I've stumbled upon a unique means of making music for this game that I thought I'd share the process of.

First off, I don't consider myself a proper musician of any kind, I just like to dabble. It happens when I sit down at the piano or play around in a DAW - I just experiment until it sounds good. This may not be the best way to compose music and I am aware of that, but I always welcome the assistance of tools and sites that make the job easier.

So imagine my surprise when I found not one but two amazing sites set up for the creation of music that can then be exported as midi, and which fully support midi keyboards as well! The first one is Online Sequencer, and it has a bit of everything. You can use multiple instruments to track your song, and there are sections for bass and percussion, too. I used this to further cement my dabbling in another tool.

The other one, which I happen to think is my personal favorite, is Chord Player. Here, you can create an arrangement of chords, make them play in particular styles, such as Tango and Funk, and then move over to melody and play notes over the top of it. It's a wonderful resource not only for assembling things that sound good, but also for learning music theory and chord progression. It's a wonderful teaching tool and an excellent resource for any budding musician or even someone who wants to experiment.

I started by taking a midi exported out by the Chord Player and importing it into the Online Sequencer. I tweak the timing of my melodic notes I played over the chords and alter some things, which is easier to do with the visual representation of the notes I played (Chord Player doesn't show you a piano roll for the melody). Then, I open OpenMPT and import the midi, or if I want more control, I manually enter the notes on the pattern and set up appropriate pauses and effects.

This process worked for me, but may not work for you, and that's okay. There are a million different ways to make music, but anything with both midi input and .midi output is a true time-saver and worth seeking out. I also used my piano at the beginning of the process, but you might have an iPad, and I would highly recommend using Garageband as a testing ground for melodies and chords. Work out what works for you and improve the process as you get better!

Here's the first result with Online Sequencer: https://onlinesequencer.net/2075973

And here's the final result in Game Boy Studio, with the song playing over the Title Screen: 

You'll notice that some notes are dropped, and that's due to the refining process of porting the song over. Either way, I feel it gets the theme across and works wonderfully with the title screen.

Until Next Time,

Pearacidic