs to record as a joke but at this point, a mere 5 days before the album had to be complete, it suddenly becoming a very real possibility. It took me the week before to arrange the medley and it took Adam 3 full takes to finish the drum parts (that's really bad for Adam). It took Juja and myself roughly 3 nonstop days of recording (stopping for mere hours of sleep) to record, and it took Roman 2 solid days to mix/master. During this time I had also come to realize that my artist friend was in fact not going to finish the art...

This Was Submitted the Night Before the Deadline

About 1 day before the drop-dead due date for the art, my friend informed me that he wasn't able to complete it, but 'it was okay' because I didn't have to pay him. After a genuine apology from him I was admittedly still upset at a situation I should have seen coming, given his reservation to share his work in progress stuff with me. I asked my friend to give me his sketches, and at 7pm on the eve of the project's due date I called Adam to see if he'd be willing to undertake an insane art project due the next morning. Remarkably he accepted and saved the project. His only question was "What's the name of the album?" because Juja and I hadn't actually come up with a name, and it wasn't until about 5 minutes before that Juja came up with "Pixel Glass by Careless Juja", which we went with. I don't think Juja was actually aware that we went with that title until the finished CD's arrived but it was the best title we had (barring "Vladimir Vengrov versus the Giant Killer Snails from Outer Space by Adam The Careless Horse"). Due to time limitations involved with the artistic deadline, Adam swapped out our original cover sketch (A slightly skewed rendition of the Master Sword) with the picture of Simon Belmont fighting Dracula, put the original sketches through various color filters, and created the CD backing art, the album back art, the credits, and the interior panel art from scratch, and formatted it before the sun rose the next morning.

This Was Originally the Disc Art

With all of our work done and an album recorded in under a month, I uploaded the disc image (made for me by my buddy boR) to the CD production company's website, and a mere week later, just in time for Nerdapalooza, the box of new albums arrived... with a gaping flaw. The data on the discs was not burned correctly so instead of being a music CD, each disc was entirely useless in a CD player because it only burnt copies of the album... Awesome. So a few phone calls and 72 hours later, we had replacement discs overnighted to us (which we were billed-in-full for, despite the company admitting to their mistake) and the album was successfully released, seemly defiant against all odds! I only wish I were embellishing this story but sometimes the truth is story enough.

Death: Who I'd Soon See if I Didn't Sleep

Quick aside: I'd mentioned that I'd never actually met Juja until the day before the tour and while I'm telling my readership this in confidence, my band was entirely unaware that I'd never met him! During the last practice before tour they casually joked that he was probably an ugly, balding, smelly man of 45+ years of age, and as they made these jokes I suddenly began to fear the worst. I was pretty sure Juja once mentioned he was somewhere in his 20's but I couldn't remember... He also didn't have any visual representations of himself online except a badly MS-Paint drawn Kirby profile picture, or various images of horses so when I stood at the airport holding a sign that read "Mr. Gary Horses" I suddenly began to panic. Juja had mentioned that he was going to wear a purple dress shirt like some character from some show I'd never seen before and the man approaching me, holding a guitar case and wearing a purple shirt, was a very flamboyant man in his late 50's. Luckily he walked by me and wasn't Juja. Next a large (for political correctness let's call him fat) man in a purple shirt brushed by, followed almost immediately by a jacked body-builder type with the purple shirt, a guitar-case over one shoulder, and a woman on his other arm. They walked by as I panicked, thinking of reasons why Juja might have brought his girlfriend and where she would fit in the RV. Lastly, a balding man in his late 30's with a purple shirt approached with an awkward smile and stopped directly in front of me. He looked at my sign, looked right at me, laughed in my face, continued to stand there, and walked away. I was a bit confused but incredibly relieved it wasn't him. True to his word, the very last person off the airplane was Juja, a regular looking guy about the same age and build as myself with a sense of humor and prominent glasses. It was one of those moments of triumphant victory that you never tell your friends about or share with anyone.

