The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on Gameboy is the first Zelda game I ever played and it holds a very special place in my heart. In this video, I play tunes from the game as well as some improvisations using the Moog Matriarch and an awesome reverb pedal I just got called the CXM 1978 (by Chase Bliss Audio and Meris).
I just finished playing the fantastic JRPG Persona 5 Royal and absolutely LOVED it. Here’s my arrangement of the song Beneath The Mask from the game’s soundtrack.
Everything was recorded live simultaneously with the exception of the Moog solo and vocal harmonies which appear separately on screen. Hope you enjoy!
You can download the track on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/glasys
If you know me, you know I like to challenge myself and try to push my own limits. I recently wrote a short finger drumming / keyboard exercise that's by far my hardest attempt at multitasking - I had to practice it for a week just to pull it off.
But once I was able to play it, I realized it was only around 30 seconds long... So, I decided to send it to a few of my musician friends and ask them if they'd like to solo over it.
They sent me back some AWESOME solos which I then edited together with my original jam into a longer piece of music.
Here's the result - starting with my original solo exercise, leading into the collaboration. Hope you enjoy!
I’m really happy to share this live session I recorded for Nord Keyboards as part of their Nord World Sessions series! If you’ve ever been to one of my shows, you know that Nord’s beautiful red keyboards are a staple in my live rig and it’s really nice to officially collaborate with them.
I performed two originals, the first is a piano version of Unwinder (from my debut album Defective Humanity) and the second is a brand new song called The Growing Divide. Hope you enjoy!
Felt like playing something a little more relaxing this week (I think we all need it). Here’s my interpretation of the Maridia Rocky Underwater theme from Super Metroid. Performed on Sequential Prophet XL, Therevox ET-4 and Moog Matriarch. Hope you enjoy!
Huge thanks to my Patreon supporters for helping make this possible!
I didn’t originally plan to record more than five Metroid covers, but for some reason this haunting theme was stuck in my head and I felt compelled to arrange it as well. To me, this “final boss” tune captures how 2020 has felt so far… Pretty accurately. :)
All sounds were performed live simultaneously (technical details are in the YouTube description). Audio download is available for my Patrons. Hope you enjoy!
3 years after T-Pain first commented on one of my videos and said he wanted to work together, we were finally able to make it happen!
We ended up collaborating on a cover of the Brinstar - Underground Depths theme from the classic 1994 video game Super Metroid. I first created an instrumental synth arrangement (recorded live), then T-Pain wrote new lyrics and recorded vocals in his signature autotune style.
Check it out here:
I decided to release this track together with many of my other live YouTube arrangements (video game covers, jazz standards, collabs and originals) as a compilation album named Off Screen - Video Recordings.
You can find it on the streaming platforms or get all 40 tracks on Bandcamp for only $15 (click the art to check it out):
Hope you enjoy, thanks for your support!
Can monkeys breathe underwater? I doubt it, but in the 1994 SNES masterpiece Donkey Kong Country they definitely can!
I’ve always loved the game’s gorgeous soundtrack by David Wise so I decided to cover one of the most iconic tracks - Aquatic Ambience (the underwater level theme).
Despite this being a downtempo / relaxing tune, finding a way to recreate all the sounds live in one take was quite tricky. For some covers, I like to change the arrangement quite significantly but for this one I wanted to stay close to the original. Hope you enjoy!
Also, I want to add that I am BLOWN AWAY by the support on the first week of my Patreon page. I never expected so many people to join! I’m beyond grateful for the support.
This track, as well as any future YouTube track is available as a high quality audio download for my Patrons.
I finally launched a Patreon account!
If you’re unfamiliar with it, Patreon is a platform that let’s you support an artist/creator on a continuous basis with as little as $1 per creation. In my case, I created it to hopefully monetize my YouTube videos. These days I spend most of my time and energy creating videos but unfortunately make almost no money for them. With your support, I can hopefully keep creating content for you on a regular basis and still pay my bills. :)
Let me add that I know these are difficult times for most people and totally understand if you can’t chip in. But if you are interested in checking it out, this is the link: https://www.patreon.com/glasys
I’m offering a high quality download of every track I post on YouTube to my patrons, and will keep adding more patron-exclusive content in the future.
