coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B - Commentary

3.9k words across 38 entries.

coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube (playlist)

What Pumpkin Music proudly presents coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B, the second of TWO albums to feature many incredibly fine musicians who haven't had a chance in the limelight until now.

You can lick your screen now.

Andrew Hussie: (MSPA news post)

Extensive Pause

A6A3 will also begin on 4/13, coinciding with the second installment of coloUrs and mayhem, and the end of Homestuck's third year. Please use the next ten days wisely, mostly by making an effort not to go insane. I recommend distractions.

Homestuck: (Bandcamp credits blurb)

Includes tracks by:

Monobrow
David DeCou
Nathan "EbonHawk7x" H.
David Ellis (A Lunatic's Daydream)
Ryan Ames (Nachturne)
Plumegeist
Elisa "Moony" McCabe
Maya Kern
Shandy
Clydesdale Edwin
Brian Schaefer
Thomas Ibarra (AutoDevote, SparksD2145)
Gec
Liam O'Donnell
Tristan Scroggins
Elliot "TheLastBanana" Colp
Will Kommor
Kris "Astartus" Flacke
Solarbear
Marcy "Shadolith" Nabors
Haunter
viaSatellite & infiniteKnife
Max 'Imbrog' Wright
David "Dirtiest" Dycus
Mai Yishan (konec0)
Elaine "OJ" Wang
Gabe 'zorg' Stilez
James "soselfimportant" Roach

Cover art - Shelby Cragg

Mixing, transitions, and contest management – Toby “Radiation” Fox

Special Thanks – Sarahfu, Liane Behrens

Homestuck and associated characters © Andrew Hussie

Thanks again to everyone who entered the contests, and to everyone who bought this album!

Green Ghost Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, SoundCloud

Monobrow: (via early commentary collection)

So my song, Cosmic Surgeon? People told me to enter a contest that came up right around the time I finished it. It was for the Homestuck Fan Album, which actually turned out to be 2 albums lol. So yup, I entered, and I was one of the winners, in fact it's actually the first track (track 1 is an opener)... I'm kinda astonished by that today, but I guess it fits!

About the song, I called it Cosmic Surgeon because of John and that big drill thing he did... And the whole cancer thing.. So I guess the song did kinda cater as a theme for him already. What a coincidence that as soon as I make a remix, I can enter it into a contest right away and it actually wins. When I wrote it, I just really wanted to capture how the entire comic made me feel at the time, especially after watching Cascade. It's a theme for John, but I also think of it as kind of a real "Homestuck" theme for the entire thing, I guess, as a lot of people kinda obsess over Doctor...

Anyway, I remastered this version of the song, and added a few other elements, and instrument balance, per a couple suggestions by Radiation Fox... So you can think of this as more of a Cosmic Surgen v. 0.1...

Orchid Horror Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

David DeCou: (YouTube comment) 4/13/2012

Probably one of my favorite songs on the album.
I'm curious, what songs are remixed in this?

Thanks! The first five notes are from Chorale for Jaspers, and I used that twice in the song. I also used the chord progression that's often used in Sburban Jungle in the middle section with the drums, organ, piano and strings. (actually, a lot of homestuck songs) but the rest of it is original I'm pretty sure.

David DeCou: (YouTube comment) 4/15/2012

I thought I heard Black Hole/Green Sun, and also, if you squint your ears just right, it sounds a bit like The Dangerous Symphony (not a Homestuck song)

Black Rose/Green Sun is a great song. I did use the same sort of chord progression that's in there. It shows up in a lot of Homestuck songs though I think.

Red Disc Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Nathan H.: (via early commentary collection)

This was the first entry I made for the contest, and likely the one that took me the longest to complete; probably because I was running into walls during transitions while trying to keep whole song congruent. Nonetheless, I think it turned out great. I had a battle between Hephaestus and Dave in mind as I wrote the piece, and took inspiration for it from the first few boss fights in the game Dark Souls.

