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Pankapu: The Dreamkeeper

TooKindStudio

Howdy ho everyone!

We are Too Kind Studio and we are working for more than a year on our game, Pankapu: the Dreamkeeper.

It’s an action/platformer in 2D told like a tale in 7 chapters. With Pankapu under your control, a little being created by Iketomi the God of Dreams, you will explore the colorful world of Omnia, in order to strike down the hordes of nightmare, erupting in this oneiric universe.

Here you can find the teaser of our game, presenting the background.

Our goal was to bring back the oldschool gameplay of the 90’s that we have grown with and to mix them with a touching and strong storytelling.

As your adventure progress, you will customize Pankapu, assign new equipment, outfits (call Aegis, that are acting like jobs) and skills to perfectly fit with your style and the situations that you will encountered. You will be able to re-explore at your leisure and discover every secret of this world thanks to your new upgrades and competencies. The gameplay will be dynamic for example you will be able to switch the Aegis of PANKAPU in real time.

You can try our Alpha version here: http://bit.ly/PankapuAlphaDL

Unity is the engine we are using for creating the game, for the level design we are using prefabs and some Unity Plugins, like Ferr2D and PlayMaker.

For the animation we are using, as you could imagine, Spine. It was a choice that impose itself, it is user-friendly and it stay updated. You can have some example of animation that we have already done for the game:

Pankapu with his armor Bravery :
Anime Sheet
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Pankapu with his armor Ardor:
Sprite sheet
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During his quest, Pankapu will encounter several enemies coming from the world of nightmares:

Gelate

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Zoldate

Screenshots of the game:

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If you want to know more about the game Pankapu: The Dreamkeeper:

Blog: http://www.tookindstudio.com/en/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pankapu?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pankapu

TooKindStudio

jfelrod1960

Great work! Best of luck with your project. Pankapu looks a little like Marvin the Martian. 🙂

gio51791

great work on the game!! nice art too!

Nate

The art and animation are superb! It looks amazingly well done!

I feel like the trailer doesn't highlight the action as much as it could. I'm a big fan of doing something at the start of the video that is freaking super cool to entice people to watch the whole thing. Do it later and maybe people never watch that far. Even then, video doesn't show much action for moving around and fighting. I was expecting fighting and explosions and stuff. It said there would be adventures and exploring, but never got to the action.

Telling a story is especially hard because people don't generally respond well to text (sadly, people are idiots). They do respond to pretty graphics (which you have) and super cool action (which I assume you have but don't show). I would suggest to focus on action first, then mix in the story. Eg, high action scene, then calm story scene/text, repeat. This tackles both problems of keeping the viewer interested and telling your story, and the contrast between the action and calm probably can make the action feel a bit more shocking.

Currently you have text, then an uncolored art pan, then text. During the first 14 seconds I may be curious, but you haven't grabbed me yet. The scene at 15 seconds is colorful and interesting, but another 10 seconds go by until I see gameplay. The scene at 30 seconds is cool and should probably be sooner, but it's also very short. At 40 seconds its over.

It's just one guy's opinion, but I hope that helps!

gio51791

Constructive critism, it helps wonders and it really does. The art and animation are too good for me lol, the trailer itself doesn't give off much but theres still more to unveil i bet! Good job guys!!

TooKindStudio

Thank you all for your constructive feedback. I understand what you mean about the intro. Actually our problem is that we are doing action/platformer but with a huge background like a RPG. We wanted to avoid the intro, like a Mario, where Bowser appears, kidnaps the princess, and you directly jump in the middle of the adventure.

However that's right that our introduction, is not enough dynamic, we should add more animation in our turbo media.

For the teaser, we are working on it, in order to show more gameplay. We want to mix the turbo media of the introduction of the game with some part of the story, and the key features of the game. I hope it will give a better image and understanding of the game^^ .

Thank you again for your great feedback, that's help me a lot, so continue like that guys^^ (and sorry to answer one month later...)

