My Attempts At Beepbox

This is where some of the little tunes I've made with Beepbox/Jummbox are gonna go. They're extremely simple 'cuz I don't know anything about music theory, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that you could add channels.

♥ marks the tracks I'm most proud of. Click on the pagedoll to go back.

2024

♥ Hyde's Theme 4/25

Back at it with another character theme! Probably the best character theme I've done to date, actually. I incorporated a motif from Dakota's theme into this one, so it's kind of like Dakota's call and Hyde's response. Represents their relationship pretty well.

♥ Lancer (Cover) 4/20

I taught myself the barest basics of piano a couple days ago. Once I figured out how blues scales worked, the opening bar of Lancer's theme was the first thing I tried. Then I thought "this sounds like lounge jazz", and immediately ran to my laptop to make this. I want you to picture Lancer in a little trenchcoat & holding a magnifying glass. He's going to the crime scenes. He's eating the mysteries.

♥ Pumpkin Party (Cover) 4/17

I don't feel like writing out the whole title. Feels like it'll mess up my formatting.

Finally bit the bullet and tried covering a Homestuck song. The melody was pretty easy to figure out, but the bassline & chords gave me a hard time. I ended up making the bassline here more similar to the banjo part from the original song, which I think works pretty well.

noodlin' 4/15

Revisiting my old method of starting with a beat, then a bassline, and goofing around from there until something sticks. I dunno if I like this one very much, though. It feels too... safe, I guess? Not sure how to describe it.

♥ The Funky Clav 4/8

After seeing this video by Louie Zong, I decided to give it a try for myself. For those who don't wanna watch the video, it's essentially Zong explaining something he calls "funky clav," which is just a blues scale with an added major 6. (I am very proud of myself for knowing what that means.) It was nice to make something simple and fun after the active struggle that was the previous song.

CJ's Theme 4/6

After finishing up the Gerudo Valley theme cover, I thought it'd be fun to play around a little more with a Spanish guitar type of sound. Which would be a perfect excuse to do another character theme, this time for my cowboy CJ. And then I was busy, and then I caught a nasty stomach flu. Even without the stomach flu, this song kinda fought me a little! But overall it was definitely worth it. I took a few cues from the Where the Water Tastes Like Wine soundtrack here (which you should definitely check out).

♥ Gerudo Valley (Cover) 3/17

This was really difficult at first, but then something clicked and the rest was super straightforward. I had a ton of fun with it. Admittedly, this isn't a perfect 1:1 with the original, because a good chunk of this was done from memory. But that lends it a certain charm, I think. I really fell in love with the chord progression of this song...

Riot's Theme (Redux) 3/14

Remember Riot's theme from September? I wasn't happy with the way the syncopation changed, so I wanted to see if I could improve on it. ...And then this happened. Yeah. Genuinely, I do not know if I like this or not, but it's much more experimental than what I usually do.

Joyous 2 3/2

A new and improved version of the Joyous song from a little while ago. Originally I put this together to use for a crappy little RPGmaker test game, but I may save it for a later, better project.

♥ the banjo is back 2/27

I said I'd make a more high-energy version of the previous song, and I did. You'll also note that I reused the melody of the time-traveling banjo song. This time, though, it's in 3/4 rather than the bastard's 4/3.

♥ yeesh 2/20

I've been kinda curious to try the bagpipe preset out for a while now. It's honestly just okay, but this song turned out very nicely. Might make a more high-energy version of it sometime. The motif at the end especially has potential...

♥ help me 2/12

I first heard this melody in a dream.

While this was extremely tricky to figure out, I think it ended up wildly successful. There was a lot of fiddling with instrument settings & mixing here.

Plague 2/8

Just like the Light theme was a "brighter" version of the Shadow theme, this is a slower, sludgier, and corrupted-sounding version of the Nature theme. Of course, a true Plague song would be borderline unlistenable, but I didn't want to subject anyone to that.

♥ footstare part 2 2/4

Recreated the triplets version of the Footstare song from August, with a few extra bits. Also in a lower key. Honestly I like this one much better. It's got that cartoon cowboy atmosphere to it.

♥ Nature 1/29

Another Flight Rising song, this time another reel sort of thing. I think I'm starting to develop a composing "style" of sorts, although I'm wary of settling into a pattern too soon. That said, this faux-acoustic sound is where I'm finding the most inspiration.

I've been making a lot of music this winter. This is the first song in a while I've been truly satisfied with, though.

Light 1/25

Yet another Flight Rising song! I tried to make this a deliberate mirror to the Shadow theme, but on the major scale & in a higher key. Not as close as it could be, but similar enough that it's thematically appropriate. The mixing on this one turned out really well, I think.

Shadow 1/16

Even more playing with 3/4. I really wanted to nail the atmosphere of the Shadow flight, though I don't think I was 100% successful here. But I'm playing with the pan feature for the first time. So hopefully that's effective.

