GAME FOR EXPERIMENTATION MUSIC NEWS
New EP Release; The Fate Of Osiris
10/05/2024 - New EP Release; The Fate Of Osiris
I made another game hosted on my website it’s a Brick Break type game with an Egyptian theme to it’s quite naturally I made some music to go with the game. As always I got the template online and made my own stuff like the breaks and customising the ball and of course the buttons and backgrounds. The music is African world music or Cinematic gaming music and something a bit different to what I usually make but I like to make all sorts of music which is why I have two artists’ names my main artist name Gas No Light and my other artist name Game For Experimental which is where all my gaming and experimental stuff goes to and is where this EP is hosted under. I love Egyptian stuff and was quite obsessed with the history when I was younger but still my favourite part of history and I am still fascinated by it all which is why I made this game an Egyptian theme game. The idea behind the game is you are in a tomb and you just set off a trap and you are now fighting for your life by playing a trial from the god Osiris. Osiris is the god of fertility and the god of death and has two roles. According to Egyptian Mytology Osiris was a king of Egypt who was murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth. In Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9 Nimrod, known in Egypt as Osiris, was the founder of the first world empire at Babel, later known as Babylon. Jesus and Osiris are both gods who live as humans. Osiris was depicted as a king of Egypt whose body floated down a river in a coffin. As Ancient Egypt Online says, “The oldest religious texts known to us refer to him [Osiris] as the great god of the dead, who once possessed human form and lived upon earth. The ostrich is one of the animals associated with Osiris. The ostrich in Egyptian culture means justice and veracity, which are ideas associated with the Egyptian god. In one version of the myth, Isis used a spell to briefly revive Osiris so he could impregnate her. After embalming and burying Osiris, Isis conceived and gave birth to their son, Horus. Thereafter Osiris lived on as the god of the underworld. The first track Fate is a cheerful fluty number with dramatic drums and flutes and has an African but Latin feel to it. I found the flute samples from Splice.com and went for the dramatic and calm flute sounds which I put a bit of reverb on to make it more spacious and full. I imagine some ferrous sword fighting going on whilst the band plays out the scene. Or in a tomb and you are going through the tomb exploring the dangerous traps and not getting your ass in a tangle lol. I like the ending adding more dramatics as the game gets more harder and harder or the sword fighting gets more close calls and near misses and whilst they fight for their lives. The next track Fate (Mellow Vibe Mix) is the slowdown version of the first track which features in the main game as the background music. I imagine riding camels in the desert with this one or being in a bustling market. I did rearrange it a little bit adding some more drums which are at the end of the track also I changed it slightly at the start though it sounds the same. I used ethnic sounds from Africa and did some research on old instruments they may have had and I used them like the Flute, Sistum and Lyre. The next track Fatal is another soothing flute number with African drums and percussion added in there too. This acts as my game over music which is why it’s got the sad flute feeling with the dramatic drums which I like quite a lot. I’m quite happy with it well I’m quite happy with all of them but I think it feels like game over music for something like this I mean an Egyption-themed game or for a puzzle game which I think would work too. The last track To Live Another Day is another jolly fluty number which acts as my you win music and is my favourite on the EP though I quite like the first track also. I made it so it sounds like a battle has been won and the party commencing and that is why I called it to Live Another Day which sounds like or is a Bond Soundtrack song I’m not sure.