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Hi everyone, I wanted to introduce you the upcoming villain of Pankapu, Gangreyn: the Dreameater

“Once upon a time, in the land of Hya’ma
A Soulless beast, High Lord of the night
Waiting patiently into Darkness for the fight
To unleash his swarm for the glory of Yne’ska”
Chronicles of Omnia

The master of nightmares reveals himself!
Like every major villain, Gangreyn has his theme. A big thank you to our dear friend Ganaé who worked on this musical masterpiece:

Lord of Hya’ma, Gangreyn is an incarnated nightmare, born from the Darkness. He delights seeding fears into living beings, feeding himself from their deepest anxieties in order to grow the number of his brothers and spread his influence across the Boreal Veil.

Obsessed by a consuming love for his mother, Yne’ska the Lady in Black, Gangreyn is in perpetual seek for recognition. He forced himself to invade the world of Humans in order to establish the supremacy of his kind in all Omnia.

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Our first concept (that you can see above), was describing an armored faceless, like our dear Pankapu (he is his antagonist after all !). The main idea, which will remain in the final version, was that Gangreyn could materialize shadows with the power of his will.

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We wanted him as a sly and theatrical character. Such a jester who’s in prey to hatred, he is even more dangerous than unpredictable and hide himself behind an insane smile.

At the end, Gangreyn is built around the opposition of chiaroscuro with vivid and disturbing tints. In fact he is an emotional changing being, twisted between two tendencies – this contrast highlights his tempestuous nature. Furthermore, his flames and Machiavellian smile gives prominence to the theatrical temper of this ultimate nemesis.

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You are now familiarized with our Evil shadow that will devour your sweetest dreams until the last drop…

Stay tuned, and see you soon in the World of Dreams!

Kurashuji

The art is great ! This boss is quite frightening... Want to see more animation though...

TooKindStudio

Hi everyone,

Some news about the game. We're on Kickstarter for 2 weeks and it began quite well. You can take a look at the page here :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tookindstudio/pankapu-the-dreamkeeper

Don't hesitate to share and/or support us ^^
As a gift to the community, we shared a playable demo on the KS page.So you can download it and see by yourself what the game could look like. And of course, you'll be able to see all the animations we did with the incredible Spine 🙂
All the feedback (good or bad) are welcome!

And for finishing, our new trailer:

Thank you everyone.
And Live Long Spine ! \o/

Nate

It's looking really good! You're almost to the goal too, I think you'll make it! 🙂

TooKindStudio

Hello guys!Thank you for the nice comments! 🙂
You now know quite a lot about the gameplay, and the characters, so I was thinking : maybe I could tell you more about the story ? 😉
As we spoke before, story is a very important part of the game to us. Indeed, Pankapu is to be told like a tale. And like every tale, we want the player to grow up as he plays it. Thus, the gameplay will support the story in a strong way.
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Djaha’Rell is a child whose nights are regularly troubled by nightmares. In order to overcome his fears, his father tells him the story of Pankapu, the Dreamkeeper. The player is then invited to live the adventures of the tiny warrior through the eyes of Djaha'Rell.

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Djaha'Rell

The game is a projection of Djaha’Rell’s mind, and it all takes place inside this imaginary world. In this way, most of the characters and situations come from his troubled past, and the player, if he/she is a little bit curious, will find the parallel between these two stories.

This mise en abyme will settle a dual narration. The young player will then follow the adventures of Pankapu, as he would in a traditional tale, while the more mature ones will read between the lines and discover the tragic story of Djaha’Rell, and how he overcomes his trauma.

Djaha'Rell's story is dark and tragic...
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...While Pankapu has a more light-hearted and epic story !

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All of this sounds curious, doesn't it ? 😉You'll have to play the game to lift the veil on those mysteries!
See you next time!