Adventure! 1/14

I came up with the banjo melody here when I heard a similar tune in an old Flash game. Didn't know what to do with it, so I just left it lying around. Then I revisited it & ended up throwing this together. Also I finally made the ocarina preset sound good, yay!

If my little reel song from December were boss music, this'd be the song you hear in the area before the bossroom.

KoboldCore(TM) 1/4

Was going through some old posts, saw this video, and thought I'd borrow that same bassline. Featuring the same motif as the GnomeCore song.

♥ Dakota's Theme 1/1

Since I have a noir detective character, I knew sooner or later I'd have to try my hands at jazz. The chord progression here is the same as that one Nina Simone song, I believe. Everything else was a matter of figuring out time signature. This is some sort of bastardous 6/8, because I refuse to work any more in actual eighths than I need to. Otherwise nothing groundbreaking, but for how tricky this was, I think I did pretty well. (Might reuse this motif.)

2023

♥ Water 12/30

Last song of the year! I felt like doing something in 3/4 again, as well as another Flight Rising inspired song, so a Water song felt like a natural fit. Once again trying to incorporate Themes into a song (the sonar pings in particular represent the search for the Tidelord). Also it turns out when you crank the "voice ooh" preset to a high enough pitch, it sounds like someone whistling, which is cool.

Time-Traveling Banjo 12/19

More of an experiment than anything else. Like the theme song of an Irish folk musician who becomes the companion in a newer Doctor Who arc.

♥ some kinda reel thing 12/9

If you saw the earlier version of this: no you didn't.

I love the fiddle preset. Here I really wanted to push it to its full potential.

♥ Icirrus City (Cover) (Redux) 12/8

Because the mistakes in the old one were starting to bother me. This isn't actually long; it's just a little looping trick so the violin from the outro overlaps the intro properly.

Evil Waltz 12/5

So it turns out I had 3/4 confused with triplets this whole time. To amend this, I tried making an actual original song in 3/4. As it says on the tin, it's an evil waltzy tune of some sort. Not exactly groundbreaking.

♥ Lightning 12/1

I originally made this song to sound like a sort of theme for the Lightning element from Flight Rising. In particular, the way the "retro" drums sound always makes me think of clanking machinery, so they felt appropriate. Once again messing with the blues scale.

♥ Megalovania (Cover/Remix) 11/18

Holy shit.

The King Really Likes Jazz 11/10

Another attempt at bossfight-like music. Originally I wanted this to sound kind of medieval in a very cheesy way (hence the choice of instruments), but was really struggling to make it sound coherent. Then I tried putting it on the "blues" scale and... well, just listen to it. (This is yet another deceptively simple song. I think this has the most instuments of all my tracks so far?)

♥ Purgatory FIGHT! 11/02

I wanted to make something like a bossfight version of the Purgatory song I did earlier. While this isn't quite intense enough to qualify as boss music, I still like it a lot.

♥ play de geetar 10/27

Recreation of a song I made in 1BitDragon a while back, plus some extra instruments. I think I've gotten much better at making music over the past year.

Less Follish 10/22

Reusing some ideas from the Follish song via... whatever this is. The intro is absurdly long, especially for my particular tastes. But it works, so.

Purgatory 10/17

A little concept music for that game I might never make. This'd be for the "afterlife" area you wander around in when your character dies.

ANNOYING 10/15

Decided to try a scale besides the usual major/minor scale and ended up with this monstrosity. This could be the theme of an anthropomorphic mosquito shopkeeper, or maybe my character Hyde. I don't recommend playing this on loop.

♥ The Livin' Is Easy 10/08

Normally I struggle a lot with the major scale, but this song just sort of came naturally to me. Maybe it's because I started with the bassline and just noodled around from there? Helps that Ultrabox has a few pretty excellent bass presets.

Oz's Theme 10/05

Another attempt at a character theme. Heavily references the Courtyard Colosseum theme from Pokemon Battle Revolution, because I'm that kind of nerdy. Also my first time incorporating Themes(TM) into a song.

♥ Funky Magic 09/27

This started out as me trying to make the type of song you might hear in a mysterious magical cave area while playing an RPG. Then I messed around with scales, and suddenly I had something much more high-energy on my hands. Honestly I think this is the most legit-sounding song I've made to date.

Woods Song 2.0 09/19

This is an improved version of the Woods Song. I still think there could be more to it, but I also like it how it is.

♥ just chill 08/31

Despite the number of channels in here, this one's honestly relatively simple. The koto towards the end of the loop kinda imitates the pattern of the Woods Song I did a while back.

♥ uh um 08/12

Normally customizing instruments is scary, but this just felt right. Fun fact: the bass here follows a similar pattern to the bass in Beatdown.

GnomeCore(TM) 08/09

I don't remember making this one. I think I was experimenting with time signatures?

eighths 08/07

Like the title suggests, this is my first-- and only-- successful song in eighths. It was a complete pain to make and I never wanna do that again.

Credits

Mushroom background by Fool Lovers. Pagedoll by me.