Namco Taiko Blog (23 May 2013): Etou on How to Make Music

Half a year ago Etou shared a talk with us on how he makes his crazy Taiko notecharts. Today he's sharing with us a lengthy lesson on how he composes his songs! It's a long wall of text so I'll just try to get to the gist of it. Let's see what Etou has to teach us this time!

Now to make a song, what would Etou do? Planning is the first step!

Figure out the genre, atmosphere and tempo of the song. Genres like rock, metal, pop, techno...all of them have distinct rhythm s to them and the resulting notechart that comes out of it are also distinctly different. The song atmosphere would be whether it sounds gloomy, bright, hopeful, cheerful, energetic..as well as making changes in the notecharts depending on the mood of the song, it also gives players a different energy when they play with a different song atmosphere each time. Tempo is BPM, or how fast the song plays.

Two examples are given: the first is Tokoyami no Mori, a slow-paced, gloomy song, not too hard, but gives off that sense of difficulty with its threatening mood. On the other end of the scale is a fast-paced, super difficult song like mint tears, which has an upbeat mood to it. The difficulty of the performance and the emotions that the song gives the player will ultimately decide what type of notechart you go for! Trust your instinct!

Secondly, song structure.

If you've ever been to a karaoke joint before, you know how song structure works without needing any explanation; the stanzas, chorus and bridge are parts that make up a full song, each differing in function.

The usual flow of a song would be intro > stanza A > stanza B > chorus > outro. Because Taiko songs are usually about 1 1/2 minutes long on average, it follows this structure without needing a bridge or a stanza C, much like the opening theme song of an anime. Structure is what makes each song special! The example given is Zero no Nocturne, one of the new Namco Originals from Sorairo. Think of the parts that make up the song. They're all different, right? Imagine if a song has no structure and has the same tune from beginning to the end! That wouldn't be very fun to play. There needs to be different levels of tension to different parts of the song, ending in a climax and resolution, like a good story.

Next is whether the song needs vocals or not.

If the song is meant to be an instrumental it's straightforward, but adding vocals is a much bigger challenge. Once again, the song's mood dictates the need for vocals and what words should be sung at which points. It's a whole lot of planning, and the right voice has to be chosen otherwise the whole composition is ruined. Taiko notes aren't laid down by percussions alone; sometimes vocals provide sense to the chart and help make highlight points for notes and stuff.

To some extent, vocals restrict difficulty, at least for Etou, who mentioned that songs with no vocals are easier to make tougher notecharts for, which is actually true in certain cases.

Finally, with the song done, the final step is to make a chart that matches the song perfectly! The three basics are:

-Understanding the song's genre, mood and tempo
-Understanding the song's structure and highlights
-Understanding the song and the instruments that play behind it

It's kind of like....um, how do I put it into an example...

-Approach a person you like
-Understanding this person and become friends with him/her
-Understanding him/her in a much deeper way, almost to the point of becoming lovers

And then! Make notes that suit the song. Give it the 'boom' factor!

There will be yet another notechart talk by Etou in the future, and continuing the analogy, this step is akin to :

-Becoming lovers, and setting up a plan for a date

See you next time!

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Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS, Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Chogouka-ban reach sales milestone

Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS and Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Chogouka-ban (henceforth referred to as Taiko Wii 5) has always been doing great at the weekly sales rankings ever since they were launched, consistently putting themselves into the top 20 every single week. Whenever they dipped below 20, some public holiday or event would always be there to push the two games back up. It was a surprise, more so for the Wii game; no other Taiko no Tatsujin on the flagging console has ever sold this well.

And so the inevitable has happened. On May 21, 2013, both Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS and Taiko Wii 5 sold their 500,000th copy. No, not the two of them added up, they have sold 500k each, with Wii 5 being 4 months faster than the 3DS version! Million sellers are a big thing, but for smaller franchises like this, having half a million sold is already an achievement. Plus, it's already a million if you combine both sales figures together.

Namco throws a grand shindig at the official blog whenever a Taiko game reaches a sales milestone (DS1 and DS2 break through 500k, Taiko+ getting a million downloads, PSP2 download songs being accessed a million times). Wonder if they're going to do anything this time?

Thanks to crystal for the heads-up!

Source

Vocaloid Corner: Kaito

Kaito is a hipster Vocaloid, in that he was created and sold before Vocaloid became cool. Together with his female counterpart Meiko, Kaito is the first Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media, using the original Vocaloid 1 engine developed by Yamaha. Being quite old in Vocaloid years, Kaito's voice is a more antiquated robotic-sounding male, provided by Naoto Fuga, a professional singer and music teacher.

Being released before the big tide of Vocaloid popularity, Kaito originally did not have a character or personality attached to him, and these were added to him and Meiko after Hatsune Miku popularized the concept of giving the voice synthesizers an associated character. In fact, Kaito owes much of his current fanbase to Miku as well, his original form being a commercial flop. The story surrounding his rise to fame is an interesting one, involving song 'replies' between him and Hatsune Miku. Later composers found Kaito to be incredibly versatile and easy to work with despite the dated software. It just showcases that a little personality goes a long, long way.

Kaito does not have any solo performances in Taiko no Tatsujin, but as part of the three-piece male Vocaloid band, Vana N'Ice (consisting of him, Gakupo and Kagamine Len), he currently has one song in Taiko.

	-Kaito songs-

	IMITATION BLACK (*1)

*1 Together with Kagamine Len and Gakupo as a virtual band called "Vana n'Ice"

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Fanart: The Hope of Asia (for Taiko Sorairo)

A simple piece of artwork I cooked up for the campaign to ask Namco for the export of Taiko no Tatsujin Sorairo Version to Asia. The major countries involved in the campaign are all united in their cause, and we are still hopeful! Namco, please consider our sincere request; we're Taiko fans too!

I apologize if I didn't include your country flag; I intended for the main ones to be represented but of course we all wish that Taiko will have a reach to fans all around the world!

As for the petition, we've surpassed 400 signatures and closing in on our 3rd milestone of 500! Please sign it if you haven't!

Song of the Week! 18 May 2013

It's been quite a long time since we saw a Namco Original song in this corner or something from the 2012 CreoFUGA contests, so let's see something today which meets both these requirements...or something.

Namco Taiko Blog (16 May 2013): Taiko Tournament 2013 Score System

Only two months before the Taiko tournament! So what's in it? What are the songs? The CreoFuga songs? Wanna know who won? You do, right?

Well too bad, Taiko Team is still keeping it under wraps! Instead, it discusses the scoring system of the tournament. It's nothing new; all they mentioned is the use of Shin-uchi mode (what we previously called Shinta Mode; an error on our part) and they explained where it came from (Taiko 14) and what it does, we've covered it all before on a page here so I'll save the explaining to our information pages.

Not much else this week, really.

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Random: DIY Tatacon

I'm sure you've heard of players modifying their home console Tatacon controllers to make them more sensitive/quieter, but this is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Someone either made sensors or stripped them off a Tatacon and attached them to a paper/plastic plate-like thing. And it works awesome.