Photo of Juja from Tour

In short, we became better friends in the confines of an RV with no air conditioning and went on an East Coast tour of the US as Random Encounter. About two years after the initial release, we're proudly re-releasing Pixel Glass with a set of completely re-recorded drums for the Castlevania track! Because we dislike the idea of forcing our fanbase to pay for things twice, if you already happen to own the album send me an email/message and I'll send you the new tracks for free. It's totally worth it. Oh, and if you like the music you should also like Careless Juja on facebook...

Game Review: A Spoiler Free Review of Bioshock Infinite!

A lot of people gave Bioshock Infinite a 10/10 and are already calling it the game of the year. While I generally follow the school of thought "if you can't say something nice..." my time as a gamer is extremely limited as an adult and I'm forced to trust in the words of others to dictate what games I play. I felt kind of cheated while playing it, not just because I had unreasonable expectations but because I didn't enjoy playing it. In an effort to give like-minded individuals an alternative perspective, free of spoilers, I've written the following...

Plot: Without ruining the game's rather complicated plot (I actually had to read a series of wikia/blog posts after beating the game to understand it) let's go into a few vague explanations. The plot is complicated... So complicated that if you miss any of the well-hidden recording devices throughout the game (ala Bioshock, System Shock  2, Dead Space, etc) you're likely to miss a key plot point. While I admire the immersion they put the player through (heh heh, baptism joke) I don't like when I complete something, throw up my hands in confusion, and have to go online to read about plot points I was never was exposed to. Complications aside, the game does a very good job of making you feel like you're in a real world and the (basic) plot unfolds in a very powerful way. I felt the characters all had depth, I genuinely cared about a girl I expected to be annoying (this is actually a really huge feat), and I didn't see where the plot was going until I'd arrived at the end of the game... Actually a bit after... I like when games require the player to think. All of this aside I philosophically disagree with a large plot point/mechanic on which the entire story revolves around and don't think they fully committed to the mechanic. Had I understood the 'mechanic' (I'm using a vague neutral term to completely avoid spoilers) from the beginning I probably would have not played the game because I think it's lame. I'll be happy to discuss/argue it with any of you privately but I don't want to write any spoilers here. In short, they do a good job of showing us a story that I think is not a good story to begin with.

"Freedom": This game is linear. Period. While there are a few instances where you can explore an area or initiate combat (in places where combat is not otherwise necessary) the game couldn't be more linear if someone asked "would you kindly..." However, given the nature of the game's predecessors I didn't expect a great deal of freedom and didn't mind the lack of it. In relation to the rest of the series you are given a lot more exploration-based freedom and even a few instances where you can decide of a person lives or dies.

Gameplay: Ironically this is actually where I felt Bioshock Infinite was its weakest. Having just completed Thief, System Shock 2, and (still playing) Skyrim I've become accustomed to playing a stealthy guy who likes to avoid combat and make as little noise as possible. That just isn't possible in Bioshock Infinite, which wouldn't be a problem if the combat mechanic was good. You will literally have to force your way through what equate to an endless sea of choke points where enemies will head you off and attack en mass. If someone sees you battle music cues up and it's an instant aggro of every enemy on the map. It's all but impossible to evade combat by running away so combat (and not avoid it) is clearly a big part of the game. The previous games were sort of survival-horror but there's nothing scary about the citizens of Columbia you murder in droves. In combat, you basically have two guns (at a time) making it a Halo style FPS (All enemies take multiple bullets to kill unless it's a head shot), which is weird when you're fighting hoards of humans. To add to my Halo analogy you're also given a recharging super-shield and (like its predecessors) death has almost no penalty. Also like the other games you have access to a series of abilities that are integral to the gameplay. I found most of them to have roughly the same effect (basically a sub-elemental shoot-attack, combined with a secondary mode that drops a sub-elemental proximity mine) and though some of the later abilities were fairly interesting it still felt like a Halo-1912 hybrid FPS with supernatural elements. If you like Halo then you might like combat. If you prefer Call of Duty (roughly 1 shot, 1 kill) you probably won't. Since I fall in the second category it's understandable that I wouldn't enjoy combat, especially with the departure of the horror elements.

