Source: Silent Hill (PS1) - Claw Finger

"Silent Hill is not the most friendliest of soundtrack for remixers, and i can clearly see why. It's pretty much pure texture and noise, so it'd be the equivalent of panting a blank canvas, with 2 colours. Your not going to get much to work with, nor will it be easy to work with what you have. Any chance of something melodic will be almost impossible. It's rare to find such a composition. So why the hell did i turn to Silent Hill for my PRC source selection? It turns out there is more to like than dislike, and i like the idea of setting some kind of limitation by sending in essentially Noise and Dark Ambient music. The source i selected isn't from the same mind frame, but it belongs to a soundtrack who's primary aim is to scare the living crap out of you. It's not happy go fun time music. It's "Oh My God, I'm About to Die". 

This source stood out though, because there were a lot of cool moments in this piece. It's purely a synth based piece, using only a single instrument patch from the Korg Triton to generate the melody/chords (I don't know why i said melody, it's just a series of minor chords lol). What's interesting is the random beat skips that happen, it isn't just a pure 4/4 composition. It also has quite the textural sound to it, from a simple patch, sounds closer to some kind of electric piano like synth. It's kind of cool. Even though there is one patch/instrument, i notated it as 4 channels on the MIDI, largely because of how dynamic the synth is. It was too much to simply write as a single channel, i needed to do more. So i made a bassline for it, a background layer, as well as a deep pad to function as some of it's more ambient aspects to the sound. So what is a single sound becomes 4 channels, but they're really just representing one sound. The piece is only 50 seconds, before it goes through the endless looping phase. No other instruments debut, it's literally just a synth sound, and a very interesting one at that.

So why did i pick something, that has barely any substance to it? Even though there is production in regards to chord sequences, there is no drums or melody, or even a real working bassline. What i've MIDIFY'D was basically 4 channels produced from 1 sound. I did this, to get all of the properties of the sound transcribed, as well as make it seem like there is more to the MIDI than that, The reason for choosing this, was largely because i wanted something that encouraged creativity. How will you take this further? In Silent Hill the purpose is to create tension, atmosphere, an unerving soundscape. But as a standalone piece, it's very unique, and isolated. I love the tune, but it's how you will take it further that's where the magic is. You don't know where to take it. Is it an electronic piece? Is it orchestral? Who knows, imagination is key to making this your own. 

I haven't really talked about the game itself, which is what i usually do, but i got fixated on this cool interesting piece whilst talking about it, so i've taken up so many of my description talking about the track. Also note, i didn't just pick this, because it had a series of recognisable pitches lol, but also because i felt it could be a unique PRC round. To be fair, the only interesting thing i can identify from the games company, is that they are called Team Silent, and they were responsible for pretty much the first 4 games of the franchise. I've rambled too much, i'm sure you can read up about it in you're own time. Good luck with this one!"

(TheVideoGamer)

GAME: Silent Hill (PS1)

Source: Claw Finger



As usual here's the video:

And my own custom MIDI:

https://www.vgmusic.com/file/e349937ffade26f15903aad73a9564ae.html#disqus_thread