March 14th 2016 :

Hello everyone!
As you may know, Pankapu is a 2D action/platformer game. It also has some role play elements in it. This might sound confusing, so we thought : why not talk about the gameplay ?
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Pankapu: the Dreamkeeper is mixing platformer, action and role play. The goal of the gameplay is to be dynamic with a clear understanding of the pattern in order to immerse you directly into the action.
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As the adventure progresses, you will be able to customize Pankapu, to give him new equipment, outfits and skills that perfectly fit with style and match the situations you will encounter.

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During his quest Pankapu will bear different Aegis. Each one acting like a specialization and switchable in real time, fully changing the skills and weapons of our hero.
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Every Aegis has a skill tree that can be upgraded to give new powers. These abilities will be unlock as you (re)explore the levels. This system is called Nebula.
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All the different levels that you will go through are nonlinear and can be re-explored as much as you want. With the help of your new powers, new paths will appears, allowing you to find hidden secrets all over Omnia. Moreover, this is how you will find fragments of Djaha’Rell’s lost memory and discover all the mysteries surrounding his life.

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See you next time, we love you all !

Helloooooo we're back ! And this time, we have news abouuut ENVIRONMENTS! Today, we're going to present you two new environments that will conclude the first chapter of Pankapu : The Dreamkeeper.

The Mudjin Pound:

Deep down inside the fast Lush Forest you can find the Mudjin Pound; Settled in a copse, where the Anima flows wanders through the forest small inhabitants' homes. Formerly peaceful and full of live, a feeling of fear dominates this place of quietness after the nightmares' invasion, forcing the Mudjins to escape their home.

For this area's creation, I'm going to let GG, our art director, present you his committed position.
1. The method

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First of all, let's talk about the technical aspects. I essentially work on Saï, a painting software that I've fallen in love with, coupled with my brand new Cintiq 13HD, which has replaced my good old Intuos Wacom (no mercy! Given the time that I save on illustrations).

Once my assets are over, I put the final result on Photoshop, to carry out the last adjustments and boost up the light/contrast if the finish is too dull or too dark.
As for the parallaxes (background's layer in the game that moves in parallel of the scrolling, well seen, huh ?), I use Krita, an open source painting software, so that I can correctly complete my textures via an extremely practical specific tool (W shortcut to your friends).
Here is a small video of one of our previous live arts to show you Saï (without the Krita wrapping up, unfortunately).

2. Area Concept

Here you can find the first concept that I had realized for the Mudjin Pound:

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Its name was Lumen's pond at the time when I didn't have the idea of the village yet. I was then more focused on the concept of anima, bright source of life, that I wanted to be omnipresent in the level. By the way, this idea will be kept and very much improved for an ulterior part of the game.
The second concept we had unveiled to you during the Kickstarter was more focused on the atmosphere and the tints.

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The Anima was still present, but the area was much more dense and in a forest fashion. I wanted to go for concepts about the birch, a tree with a light-dispersing and striped bark, covered with purple and orange foliage that looks great in autumn and that seemed to contrast wonderfully with the previous areas to me.
The idea was clearly to bring some heat, and to differ with the earlier blue/green.
However, I wasn't completely happy with the result. Everything was too identical, poor, due to the overabundance of the trees to this "wood" aspect. I was starting to feel that Peppu would be just a forest with a different tint... I found that "boring", to say the least and I let the dough rest.
3. Final version
Here's the third and last concept. All finalized and integrated in Unity.

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This one is much closer to the notion of life. It's filled with Mudjins and thus must be abounded by houses created by those cute little beings. So I designed a village at the heart of the pond. A peaceful place where those little troublemakers could live in and play by painting symbols on their homes while bathing in the source of everything. The place holds a milkier and sweeter atmosphere, it could even be seen as downy, to remind the joy of innocence. But the village remains desperately empty, striking a certain anxiety against a backdrop of loneliness...
3.1 Assets

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As you can see, the platforms accessible by Pankapu are also houses. I nevertheless embellished them with music instruments to note the musical activities of our dear light bubbles, the Mudjins. Music is an universal notion that wonderfully supports their jovial nature.