Click on this picture for a better view

Feel: The setting is awesome. Period. This game feels exactly like I'd imagine the 1910's were kind of like... Only with better technology (think 'Rapture'). There are promotions for a brand of children's cigarettes, lots of racism, huge religious overtones in the daily life of citizens you pass, and a strong pre-depression era American pride that makes even the most right-wing Christians I know cringe. I feel that the setting is the strongest feature about the game (besides the art-stuffs) and it's extremely powerful. They set off to take us into a completely different world and greatly succeeded. Expanding on this, the non-combat parts of the game where you walk through the city are fantastic. I found myself enjoying the exploration portions of the game, even though I thought combat was clunky and forced.

Art: The graphics are stylistic (color wise) and beautiful. The sound quality and music are top notch. The acting is emotion-evoking. Every little song being played on the street corners, the random parlor-singers, the dialogue between random people, the loading screens, and even the in-game advertisements (for just about everything) all add to the immersive experience. Top notch on all accounts.

Closing Thoughts: Bioshock Infinite was well done. It had a really good environment and while the story was well executed I didn't like it for the above reasons. I found it's main mechanic, combat, to be in the style of the original Halo which felt awkward when fighting human enemies that should die to one bullet. I didn't like the abilities you're given and felt like the game dragged on after about the first 45 minutes. I also felt like many of the plot elements after the the game really gets going were very Doctor Who... Meaning that we're dealing with a world where anything is possible and they can randomly introduce huge world-shifting plot points at just about any moment. Though I'm a Doctor Who fan, this greatly detracted from my Bioshock experience. I liked the characters, I liked the world, and I even enjoyed a few elements of the gameplay (just walking through the world was wonderful) but ultimately it didn't make the game worthwhile for me because of the combat-mechanics. The beginning was fantastic, the last 30 minutes were good, but the middle was like wading knee-deep through a seemingly endless swamp (without an idea of where you're going). I didn't like this game but you might. 

Game Review: Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

I've been in a very Blizzard mood of late so I've spent what little free time I've had playing the single player modes of StarCraft II (Specifically 'Heart of the Swarm') and Diablo III. While it didn't seem like all that much time, it was apparently enough to beat Starcraft II and get more than halfway through Diablo III...  I'm not sure if that makes them both short games or if perhaps (more likely) that I'm having so much fun playing them that the time I've spent doesn't seem like nearly enough... This comes as a great relief after my last few modern gaming experiences left me feeling dissatisfied.

Plot: The story is presented in a mix of in-battle cutscenes (ala Starcraft or WC III), cinematic scenes and mission briefings (ala Starcraft), and through walking around your "ship" and chatting with the relevant parties that interest you between each battle (kind of like Mass Effect but with faster navigation). I'm going to skip any sort of detailed plot synopsis to avoid spoilers by just saying that you play as a solid protagonist fighting against an enemy that's easy to hate. It immediately brought me back to Brood Wars or the original Starcraft Zerg campaign (in a good way). The plot is well crafted, extremely linear, and is about what you'd expect from Starcraft. Despite being about one of the most ruthless characters in the series this installment of SC II has some of the most moving moments in the series, some really likable characters (some of which don't even speak), and even had me close to tears at one part. In short it's got a well constructed story that is expressed through a fantastically semi-interactive manner. You're not just watching a movie (Metal Gear), you really feel like you're taking part in the story. I should also mention that in the very beginning of the game (while it's installing) you have the option to watch a series of videos that give a synopsis of the entire series thus far.

"Freedom": There are a few times where you have 'options' that don't really affect the plot. These options are generally "do the mission," "don't do the mission," or "do the mission later" but they don't have an effect on the main plot beyond causing you to miss out on some of the finer details. There are also a lot of secondary objectives in each mission that give it something of an RPG element (they give you extra XP/advancements for your leader) and the new system of upgrading your minions by play-testing both types of upgraded minion in a brief skirmish is enjoyable. Despite being pretty much linear, that didn't bother me because I had the illusion of freedom and the story behind it was solid.

Zerg Rush!

Gameplay: It's an RTS and plays exactly like what you'd expect an RTS to play like. The difficulty slider should make it easy/hard enough for the most casual or hardcore of gamers who are interested in the series to enjoy it without the need for "On Screen" or "Zerg Free Radio".