Blue Atom Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr, excerpt) 4/13/2012

Heh. Didn’t expect Radiation to actually put that in.

“! - Blue Atom was, at one point, called ‘Jack and Jade’s fantastic corpseparty.’”

Only for a little while. I was trying to think when it could possibly happen and I thought the most ~~amusing~~ inappropriate time for the Jam would be for Jade to be jamming with Jack Noir just after Dave got all shot up and before he was revived.

(Continued in Cyan Beast)

David Ellis: (Tumblr, excerpt) 4/24/2012

First off, people seem to have been saying a lot of nice stuff about the two tunes I wrote and I’d just like to say thanks!

I wrote some track commentary for my tunes, thought I’d post it here as I don’t know when/if all the submitted commentary will be posted. Feel free to ask me stuff if there are things about the songs I don’t cover that you want to know about or if you have any recording questions.

When I started writing the pieces for the contest I knew I wanted one of them to be based around a theme that already existed. Running through a few ideas I landed on doing a kind of jazzy shuffle piece around the main theme from 'The Beginning of Something Really Excellent’. As soon as I hit the first chord with the Rhodes piano it became smooth. The writing process was really quick and the piece was almost completely sketched out on the keyboard in one go. As the piece was intended for Jade - given the use of the earlier theme - I added in a little bass solo.

Technical note: Sometimes when I think I've finished writing something I'll find that it's a bit too long and something needs to change, this was one of those times. The sound you hear at 3:53 is the sound of me finding a way to avoid playing an extra intro/verse and tightening up the song a bit. Using almost the same build up heard earlier in the piece and changing the resolution at the end has the added advantage of (hopefully) making you think it's heading back towards the intro riff until the key shifts in the last bar and the song jumps straight to the final chorus.

(Continued in Cyan Beast)

Petra K.: (track artist, Tumblr)

I haven’t done a decent watercolor painting in years. THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN YOU HAVE NO IDEA!

it could have been better but unfortunately my watercolor skills deteriorated and then my scanner killed the colors.

Petra K.: (track artist, Tumblr)

I am so proud my watercolor Jade was picked as track art for her song in the new fan album :’)

sigh, the song is really nice with its retro theme.

Cyan Beast Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr, excerpt) 4/13/2012

(Continued from Blue Atom)

Side note, the working title for 'Cyan Beast' was 'Heir of the Dog'. Which is probably worse.

David Ellis: (Tumblr, excerpt) 4/24/2012

(Continued from Blue Atom)

This piece started as an offshoot of a song that was very loosely based on John and Jade's three year voyage between the two windows. I felt that the theme that became the chorus to this piece needed to be at a higher tempo than the rest of that song so I took it out and based this tune around it instead. It was originally titled 'Heir of the Dog' as I was still thinking it could be either a Jade or a John piece at the time and wasn't certain who I'd end up submitting it for (also because terrible puns).

Technical note: Although the piece features keyboard and guitar solos the bass was actually the hardest part to play, in particular during the chorus and the part behind the guitar solo.

Extra: This is no longer true since I recorded the video. For the original recording the two handed parts in the verses and the outro were originally done as 2 separate takes for each one. It wasn't until I started the video that I thought 'I could turn these into single parts' and made things really difficult for myself.

PaperArtichokes: (track artist, Tumblr)

Your name is Jane Crocker

and you’re pretty sure you’re not the BATTERWITCH

Pink Cat Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

alcohol
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Ryan Ames: (via early commentary collection)

I don't want to clog up the audio post so I figured I'd make a separate post for my reasoning behind the different parts of the song!

First off, the song itself was inspired by the mental image of Roxy jumping through fenestrated planes to get to a bunch of different places (hence the name Void Hopper). I tried capturing various aspects of her interests and personality through the different sections so it's less of a Theme For Roxy than it is a Song About Roxy. There is still a particular melody that can be heard throughout all three major sections, so I suppose could be the MAIN THEME?