3.2 Parallaxes:
To finish, the backgrounds are made of parallaxes, which are parallel layers moving at the same rhythm as the camera's movements and creating the illusion of depth in a 2D game.

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In the Mudjin pound, the environment is similar to a mangrove forest scattered with plantations close to sea anemones. There is a common idea in the whole region of Peppu : trees. And this idea can be found, allowing us to make connections between the levels. Hence, I don't step out of the main idea because of the Mudjin huts and the nature's magic remains omnipresent. ♥

The Lush Forest:

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Above, at the edge of the Garden, you will be able to take a glimpse of the Lush forest. Vast Silva, generous and colored, this abundant forest is scattered with vertiginous trees as far as the eyes can see.

That's all for today, we love you all!

Xelnath

Link to a steam download? 😃

TooKindStudio

Hello everybody !
@Xelnath : Unfortunately, we don't have a steam download yet. In the meantime, you can download the free demo here : http://tookindstudio.com/en/news-en/pankapu-goes-alpha/ !

Oh good heavens, look at the time! It's time for an uuuuupdate!

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Let me introduce you a new character from the Land of Dreams: Ohiti.

At the very beginning of your adventure, Iketomi will ask you to find the trace of Ohiti, a small being from Peppu in danger...

Will Pankapu be able to have Ohiti find his Bravery back ?

Color Research

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Sad Ohiti

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FX Research

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Ohiti In Spine

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Final In-Game Version

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BinaryCats

I like the art, and the game. But you really need blending between the animations. The popping really takes away from the animations. Is there a reason you didn't set the default blend to something like 0.2?

jesse.o.lopez

Awesome stuff guys!!!

Send me the rig, I would love to do and Idle animation. For free of course, I am very excited for your game, good luck.
jesse.o.lopez @gmail.com

TooKindStudio

Hey @BinaryCats : Thanks for the feedback. What animation are you talking about specifically ?

@jess.o.lopez : Thanks for the help, but we're good for now 🙂 Thanks anyway !

BinaryCats

All animations....(?)

Say you walk, then stop and go into idle. There is no blending (interpolation (tweening?) between those animations, so it will snap back to the start of the idle animation.

Do you play animations on different tracks?

TooKindStudio

We usually don't play animations on different tracks.

I see what you mean, but we don't want to overanimate the character, because the gameplay wouldn't be so reactive.
We had tried it at first, but the character felt too slow.

Is there any animation that you're thinking about ?

BinaryCats

iirc, attacking, then go back into idle. What we do is have all attacks return to the idle pose, but we have a minimum time the animation should play for, if it is interrupted.
Say we have an attack, which is 30 frames after 20 of those frames the animation can be interrupted with another animation (say attack). If the animation isn't interrupted, it will play the full 30 frames, returning to idle pose

TooKindStudio

I know what you mean, and this would be good indeed.
However, we are on a pretty tight schedule, and we can't really afford to work on that for now. If we have time, we will work on that, but as for now, we have to work on other animations... But we know what you mean, and if we can, we will work on that 🙂

Helloooo everyone, we hope you're all okay! Oh good heavens, look at the time! Time for an u-u-u-u-u-pdate!
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In video games, boss fights are very important. When there is a boss, the player knows that this is the last test, that he/she must give everything to beat him for they can't finish the level if they don't beat the boss. And bosses help the player to realize he/she has passed a milestone, and is now stronger than before, and ready to go through a new level!

Moreover, bosses are the evil beings, that can cause some beautiful rage quits, and this lovely sound can be heard if you listen carefully : "THIS IS THE CONTROLLER'S FAULT!!"

I can't really spoil anything here (my bosses are showing me a "NDA" paper I don't remember signing...), I won't tell you the story of this terrible character, but I can at least tell you that the fight that will conclude the first chapter can be summed up in one word : "Epic". Brace yourselves, for Tyracine, the black-hearted shadow, is coming, mouhahaha!