Feel: This game also brought back the "Destroy and Conquer Worlds" feel of the original Starcraft that Wings of Liberty just didn't have. To explain, Wings of Liberty (Starcraft II, part 1) was more of a tactical game where you enter missions with a strike force mentality and complete your objectives before the enemy catches on to what you're doing and destroys you. Heart of the Swarm really feels like you dominate just about every battle you get involved in (though there are still a few tactical missions) and that's something I missed about the series. Though it certainly felt like a "New Blizzard" (anything post WC:III sort of feels a bit like WC:III) game, it felt like they were true to the original series from my childhood. Your Hero units are still super-powered, the missions stayed true to the original style of the series, and the physics and visual effects were solid.

Art: This is a Blizzard game and that means quality as far as i'm concerned.

It feels like it doesn't even need to be mentioned that Blizzard has once again produced a visual and audio masterpiece. Any problems I might have visually had with the game could be fixed by going out, buying a better graphics card, and scaling up the effects. Period. The audio was fantastic, the music felt right, and they met or exceeded all expectations I had. Some might complain about how the color scheme or effects resemble the ones from Warcraft III but it's a stylistic choice they made that I felt was fitting and in line with the series.

The Bad: I don't like the internet connection required to play the game but don't have a mobile computer good enough to play it on the run so I can't really complain...

Closing Thoughts: While the game felt brief, it completed the main story arc in something like 20+ missions. I don't know how many hours I've spent on it but I enjoyed every minute of this game. Where I casually liked Wings of Liberty, I love Heart of the Swarm. This is a solid game!

Music/Creative: A Recording Guide: The Making of Unavenged

"Live For Revenge!" (photo by Tiffany Mueller)

This is kind of a continuation from the 'Making of Self Titled'... Aka: My personal growth as a recording musician, or a cautionary tale of things to think about before going to a studio... Aka: The ghost of Credit Cards Past...Due. 

So where I ended the last post it was 2010, I was close to $7000 in debt from recording an album, my entire band had quit, and I was just about to quit my semi-public career as a musician. Somehow, less than a month after the band played its last show I was optimistically performing shows with a final and present incarnation of the new band of the same name. I'll skip most of the details here, so just accept that Rook, Moose, Kit and I were enthusiastically performing as the band Random Encounter (occasionally with our friend Konami) for about a month when we decided to start recording a new album that represented us, as opposed to the previous 'Random Encounters.' Our goals were well defined and fairly simple: to record all of the tracks we performed on an album called 'Unavenged!' So I called up the local recording studio again and explained that I had a new band that would actually show up to record their parts; No bs, no experimenting with arrangement for 4 months. We booked weekends at the studio for a solid month and a half.

A New Band is Born!

The recording process for Unavenged was fairly straight forward. The band (driving together from Orlando) showed up, recorded parts, and went home. We were all there for moral support, discussed what we wanted on the album, and even made lists for each bandmate of "things to record" and "things to re-record" until we were happy with how it sounded. It was insanely fun and I personally remember that we (the band) started to really feel like a family of sorts. Notably I also wan't the only person putting in money either (the unemployed in our number sold blood plasma to help contribute). It was a really pleasant experience and the only strange thing about recording the album was the fact that we didn't actually know how to play all the songs before we started recording, nor had we finished really experimenting with them. There's a grey area between waiting too long to record something (stunting the growth of a new band) vs recording too soon and while we definitely could have recorded a better album had we waited a few months I don't think we would have had as many good opportunities if we'd waited, so I'm still happy with our decision. It's also worth mentioning that you should trust a professional engineer to make what you have sound good (setting up mics, mixing, etc) but you ultimately should know your equipment (and what you want to sound like) better than anyone else. Don't let someone else dictate the FX/EQ settings on your guitar, bass, or amp if you have a specific sound you're going for or else your preferences will just become what the engineer thinks sounds good... Which can be really generic.

