Cocoa Cave - Breakdown! (Patreon)

How did I arrange this piece? What instruments did I use and why? Find out below! (Yay I get to nerd out)

Introduction

 I've always struggled with how to classify Kirby music. I'm always at a loss how to label each bright synth, chirping noise or frantic arpeggiation (I literally have one of the instrument tracks in my transcription of this piece labelled as "Bird SFX." Hey, sometimes you have to make do) These sounds are so baked into the Kirby soundscape that it can be frightening to try recreate some of the series' more experimental pieces. But ah! Making an arrangement of a strange piece like this is where all the fun begins! Rather than meticulously finding the best synths and samples to modernize Kirby music, sometimes it's way more fun to root through your samples folder and create your OWN soundscape that runs parallel to the weirdness of Kirby. 

First 4 Bars - Intro (0:00 - 0:06)

I started with this piece's driving bassline. I took a normal Funk Bass and layered it with a sizzling MiniMoog bass patch. I continued to layer this with a Clavinet to further bring out that brightness, and finished by layering again with Piano. In a piece as energetic as this, a normal bass guitar wouldn't have cut it. To increase the drive and intensity of the piece (and to give the part a broader frequency range), I needed to creatively use instruments to give the bass this sort of "artificial distortion." I could've slapped an amp + FX on the bass, but I think this ultimately gave it a better timbre (and the weird crispiness that I go for).

The beginning of this piece has a super chill augmented 4th interval that plays over everything. I decided to fill out the rest of that dominant chord to give the pad (in this case, a basic set of synth strings) more weight. I also has a close-mic'd bass clarinet play the root far into its lower register to bring out the "hollowness" and to make the intro sound a little stranger. 

At the end of a lot of phrases there's a fast figure that's made up of a lot of parallel 4ths. In the original this sounded like some sort of SNES "woodwind," so I played that up by featuring instruments that I'd call "flute, but wrong!" The bulk of this would include a bunch of recorders and a mellotron, but to sharpen the notes I layered the figure with a glockenspiel and a Rhodes piano. A reversed piano sample would drive us into the next section!

Verses (0:06 - 0:30)

At this point the recorders are a mainstay in the piece's texture. I had them play little stabs to make the overall rhythm interesting. I liked using recorders in this piece, because I've always considered them "cute, but strange." They also have such an aggressive and tight attack, which helped accentuate this piece's percussive nature. Maybe The Mandalorian also shaped my associations with the instrument. :) I also had the piano play alongside those recorder stabs in addition to its bass duties. 

Since this is a Kirby song, there's gotta be super fast arpeggiations in the verses. I had a clarinet cover this part (which I would absolutely never do if this were a real musician, it would be completely impossible to play) and I layered it with Rhodes and Marimba to give each note more definition (and to contribute to the clarinet's darker tone quality). Overall, I wanted to make this part subtle since this is one of the few Kirby pieces where this sort of figure isn't as energized. 

To fill in the empty space, I had a B-3 organ playing chords.

A Transistor Organ was a perfect lead for this section. It's bright, very SNES, and it will cut through just about anything you throw at it (especially useful since this song is so busy). It does have the drawback of not being able to pitch-bend like the original piece, but I was willing to sacrifice that since the instrument was perfect elsewhere. The second verse was a bit trickier. I wanted something just as intense and bright, but with a more string-like quality. Luckily, the Solina synth specializes in this. I was worried the line wasn't powerful enough to be forward in the mix, but I think some EQ in the post-production helped set it right. This was formerly going to be an electric guitar, but that seemed too intense in the end. 

"Chorus" (0:30 - 0:36)

This was easily the most difficult part of the arrangement, and the part I worked on first. How can I get the main melody line to cut through like the attack-heavy SNES samples? Trumpets alone weren't cutting it, and any backup I gave them just sounded a little too "cartoony" (it's still cartoony in the final version, but ideally less so). In the end I settled with recorders, trumpets, synth brass, square wave, glockenspiel, and Rhodes to cut through. That's a lot of high-intensity instruments! But they all served their purpose:

• The trumpets gave the melody its musical foundation.
• The synth brass gave power to the trumpets
• The recorders could reach those important high notes (and the detuned effect of that timbre is cool)
• The square wave could cut through it all to give the line more attack
• The glockenspiel and Rhodes assisted the square wave

In the end it was a difficult arranging puzzle. Perhaps in the future samples will more reliably be able to recreate these sharp, stabbing sections. I had saxophones, marimba and another square wave playing the runs that fill up the empty space between the stabs. I just love how the saxophones sound harmonized like that! 

Breakdown (0:36 - 0:48)

This is just where I could have fun with it! The main "melody" of this line is just a bass being bended downwards. This is the most unique part of the original piece, so I made sure I took time to make it right. Other than that, this section is a cacophony of percussion and weird sound effects! I knew since I started this piece that I wanted two closely-tuned toms to be panned opposite to each other. This created such a cool driving effect! The deeper toms had to be big and slappy, I took a long time to make sure they had the proper reverb levels and sustain. In the second half, castanets replaced the original's hi-hat. I thought this sounded more unique, and contributed to this piece's "wooden" sound. 

the original piece had some strange, bright sounds playing in this section. (i.e. "Bird SFX). To create this sound I originally wanted to use scissors, but in the end I decided to shake my keys around in order to simulate this bright, scraping sound. Sometimes you just gotta do it yourself!

Percussion (All)

The drum sounds in this piece are your standard 80's repertoire. Similar sounds can be found in most basic DAW libraries. If you listen close in the original, you can hear some sort of muted drum playing 16th notes. To simulate this, I slapped a low-pass filter on an 808 kick and sent it back in the mix. You can barely hear it, but it fills in that frequency range quite nicely! Additionally in the original, there's a "popping" sound every 2 bars. I was originally going to use a tempo block, but in line with my key antics, I decided to just make a popping sound into the microphone myself. Featuring vocals by Evelyn! 

Conclusion

Overall, this was a fun and challenging piece! I really enjoy covering Kirby music as it makes me think on my toes. This was an overly detailed write-up, but please let me know if you enjoyed it and want me to do similar things in the future. Oftentimes I just "do" things while arranging, and I never think about why. This is a great way to help me figure out my process, and to share what my work is like with y'all! Anyway, keep an eye on my various accounts for news about the game I'm composing for! Other than that, have a nice day sweeties! <3