Animation research
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Smoke research

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Color research:

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Final version in Unity:

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Well, this concludes our little walk in the Land of Dreams... What do you mean "I haven't told you everything ?" "What's with this appearing hand?"... Well, don't you worry, this will be the subject of our next update, which should come up before the end of the month (yes, you've read that right, we never stop working at Too Kind Studio!)

In the meantime, I'll leave you this small video to keep you waiting :

Stay tuned and see you soon in the world of dreams.
We love you all!
All the Too Kind Studio Team.

Hello everyone! Today, we have a little update for you! Pankapu will have many enemies throughout his journey... And here is one of them!

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Do you remember the end of the second Omnia Express ? … What ? You haven’t seen it yet ? Unacceptable! You must fix that, right here, right now!

As I was saying, a few weeks ago, we showed you a small video of Pankapu getting grabbed and thrown by some mysterious monster… Today, that monster has decided to show himself in public!
Let me introduce you… the Slap!!
Slap’s comment : It’s about time! Finally! I’m not supposed to be a meme!

Slap’s origins
I’m pretty sure the first question that comes to your mind is : “But how this nice (he is!) little monster came to be this way?”

As you know, Pankapu’s Bravery Aegis bears a shield. We then had in mind to create an enemy that forced the player to use that shield.
Slap’s comment : Grgrgr, I already hate this shield!

We didn’t want a monster firing projectiles, since those can be dodged by jumping. We hence needed a monster directly hitting the player, and if the player doesn’t use the shield to protect himself, he’ll take some damages. We thus thought to create an imposing monster, with limbs directly attacking the player. And if Pankapu doesn’t use the shield, he’ll automatically take some damages.
What are you talking about ? The player doesn’t need to use the shield! I promise, I’ll be very nice with him!

Concept
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In this early concept, we already had the idea of a static monster being able to easily move its limbs to attack Pankapu.

Mouhahaha, I loved those sharp limbs!

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Here, Slap is covered with purple and black colors, typical of nightmares trying to invade Omnia.
What can I do ? You have to be classy as a bad guy!

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On this picture, you can see an important change compared to the first concepts. Indeed, rather than creating a monster that could simply attack the player with blades, it was more interesting to create a monster that could not just attack the player, but grab and grasp him (not friendly, unfortunately…) and then throw him. This allows the enemy to completely differentiate from the other nightmares. However, if the player uses his shield to protect himself before getting attacked, the Slap will be stunned, which will allow Pankapu to kick his ass! (Pankapu might be little, but he’s strong!)
Strong ? You’ve got to be kidding me ! I’ll destroy him!

Research
Now that Slap’s final concept was found, and that we had in mind the way Slap would attack Pankapu, we now needed to create fitting animations and assets.
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Of course you need animations and assets! I’m not an inanimate statue!

Assets
The tentacle basis was kept, but we improved it thanks to the hand. Quite practical to shake hands, grab salt or… a Pankapu!
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But… How can such a big monster hide ? It doesn’t seem happy at all! You bet I’m not happy!
You know what it’s like to live underground and wait for a hero to come ?!

Animation

Here, Slap is now animated! The idea of an imposing monster attacking Pankapu is present. Slap might be static, it’s nevertheless strong! Pankapu will have to use tricks in order to destroy this monster…

Look at this moves, this agility… Pankapu will never be can’t compete with my class!

Final Version
Now you know a little bit more about “Slap“! An enemy that could be very dangerous! Your shield will be more than necessary when you face him, for you will not only be protected against its attacks, but in addition to that, Slap will be stunned by the shield… This will be the moment to show him what you’re made of!

It’s so unfair! Let me say this one more time to be clear: I HATE THIS SHIELD!

That's all for today! What do you think ? Do you like him ? Tell us!
All the Too Kind Studio Team

Hello everyone! Time for a neeeeeeeeew update!

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What is this mysterious thing flying above the Lush forest ?! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an Ikea furniture of which the instruction manual’s been lost!

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All I can say for now, is that this artifact is full of the mystical power of the Hymn Mio. But what does he do ? Who is he ? What does he want ? Well, if you want to find out my friends, you’ll have to play Pankapu !