ANYWAY...... ==>

Section 1. [0:00-0:56]

This section is meant to represent her childish and playful side. Roxy always seemed to have this child-at-heart quality about her, what with her infatuation with cutesy wizards and her bedroom in the beta session.

The beginning is an obvious nod to Harry Potter. She's totally into wizards so I felt it was appropriate. It then turns into a waltz rendition of Jasper's theme because she is also totally into cats. Then we have a neato transition that I guess could be her travelling through a window or something? I put a spacey sounding pad there to emphasize the VOIDINESS of it.

Section 2. [0:56-2:24]

After the transition, it picks up speed and has a variety of computer-y and sci-fi effects to hopefully capture her HACKER attribute. The bassline to Aggrievance can also be heard here as a callback to the STRIFE! between Mom and Rose. After that, we have the main theme again, this time accompanied by a busy slap bassline because I love slap bass. This and the following parts were an attempt to convey her get-shit-done attitude and her assertiveness with what she believes in. It could also be a cool action sequence. I imagine her rushing to reach a destination in time by jumping through windows and stuff all badass-like and it's a pretty fitting mental image for her I think!

Anyway, after this, it all ends with a booze snooze. The song slows down and gets kind of tipsy sounding before glitching out into white noise.

Section 3. [2:25-END]

Roxy is asleep and we are now on Derse. This last section is meant to represent her sleepwalking around the void. We have a little sad sounding ocarina melody which then makes way for the main theme to play one last time on violin. The song finally ends on an ominous and spooky note as Roxy drifts further and further into the void.

Wow I did not expect to type this much. Anyway this song was a blast to make and even if it's not accepted, I still learned a whole lot! I hope you all enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it!

OhThatNK: (full-size artwork, Tumblr) 1/19/2012

alcohol
click to show

What a classy dame. * u *

OhThatNK: (artwork redraw, Tumblr) 10/1/2014

alcohol
click to show

SO LIKE a couple of years ago some Homestuck drawings I'd done were used as album art which is still preeetty cool for me.

Yet... at the same time, as I look at the Roxy I'd done for the track "Pink Cat", I can't help but cringe because it's so old and awkward-lookin'. 8'(

So I felt like redrawing it. And now I'm happy.

OhThatNK: (redraw comparison, Tumblr) 10/1/2014

It's a little easier to set these two side by side for comparison, haha.

To the left is from 2012 (I moved bits around to fit the dimensions for the album), and then... yeah 2014.

Quasar Nebula: (wiki editor)

The artwork for the album is recomposited, as mentioned, but closest resembles the one included in the comparison post - retouched a little versus the original post. (Compare fog on the right.)

Emerald Terror Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Elisa McCabe: (via early commentary collection)

First of all I have this unreasonably intense love of Jake that I can't really entirely explain. Uh. So I definitely wanted to do a song for him. The main idea I started out with was that I'd do a song with two parts, the first part representing Grandpa Harley, then I'd have it morph into the second part, which would be for post-scratch Jake. I first thought of having a literal record scratch but man that sounded dumb :] I referred to the first part, to myself, as Grandpa Harley, and the second part as Hellmurder Island.

For the Grandpa Harley part, I spent about half an hour listening to/watching ragtime piano and vaudeville acts on youtube, to refresh myself on the types of intervals and suchlike that they used. Then I just made it up.

I wanted to make Hellmurder Island really dramatic. I had some (not particularly complicated) scenes of Jake running around on his island that I was making it a soundtrack for. Like...the first section is just...running around in the jungle. Then there's him standing at the top of this huge waterfall, and some birds take off, and the last part is him fighting something or being about to enter the SBURB session. Whatever shit is about to get real for him. :3

The song is mainly influenced by ELO's 'Jungle', haha. Mainly in the way it goes, "duh DUH, duh DUH!" I love how that sounds. I tried to do more jungley percussion but it didn't end up sounding that good. I made the drum track in this app, which I pretty much use for all my drum tracks cuz it's awesome.

