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coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B - Commentary

3.3k words across 33 entries.

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

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Homestuck: (Bandcamp about blurb) captured 4/14/2012

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) captured 4/12/2012

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) captured 4/14/2012

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

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Monobrow:

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

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David DeCou:

(YouTube)

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.

(YouTube)

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

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Nathan H.:

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

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David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr, excerpt)

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.

David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr, excerpt)

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.

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

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David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr, excerpt)

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.

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

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Ryan Ames:

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)


alcohol
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What a classy dame. * u *

OhThatNK: (artwork redraw, Tumblr)


alcohol
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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)

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

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Elisa McCabe:

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

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Maya Kern:

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

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

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Twirlin' Curtis: (composer, Twitter)

Happy Homestuck Day.

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

Twirlin' Curtis: (composer, Twitter)

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: (composer, Twitter)

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

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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

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Max Wright: (composer)

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, from Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Max Wright: (composer, YouTube description, excerpt)

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)

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

Checkmate Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

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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

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Catboss: (SoundCloud description)

> Roxy: Succumb to unfathomable booze snooze.

The second of my three entries to the Homestuck Music Contest, the other two being [Guns Blazing] and Daywalker ~Rise~.

This one actually got in! It can be found on coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B, the second of two albums released as a result of the contest.

I love pulling genre bait-and-switch and I totally do the same going from dance music to orchestral thing I did in "Land of Frost and Frogs". This one has added chiptune flavor, though. And portamento to simulate drunken hiccups!

Also: this actually isn't the album version. I updated it because the album version was actually over-compressed; I'm still not sure how I let that pass...

Dord Waltz Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

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Elaine Wang:

Fun facts:

"Dord" is a rather amusing typographical error that occured back in 1934 when someone in the Merriam-Webster editing staff misread "D or d", intended as abbreviations for density, as "Dord" and... made up a pronunciation for it. (Whoops.)

Given Roxy Lalonde's penchant for drunk typing^W^W lexicographical creativity, I thought it was appropriate. The accidentals, at least as much so. As for the waltz part of it... well, I have no idea either.

It was written as a Roxy song. It will now be a Roxy song until the end of the Internet.

I came up with the title first and the music second. The accidentals were there the first time I put down the notes. (They are going to stay there.)

The above is not normal for me. I have more recently taken to using random word generators to title my music, because I often struggle with that.

I am told that the song has some similarities to Endless Climb. That part is most definitely not deliberate. Not going to rule out subconscious influences though.

The album art is by merrigo. She (?) does cool work. Go look at her tumblr too.

"Dord" is a real thing that happened in the Merriam-Webster in the 1934 edition. Read the article for more information.

A dord is also a kind of instrument. There's none of them in the song, just so's you know.

Although if you're willing to play Dord on a dord I can send you sheet music.

Full disclosure: I'm not actually finished with the Dord sheet music. Remind me in two weeks and I'll probably have something.

The above two points also apply even if you aren't going to play Dord on a dord. (I have no idea what the range of that instrument is, so whatever.)

Pipeorgankind Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

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James Roach:

As a lot of you know, my track Pipeorgankind was featured in last night's Flash! I used melodies and themes from several talented musicians to create this track, and orchestrated/arranged them for fun! I never thought it would become anything!

I thought it might be fun to show you all the nods and themes I used in the track! (though unless otherwise stated its Showtime, throughout)

Thanks for all the overwhelming encouragement and support! I wouldn't be here without you guys!

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