In The Studio, Late at Night

When it came down to my parts it was similar to the experience with the last album in that I went to the studio alone with the engineer, recorded, and edited for (a few) days on end. There were some things that we were ultimately unable to change due to time constraints (I wanted the album done in a very short period of time) such as: Re-recording the first pass of -72 hours-, which i'd originally thought would be hilarious at 72bpm only to discover that it felt too slow (for me... that and no one seemed to get the 72bpm, 72 measures joke), or that we forgot to record an introduction to Gerudo Valley (which I had to personally make happen), or the way I'd sort of envisioned Still More Fighting's intro. I also reached the same point as I'd reached in the last album, where I noticed that we were pretty much done recording but felt like something was missing... However, this time we were prepared.

Rook's Lucky Doll Head, Masha

A month or so before recording we preemptively requested assistance from a few friends to record parts with the anticipation that we'd need help to reach our deadline. The biggest contributor was Konami (the same awesome guy who later joined as a regular band member). He was insanely busy at the time helping NASA or something but graciously recorded parts for more than half the album on his guitars to help fill in some of the gaps. It wasn't that Kit couldn't learn and record the parts, it was that Konami already knew them (because he performed with us) and could record while we worked on other parts of the album, further helping our very restrictive schedule. Other guest musicians on the album included Elaine Li from Select Start, who drove 4 hours to the studio through a bad storm, was involved in a car accident on the way to the studio, and still showed up 10 minutes early to deliver some of some of the best performances on the album! It's also very much worth mentioning that Moose enlisted Sir. Dr. Robert Bakker from The Protomen as I enlisted Johnny "On The Spot" Frank to record parts on some really intense acoustic guitar tracks (Gerudo Valley and Unavenged respectively) from their respective states while the band was in the studio in Florida. The sound engineer and I also recorded a fun "Clank" sound for Boletarian Syndrome by smashing a piece of iron with a 2 handed mallet, which is technically a sort of guest instrument. The only other guest-oddities of note are that I'd started working with "The Great Juja" and "Auriplane" shortly before the band disbursed and re-formed (in 2010) on a Sonic medley called "The Sonic Suite" (The drums were recorded by Adam "One" during one of the self-titled recording sessions and accordion was recorded at my home using a slightly nicer vocal microphone than the $50 one I started with), which found it's way onto the album. In an effort to tie our album into the previous Random Encounter incarnations we also re-recorded the Introduction Theme from Final Fantasy 6, using it as a 'starting point' of sorts to (somewhat personally) acknowledge that previous incarnations of the band existed but to signify that the name had evolved into something different. We used the original piano track from Neo Symbiance (recorded years earlier by Helios!) to complete it. Lastly, we included a pleasant piano track Helios had recorded and forgotten about (but that I got permission to include) called "Miss You," which I found burred in an old computer he'd asked me to scour for specific data before formatting.

Sound Check

Back to editing: Around that time I'd started taking private lessons for rhythm (specifically snare drum) to improve my sense of timing and also saw a dramatic improvement in detecting if something was 'off rhythm' in the editing phase. The ever-developing "ear for editing" was also kind of a curse because there's no way to turn off the ability and I annoyingly found things I wanted to "edit" when listening to music recorded by other artists I'd previously found soothing. It was a feeling akin to discovering that movies are shot in multiple "takes", as opposed to all at once, and now being conscious of continuity or dubbing errors. The sound engineer also expressed that he experienced the same thing and made a game out of finding mistakes in songs on the radio. In short, I became a significantly better editor during the project (practice makes perfect) and started coming up with creative solutions and "fixes" that the engineer didn't even think was possible. I started to think I was pretty awesome until it came to the part where I had to record vocals...

