Patreon Peeks 27: Highlights from Monkey Target (Patreon)

Hello! Apologies on getting behind with these behind-the-scenes posts. It's been a busy February, and it'll still be a short bit before the next What I Love video is ready! But now that February's arrangement has gone up, I can follow this tradition of going over my favorite parts of making it! As usual, audio stems are included in the attachments!

The first one to listen to is "Percussion Breakdown," which comes from Monkey Target 1. This is the moment at which, in the original song, a notable melodic motif on synthesizer shines above the rest of the tune, which softens into half-time before coming back with a drum fill into the climax. I stripped down some of the parts to present just that melodic synth and the percussion underneath. I added a few parts to breathe new life into this part: a reverse cymbal at the beginning to signal the section, vibraphone to make the feeling of gliding a little dreamier, and then a new drum fill with sampled acoustic drums. This fill actually cuts into beat 1 of the next measure, and then the melody and the beat drop on beat 2. That's a common practice in electronic music, to subvert expectations and make the drop satisfying.

Next is "Transition," when Monkey Target 1 turns to Monkey Target 2. This starts with the jingle when you land your monkey on a target and earn a modest amount of points: a jingle that was thankfully in B flat, such that it transitions easily to Monkey Target 2 in B flat. In order to keep my computer from being too slow to process the whole project, I rendered out Monkey Target 1 and imported the audio file into a new project with Monkey Target 2. And sometimes, a simple addition of reverb on the tail end of that audio can provide the perfect wash of noise from which to fade into this new idea. That's what you can hear here!

And the final highlight of making this was "Fall Out Splash," because I couldn't end this on anything but a fall out into the ocean, missing a target: the most common end to a round of Monkey Target! This was a combination of several sounds:

• an electric piano playing the Monkey Target warning sound that you're in a nosedive

• me whistling to indicate you're losing altitude

• several free sounds of an aircraft flying at high speed, then splashing and underwater ambience. I edited the splash to quickly cut high frequencies, making it sound like your hearing is quickly being pushed underwater

• a custom Logic synthesizer I sculpted to surround the stereo image with frothing white noise. This stood in for the air bubbles that would form around you when you jump in water. It was the final touch!

The samples of Super Monkey Ball's narrator, Brian Matt-Uhl, were the final touch that made this music arrangement one of the most nostalgic for me to work on!