New Album Release; Sin Bun Run
18/01/2024 - New Album; Sin Bun Run
Other than making music I like to make games especially retro-like games the older the better but I like current games as well and made a few now. This is the music from the retro platform game I made called Sin Bun Run and was inspired by a mascot I saw whilst on holiday in Cornwall but it looked evil and a bit sinister which later gave me a good character for a game. The game has seven levels and they are all hard and pretty long it was actually a nightmare to finish the level both playing and making but each level is a new world or scene. I made all the stuff in the game apart from the backgrounds and I opted to find free backgrounds that would be better than what I had in mind which was a real-life picture but it wouldn’t have gone with the retro theme I had in mind and was making. It’s quite a long album with thirty-six tracks that had six tracks on each level as I thought it would be annoying if you heard the same three tracks over so I went for six which I thought was a good number in the end and the best players won’t even get to the sixth track hopefully. I wasn’t going to release the album as a major release and I was going to keep it unreleased but since I got my other name which is this name Game For Experimentation I thought it be perfect to have it on all the major platforms under that name. I should point out the mascot I saw on holiday was a pink rabbit and actually, it was a female rabbit. I didn’t see the gender of it at first until I read it on the Park Dean website which is the holiday camp I stayed at and saw the mascot to. All the music on this album are from my gaming synths and specialize in making Chiptune and 8 Bit music which reminds me the 8 Bit version of this album can be found on my paid Bandcamp page where I changed the settings to get the 8-Bit feel. This version on all the major platforms is 24 Bit and had to be, to be released or I would have released it as an 8 Bit album to get the proper feel of it but feel free to change it to taste. All you need is the free software Audacity to change Bit or go to my paid Bandcamp page where it’s up and the only place to get the 8 Bit version. I don’t have a favourite on the album I like them all and think they are all different feels. I tried to fit the feel of the level, for example, cave music or woodland music but all in Chiptune and 8 Bit music form. I also tried to think back to what old school Chiptune and 8 Bit music sounded like and tried to match it a little with all the drums and synths patterns I made using a drum sequencer and my keyboard to play the melodies. If you want to try the game Sin Bun Run it can be found in the Arcade section of this site under Gaming Lounge or the link which I’ll leave at the bottom of this page if you feel like killing a few hours and jumping around franticly you might enjoy it.
New Album Release; The Gaming Soundtrack I
5/01/2024 - New Album; The Gaming Soundtrack I
When I’m not making music I like to make stuff from my computer and put on the internet and making games is one of them. I love to design and is something I specialize in though I used to be better at coding in the 2000s when coding was easier and less things to remember but I lost my way so I look for non coding software and online apps like Construct 3 which is what I build the games with. I say build I also like to get templates of games and do all the designing myself like the sprites which is the main characters, enemies, weapons and devices and contraptions, the buttons, the backgrounds everything you see in the games basically it all gets changed and made by me. I made a few games now around under 20 and vary from space shooters, Pacman, a memory game, a Christmas poker game, Gin Rummy the card game, Solitaire the card game, Ping Pong the retro version, a zombie shooting game, Tetris which is in weed form, A Halloween version of Candy Crush, a trading card game, and a space invaders game. They all can be found in the Gaming Lounge section on this site in the main menu under Arcade they are all there and ready to play if you want something to do. They are mostly old styled games which I enjoy making more but I did enjoy putting Hallow Crush together which is a Candy Crush alternative game but same rules and principals and a new style game compared to say Pac Man but I could be wrong. Now I think about it Candy Crush is similar to the game Bubble where you shoot bubbles in the right space to match the colours and stop the balls from overlapping the top. I used to love that game and is why I was hooked to that witch bubble game on Facebook last decade now when it was very popular, I advanced pretty far with the rebound trick I used to do for those difficult positions. Making games for my website and other platforms meant making music to go with it as games equals music so I made tracks for each game sometime more than one track per game but I didn’t put everything on the album just the ones that were A, long enough and wasn’t just a 30-second loop and B, the actual songs not just background noise to help concertation or get in the game. As the games are diverse and vary, so are the tracks on this album which are both Cinematic and Chiptune tracks combined on one album and are electronic, Hip Hop, and other genres which I made based on the game I was making at the time. I like to make retro games and music and I have a couple of synths that make gaming genres like my 8 Bit synth plugin and another one I can’t remember the names of them but they are good though and tend to make good old-fashioned gaming music. I used it in a few tracks on this album and is on Wolkman (Main Theme), Astro Dog (Main Theme), Inferior, and Robot Invaders. Those are the older retro songs from the retro games I made and the rest is cinematic or upbeat Hip Hop like on Weedtris (Alternative Version) where I used Hip Hop drum kits to make it sound more like Hip Hop. I like all the tracks on this album but my overall favorites are Solitude, Weedtris (Alternative Version), The Christmas Trade, Astro Dog, Inferior, North Pole, Wolkman (Main Theme), North Pole, Pong, Betting On It, Hallow Crush and the last track Toyz Alive.