Kit Enjoying my Vocals

 From day one I immediately loathed working on vocals, especially my own, and there were some big moments during the project where I'd strongly considered stepping down as the band's vocalist altogether. Atonal vocals? Fine. Happy Joy? Fine. Songs with vocal variety were another matter altogether. In working with Melodyne (a program that shows you exactly what you're singing on a grid, kind of like Rock Band), I saw that I knew nothing of how to sing on pitch. To make matters worse, early exports of the vocal tracks I'd shared with a friend got me the single brutally honest criticism of "you sing with no emotion whatsoever." He was correct though, and accepting that fact was invaluable to my growth as a musician. I started taking vocal lessons to improve my pitch and during the recording process I did everything to try and sing "with heart" in the studio. I thought good thoughts, brought pictures of pets and loved ones to the sessions, and ultimately sacrificed some pitch for emotion (Worth noting: I was also still revising the lyrics to -72 hours- and Unavenged during the recording sessions) because I wasn't able to start vocal lessons until after the recording sessions had begun. People have since seemed generally happy with the vocal tracks (or at least didn't comment negatively on them) so I feel a lot better about my vocal abilities (and limits) but I was very upset during this process. I also found it frustrating trying to sing notes you've never heard sung before, pitch-perfect, like when you're writing a new vocal melody. A final note on vocal recording is that I recorded the vocal 'harmonies' during some of the chorus sections on the spot, completely improvised, just for laughs and (surprisingly enough) kept most of them. Looking back I should have thought the vocals through more, practiced them, and recorded them at a later date but we were able to make many of the backing vocals sound passable through the magic of editing.

Fall 2010

After what felt like a month or so of recording and another month of editing (I kid you not, we were billed for exactly "72 Studio Hours" of recording) we sent the tracks off to Rob Kleiner. I can equate the experience of sending our tracks to a true industry professional to the story of the princess from Rumpelstiltskin spinning hay into gold. I only had a small understanding of how professional mixing and mastering worked but even then the differences were easy to hear. While this was being done the band sat down and had deep discussions about our branding, back story, and "age rating." I feel it's worth mentioning that once again we cut the new set of extremely explicit introduction tracks I'd recorded and again cut 'What's Up People', which has allowed us to share our music with a lot of (very young/old) people I wouldn't have thought possible over the years. We also agreed to produce a high quality album on a jewel case (as opposed to "sleeves" or a digital-only release), because we felt strongly about wanting to present ourselves as professionals. While I worked on finding a printing company, Kit worked on our Kickstarter, Moose scheduled an album release show, and Rook worked with Dennis Hansbury on the album art.

Original Album Concept by Rook

Somewhere in the all the above chaos the band had commissioned our friend Dennis Hansbury to make the album art without much of an idea as to what we wanted. Did we want video game iconography, to focus on the Russian monster-hunter mythos, or something else entirely? During a brainstorming session at Yogurt Land while Rook and I were gushing about the Russian artist Ivan Bilibin, (my memory is hazy as to how, but) we finally concluded that we wanted to recreate a sketch Rook had drawn of the band, in a style similar to Bilibin's, focusing on the band's conflict with Koschei the Deathless. Moose mentioned he wanted dilapidated buildings and someone (Kit?) said that profiles might be cool. Dennis gave us some alternate concepts of Koshei, took reference photos of the band members, and eventually the drafts we received quickly evolved into our album art, despite Dennis fighting a rather horrible cold at the time. My favorite piece is definitely the disc art/backing with the needle-egg-duck-rabbit-chest-tree. It just fit really well together.

Rock Party, Fall 2010

Where Self Titled was released quietly and kind of fizzled, Unavenged had an album release party complete with guest musicians, Protomen, and home baked goods! We also got a mention on BadassOfTheWeek.com and the opportunity to introduce people to our album on an east-coast tour of the U.S.! On a financial note, even if you technically 'break even' on the cost making an album, the sheer amount of effort involved with getting your music in front of people (shows, driving to shows, gas, interviews, promotional stuff, giveaways, the great migration from Myspace to Facebook, and your tour van breaking down every other show) comes at a large cost. At the risk of sounding like a corporate tool I'd still like to say that the tools we found most helpful on the post-production side were Kickstarter (crowd-sourcing which helped cover some of the costs associated with making the album), Bandcamp (which helps us conveniently share our music with people who can't afford our album), and CDBaby.com (which puts your music almost everywhere music is sold and has really solid reporting/remittance).

Random Encounter Photo Shoot (Fall 2010, (photo by Tiffany Mueller))

This certainly isn't a Disney success story by any means but it's the journey I've undertaken to learn more about how recorded music is made. I hope that my misadventures are amusing and perhaps insightful. I also can't wait to write one of these about the upcoming Random Encounter album I'm currently working on! ...speaking of which.

Full Band (Photo by Ben Trivett)