Hello everyone!! Remember Mio? We're going to let Ganaé, our beloved composer, present you his work on that mysterious character, and above all, explain you “How a music’s game is done!!”
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1st step – The order
It’s the first step. Jérôme, our very own artistic director, asks me for a music, for a level, a story event, or a character.
2nd step – The theme writing
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The idea will be to create a melody that’ll match, in this case with the character of Mio.
So I create the theme in the most pure possible way with my keyboard so I can be as neutral as possible.
Recording Mio’s theme
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-theme-piano-solo-1?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
For the required theme, I choose a 3-part melody. The first one oscillates between major harmonies (joy) and minor (sadness) ; the second part is much more focused on comfort and hope, and finally the 3rd part takes again the first theme by slightly changing the harmonies to give a different colors.
3rd step – The arrangement and the orchestration
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We are now entering the most complex phase to me. As a matter of fact, once the melody is obtained, I now need to arrange it and orchestrate it according to the needs of the theme.
Let’s talk in technical terms: I work with Logic Pro, a Mac software, with two MIDI software (a Yamaha CLP, to play and and a Komplete Kontrol for the effects and the potentiometers). The MIDI keyboards are control surfaces; they don’t produce any sound but allow you to send information to my sequencer (Logic Pro). This one transforms the information into sound according to plug-in (samples or not) that I open.
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Let’s get back to business. I own a huge quantity of instruments (about 15 000 sounds… I especially use the Komplete series, Albion from Spitfire, and the orchestral suites from East West), which makes an important amount of available samples. In order to choose, I opt for some sound families or certain software in accordance to demand.
In general, I talk with Jérôme through many emails before arriving to the final idea. Here’s how it happened here:
– WIP n°1
I first of all proposed to him an instrumental atmosphere developed in one of my pieces.
https://youtu.be/VWnbBJ8xi9c
He was okay with it regarding the form, but not in substance, “way too depressing”.
– WIP n°2
I got back to work and I sent him this version of the theme :
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-wip1?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
I then mixed acoustic instruments and pads.
I kept the idea of plenitude with round and plain basses. For the crystalline side I used light electronic bells.
– WIP n°3
Jérôme asks me to pull off the basses because that makes the music depressing. Without bass, I think something is missing, but I still send it back.
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-wip2?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
To Jérôme, the ringings right at the start would need to bring a light note, then, coupled with chorus, the result will be perfect! You would need to put some more lightness in the melody, for it’s globally too bulky.
– WIP n° 4
I modify again and enrich it with light percussion. I opt for children chorus singing “Heaven Is The Light” (How beautiful technology is…). I’m starting to hit the bull’s eye.
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-wip-3?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
You may have noticed a dissonance in the children chorus harmonies. That effect was wanted but I’ve decided to change that, upon Jérôme’s advice. I add a line of kettledrums, of Drum Bass and Easter Island Hit to fill up the low frequencies. I add chimes and voices on some passages to bring some divine elements and here comes the pre-mastering version !!!
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-pre-master?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
4th step – The mastering
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It’s about upgrading the standards of the song but also about polishing it to the standards of the rest of the soundtrack. In order to do this, I don’t use external software, for now I prefer to use Logic and create my mastering by using the same methodology. I then apply different effects to the song (equalization, compressors, expanders, stereo, spreader, limitors). This inflates the sound and balances the levels.
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-mastering?in=pankapu/sets/mio-theme
That’s it, you know everything. I propose as a bonus to listen to the same theme but differently orchestrated. This time is a symphonic version (I’m a huge fan of orchestral versions…).
Orchestrated version
https://soundcloud.com/pankapu/mio-orchestral-mastering
The work is different here for every instrument and every musical phrase are reworked to humanize everything… It’s a lot of time and work… But this is another story…
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We hope you liked this Update, don’t hesitate to tell us what you think of it. See you soon in the Land of Dreams!
All the Too Kind Studio Team

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