Here’s my Patreon launch video, with a little Neo Soul jam:
The ASM Hydrasynth is a very deep and unique synthesizer and has quickly become one of my new favorites. Here's a tune I wrote called The Hydra that was made using nothing but 8 patches I programmed on this synth.
I recorded it pretty spontaneously, the main melody/pad sound was improvised and recorded without a click, I then started overdubbing the other sounds. Since nothing was recorded to a grid, the timing is pretty dynamic and... human. :)
I created the Hydra background in Photoshop out of some ancient Greek art.
Hope you enjoy!
I created a few loopable tracks in different genres for Jordan Rudess Music that are now part of Pixaloop by Lightricks (awesome photo animation app). The feature in the app is called Beatloops, check it out if you have it.
Here’s an example of the Lofi Hiphop track, I made it entirely with the Sequential Prophet XL:
This week, I decided to cover something more downtempo / soothing - it just felt right for these times.
This is Serena's Harp Melody (AKA Yggdrasil Theme) from Dragon Quest XI - Echoes of an Elusive Age, a really great RPG I recently played on the Switch. The orchestral soundtrack by Koichi Sugiyama is fantastic, and this theme stuck with me. Hope you enjoy!
Here’s my rendition of the NES Metroid title theme, performed live on a Sequential Prophet XL and a Moog Matriarch. I overdubbed my Therevox ET-4 in one part (you'll see it).
In my opinion, this video game theme is exceptionally beautiful and I love how it conveys so many different moods in under 2 minutes. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I took the Gerudo Valley theme from Zelda: Ocarina of Time and combined it with the New Messiah theme from Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge in a string, horn and flute arrangement created entirely using Audio Modeling's fantastic SWAM Virtual Instruments.
These amazing plugins use physical modeling to emulate acoustic instruments without using any samples. Keep watching after the arrangement for a look into the software.
Metroid II on Gameboy is the first game in the series I ever played.
I'll never forget that feeling of being all alone on a creepy alien planet and being in awe of the size of the world and amount of exploration. This tune is the first you hear when you start the game on the surface of planet SR388 - the soundtrack gets a lot weirder and creepier as you descend into the depths of the world.
Here's my tribute to the Metroid game that started it all for me:
This is a live arrangement, all sounds are performed simultaneously. I use a lot of layering, delay and reverb to achieve a big sound with this limitation. If you wanna find out more about my arrangement process, check out this Ridley tutorial from a couple of weeks ago.
My live arrangement of Kraid's Lair from the original NES Metroid game, performed on the Prophet XL, Moog Matriarch and Therevox ET-4. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful video game themes ever composed.
More technical details about my arrangement in the YouTube description.
Hope you enjoy!
I covered some epic boss battle music from one of my favorite video games of all time, Super Metroid. Metroid has some gorgeous dark and mysterious music and I’m planning a number of covers from the series.
In addition to that, I created a tutorial on my arrangement process. I get a lot of questions on how I play all the parts simultaneously, so hopefully this sheds some light. The tutorial starts right after the performance:
On my last solo tour (way before the pandemic) I dropped by Sequential's office and performed a 20 minute live set on the Prophet XL, and I thought now would be a good time to share with you the entire performance.
I played a combination of tunes from The Legend of Zelda, original songs from my album Defective Humanity as well as a Lofi Jazz standard. Hope you enjoy!
After recently playing Super Mario Bros. 2 on the Nintendo Switch, this tune got stuck in my head and I felt like doing a little Ragtime / Boogie piano arrangement. Hope you enjoy.
Performed on the Yamaha CP88.
When my friends at Sequential asked me if I want to make some Prophet X tutorials, I knew the first one would have to cover my Vinyl Piano patch since I get a lot of requests for it. The tutorial is now up on Sequential's channels!
Really looking forward to seeing what other PX users do with this.