New Album Release; Synthscape – It’s Christmas Again
5/01/2024 - New Album; Synthscape - It's Christmas Again
The last synthscape for now and it was made near Christmas on the 21st of December 2023 to be exact. It’s been a while since I made a synthscape and I made it the same way I made the others through a mangled mix which was a Christmas mix I made from my own music I made in the past and as always lots of drums and synth sounds in a melodic and space boy fashion lol. It was going to be a Krampus special but I thought I’d make some alternative Christmas music that didn’t scream Christmas even though it does have some dashes of Christmas in but has the mangled effect on it which doesn’t make it seem that Christmasy. As always I used my trusted AKIA keyboard to play the sounds and the same hard-hitting drum kits to make it stand out more so you can hear the drum pattern over the synths and background noise. Also like the other Synthscapes, it has Hip Hop drum patterns over the synths and background noise. I think Hip Hop drum patterns are diverse and can be used for other genres and it would sound new and nothing like Hip Hop at all. I love my Hip Hop and at one point was all that I played from Kriss1, Mos Def, Notorious B.I.G, Tupac, Busta Rhymes, and all the females that passed through and also underground Hip Hop which at one point I was obsessed with. It actually inspired me to up my drum skills by adapting underground Hip Hop drum patterns with mostly synths stuff which I think works well and you get a synthy urban feel to the tracks. Even though there is a lot of synth sounds on the album I would still class it as Experimental music as, as always it was one big experiment to see what I could make out of the mangled mix and all the plugins and drum kits I have which are one shots (one hit sounds) that is now a main feature of the series and enjoy mangling one of my mixes I made from my music and see what I can mold around it. I called it It’s Christmas Again as how quickly time goes probably by the end of me typing this up we will be welcoming the New Year in and it will be 2025. Okay not really but it does fly by and the seasons change quickly I think the earth is spinning faster or something or as an adult it seems like it’s spinning faster. As always I say for the best listening experience please listen to it once through from start to end that way you can get the full view of the album or Synthscape which was an hour-long file and I cut it into sections and gave them names. It would have been an hour-long uninterrupted mix down but you can’t upload large file sizes or have long length mix downs so I cut it up and gave them names to get it out there or it would still be on Bandcamp as an hour-long mix-down which I think isn’t good enough but a start for anyone who is on there and willing to pay for their music and for something different. As always I have no favorite tracks on this Synthscape as I like it as a whole but I will say some bits are more interesting than some other bits and took a lot of work to make but is always fun. This one is a bit longer than the others and has more tracks as most of them are pretty short compared to what length I usually go for maybe 6 to 9 minutes anything after 10 minutes is long to me and not made for everyone’s cup of tea in the length front but I make longer tracks all the same. Some are shorter as I ran out of inspiration quickly for that part so I moved it on to the next bit which brings fresh ideas and new everything some of the drum kits and patterns are reused a few times but not too many times, I have done that on all the Synthscapes so far. It’s so I don’t get confused on new and old drums and to keep the CPU down even though by the end of it it’s through the roof due to too many open synth plugins but you can add enough to make an hour-long Synthscape or Soundscape without it glitching, shutting down or freezing on you and I’m using a Desktop version instead of a laptop which does make it better. There was a slight boo-boo on the album the track Blimey Are You Deaf (Hard Of Hearing) came out too distorted and a bit aggressive and loud and there was no way of removing it but I liked it in a way so I left it on there and let you decide if you liked it or not.