I did everything except the guitar - which was my bandmate playing - in Garageband using my midi keyboard and various soundfonts. I'm so in love with the one that does the main melody. It's a flugelhorn. It just sounded so much like Jake to me!

Squiddle Song Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, SoundCloud

Maya Kern: (via early commentary collection)

well i really love the squiddles? and the squiddles album is one of my favorite albums.

but i think a lot of it is because i'm not super great at writing music on demand? like, i write music all the time, but only when inspiration hits. and since there was a deadline, i didn't quite have that option. i had tried writing a very different song before that with... not great results. i mean, it's not a bad song, but it's very unspecific and was not a good homestuck song.

so then i just decided i would write something silly and the squiddle song came out! because silly, i can do

Maya Kern: (SoundCloud description / Tumblr) 1/5/2012

my first (and maybe only?) entry for the homestuck music contest!
i will be incredibly shocked if this makes it in hahaha

Maya Kern: (Tumblr) 3/2/2012

i’m a good artist

okay time to pick the giveaway winner!

WV: Become the Mayor of Cans Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Twirlin' Curtis: (composer, Twitter) 4/13/2024

Happy Homestuck Day.

One of the Homestuck albums I wrote music for is apparently Music of Asia. Geography is very mysterious indeed.

Twirlin' Curtis: (Twitter) 4/13/2024

What!?!??! Me and my homestuck buddies had you blasting on a car stereo!

yea yea yea!!! I used to make chiptune under the name Solarbear!!

Twirlin' Curtis: (Twitter) 4/14/2024

HOLY SHIT???

YEA! I wrote a tune under the name Solarbear for that album!

Derples: (track artist, Tumblr)

Hey guys!!!!!!!!!!

Clockstopper Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

paradiddlesjosh: (co-composer, Newgrounds description, excerpt)

Here we are, NG. This is the twenty-sixth and final entry of Project 26. A combined 40 hours between me and pixelseph went into this ending track, between the writing, recording, mixing, remixing and mastering processes (not to mention the software crashes, OH SHIT UNDO actions and other time wasters), but it's finally done.

We consulted a college level textbook on the art of mixing in order to get the soundscape just right for this piece. The result is nothing short of beautiful, in our collective opinion.

Now, many of you have probably never heard of, much less read Homestuck (and let me tell you about Homestuck...), so the material in "Clockstopper" will likely be new stuff. Hopefully you'll enjoy listening to new things; otherwise, prepare to be disappointed by the fact that this isn't a video game remix. Hey, we DO do more than just video game remixes!

Where was I? Oh, right. This piece centers around themes from Homestuck for the character Dave Strider, the Knight of Time. Dave is an all-around badass whose lifestyle revolves around multiple layers of irony, creating music, partaking in TIME SHENANIGANS, and killing shit with broken swords.

This isn't the completely finished product, though. Seph and I are submitting this piece to the Homestuck Music Contest, where it will be featured in the next Homestuck album if it wins (and that means it's now a piece of commercial music). That means, if it's on NG, we're violating our own copyright by having it available for free when it shouldn't be. This file, however, is the unmastered final cut, so it's technically a different file with a different (Creative Commons) license (and you can totally tell because we didn't even bother to chop off the nine seconds of silence at the end). I'll upload the mastered version if we don't win, though. :P

TIME/TEMPO: 5'55"/127/135/120/16 0/105 BPM (4/4 and 6/4 time)
KEY: C Minor

ORIGINAL THEMES: "Beatdown (Strider Style)" and "Beatdown Round 2" by Curt Blakeslee, "Atomyk Ebonpyre" by Toby Fox and "Upward Movement (Dave Owns)" by Kalibration. Some melodic work in the breakdown of "Beatdown" by Joseph Brown (pixelseph/viaSatellite).
MIDI TRANSCRIPTIONS: "Beatdown (Strider Style)" and "Atomyk Ebonpyre" by MrCheese on the MSPA forum. "Upward Movement" was transcribed for piano by BRPXQZME on the MSPA forum.