New Album Release; Synthscape – No Suppression
5/01/2024 - New Album; Synthscape - No Suppression
Another synthscape is a combination of background noise from a mix I mangled using Audicity and lots of synthesizer sounds and drums. This is the second synthscape I made and was an hour-long file but I had to cut them down to single tracks and title them all which was the fun but hard bit. It is best if you play this album from the start to end to get the full view of it and is me messing about and experimenting with synth sounds and drums with the mangled mix. I used my trusted AKIA keyboard to play the notes and all the drum kits I could find from genres like Hip Hop and House music for those fat kicks and rattle hi-hats and hats. I did the drums manually as I haven’t got a committed device but I saw the AKIA being used as a drum machine so it is possible. Anyway, it is easier to put them in unless you have something to go by like something in your head you can tap out. Like the last one, I used all the synths under the sun including the same collections the V Collection by Artuia and the Korg Collection by Korg. They are my favourite and I tend to use a lot of the two as there are lots of synths to choose from and also lots of sounds in each synth plugin which is hit and miss but they are real synth sounds and modelled on old original synthesizer hardware. Like, for example, the Arturia stuff is modelled on synths like the Moog, the Prophet, and the DX7 all the old hardware from the 70s and up, and covers all the classic synthesizers and keyboards of the time, mostly the 70s and 80s. The Korg Collection has all the favourite synths and keyboards like the M1 which is the most famous and used in rave categories like House, Jungle/Drum and Bass, Techno, and other rave genres. But also it has some genuine synth sounds made for genres like Synthwave, Vapourwave, and synth music in general but so does the V Collection to be honest which is why I use them both quite a lot and can’t live without them or should I say play without them, at least one of the two. I haven’t got a favourite bit as I like each track as again I think they all sound unique and different from the last one but I do like the darker tracks on this one like the one with the bongos which I do use quite a lot in these synth-scapes as I think it makes it sound even better or at least sounding good even though they are a bit of a trip to put together and take a whole day, a day and a bit with the YouTube video versions which can be found on my other YouTube channel Game For Experimentation. But even though it takes a while I still enjoy making them and also making the visuals to accompany the music. I love to play the keyboard and freestyle which is what I do a lot in all the music I make but playing the keyboard and seeing what you come up with is always fun and stops me from getting bored. The only trouble is you have to be in the mood or you won’t enjoy it and the knock-on effect of that is the music not coming out as hoped or to your listener’s satisfaction or even your own which counts more I think like I put music I like and hope people will like as well.
New Album Release; Synthscape – Melodic Distortion
5/01/2024 - New Album; Synthscape - Melodic Distortion
Something a little different and partly why I started another artist name to release this album and also release something different from the normal three genres I tend to make a lot of House, Jungle/Drum and Bass, and synthy stuff under my other artist name Gas No Light. It’s a synthscape basically and crossed between a mix that came out mangled when I first had the idea and lots of drums and synths and is like a soundscape but with synthesizers and noise in the background which is the mangled mix I put in Audacity and mangled it up for this weird sound FX. The album is best played from the beginning to end for a full view of the synthscape and was an hour-long file which I had to cut up and give titles for as you couldn’t upload an hour-long file and was too big for size so I cut it up to sections and gave them titles which was the hardest bit. There is YouTube video versions too which I made a running theme to the video and made a visual something quick and simple that can be found on my other YouTube channel Game For Experimentation. Also, there is a making of this one Melodic Distortion which is in parts and quite long videos one or two are over two hours long but it does take some time to make an hour-long synthscape as there are lots of songs that go in and out the background noise. I used all the best synth sounds I found in my DAW and made it sound interesting I think and not something that is made a lot though people do make them but all in different ways and hopefully, this is different. I played the keyboard with my trusted AKIA keyboard over the background noise and I did the drums manually using all the drums I could find but I did use all the beefy ones even the ones from the House section which I never use unless it’s House music. The album is one whole experiment with sound and synths with drums and something I will make more of in the future but not too many at the same time as I’m trying not to make too many of them and keep it rare also it does take a lot of time and strength especially the last half hour of the tape, I say tape but I mean I make them an hour long and I only did half hour it does get like when is it the end already. All the synths used are from my collection of synthesizer plugins and are mostly from the Arturia V Collection and The Korg Collection all rent to own on Splice.com my go-to for rent-to-own VST plugins and samples I use them quite a lot and I think they have a good range of plugins and samples. The best thing about the VST plugins is they are rent to own which means you pay anything under £25 depending on the manufacturer and you pay off the VST and own it for life after you pay the installments. You can cancel and resubscribe whenever you like which is good for me as not every month have I got the money and I spare the pennies by unsubscribing for a month or two on a VST plugin that I know I not using or haven’t used for a while. I like all the tracks on this album and think they all sound different and interesting with dark and light songs with Hip Hop-like drum patterns as I felt they worked best also 4/4 kick beat and is a staple in House music but also music in general.