SOUNDFONTS USED (* denotes a new soundfont):
SGM v2.01 (Shakuhachi, Koto, Room Kit)
Musica Theoria (Standard Kit 1)
Metal Drums* (MetlDrums 3 Soak)
Bass Multiple Rock Guitars (FBass w/Harms #2)
Strings Florestan
Strings Florestan Martellato
Caltronix MegaSound GS* (Violin)
EchoMoog Lead*
CymbalRoll 2*
Drum Set Vinyl V1* (Funkdrum 1, Funkdrum 2, Funkdrum 4, Funkdrum 8)

Guitar tracks recorded using an Epiphone Custom Shop Silverburst Les Paul directly into FL Studio 9 via Rocksmith Guitar to USB connection. Written in Guitar Pro 5; recorded, mixed and (roughly) mastered in FL Studio 9.

Enjoy! Don't forget to leave a review and check out my other works. Subscribe to the RSS feed of my submissions so you don't miss one! :D

~paradiddlesjosh

P.S.: There will be more Homestuck works to come. It is a thing that is definitely happening.

Kurimja: (uncropped artwork, DeviantArt, excerpt)

Alpha Dave in LoHaC ftw~

This one was... not as much of a pain in the ass as some pieces have been, but there were a lot of technical problems I was having - thankfully, len-yan was there to save the day as always

Mm, done from scratch in Adobe PS CS4 with intuos3 tablet, scaled to 30% of the original size - some detail shots at 100% available here.

Kurimja: (full-size artwork crops, DeviantArt)

Just a few sections from this piece, scaled at 100%. I'm quite fond of that eye;

Dapper Dueling Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Max Wright: (composer, Tumblr) 4/14/2012

So, I was a HUGE fan of Dapper Dueling when you first put up the original version, but I LOVE what you did with it for the Homestuck music contest. I can't wait to see what you came up with next, because holy crap you are talented. What inspired you with this one, since it's telling me to ask you something? It has a very Firefly, Joss Whedon sort of feel to it, which I personally really like about it.

Dapper Dueling was inspired originally by a Steampunk band named The Cog is Dead - after listening to the song I just linked, I tried to take down the general feel and basic instrumentation, and then work on my own from there. Instruments used in the piece are:

Acoustic Guitars

Accordion

Whistle Synth (fun fact, I'm pretty sure it's the same one as used in Horchestra)

Banjo

Harmonica (1:14, panned left)

Violin/Fiddle

Full string section (1:28)

Maracas, castanets, very very faint snare (you can hear it at 0:10, under the whistle), constant bass drum beat

bang bang wink

I also gave the original Showtime strife mix a few listens for the purpose of structuring my piece - after all, it's meant to be a Strife theme. However, pretty much all sources of inspiration were only used in the parts before the banjo solo; the rest was just me having fun with music.

Let me also point out that it made me extremely happy to see in canon that Jake bounces from side to side before he is about to fight; it was the exact image of him I was hoping for.

Also, while composing, I imagined Dapper Dueling to fit a fight scene similar to this (dead link), from Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Max Wright: (YouTube description, excerpt) 12/14/2011

This was my interpretation of a Jake Strife theme. After the intensity of Cobalt Corsair I wanted to make something fun to listen to, and ended up with this. Imagine Jake English bouncing nimbly from side to side, facing off to wrestle his eager opponent.

Soju: (track artist, Tumblr / DeviantArt, excerpt) 11/13/2011

Obligatory Jake art, 30 min doodle that I took too seriously ;7;

Checkmate Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Shad Andrews: (Tumblr)

Long Live the Queen.

Shad Andrews: (Tumblr, re: final artwork)

(◡‿◡★) this was the album art, with a few edits colorwise and I think I fixed up some bits on Jack i don’t recall. And wow the background a good deal

Vodka Mutiny Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, SoundCloud