Pac-man_Chunk_MIX

As the name suggests, Pac-man is the focus here. Pac-man deserves his recognition, I mean he has set the highest bar on video game stardom, and has become insanely novel and iconic.

These reasons though are not why I decided to generate a mix of a Pac-man song. But don’t get me wrong! Pac-man, with my love for video games is certainly on my top five, especially because he pertains primarily to the arcade genres.

If anybody has ever played Playstation, I would hope they came across Pac-man World, which earned the honorary, green banded “Greatest Hits” title. It’s a great game if you haven’t played it, also very challenging. Besides the game play, graphics, and characters that strike me, the music really stands out. From the beginning pirate level tunes, to the mysterious temple music, the tracks are extremely well composed. The third world, which is set in space, always had the best music, but what game doesn’t have good music to go along with the space levels anyways? The first level’s music is sooo good, it has slap bass, spacey synthesizers, and a gracious techno vibe.

Give it a listen, but skip ahead to 0:24, that’s the level and song I sampled.

So I sampled the song, and I usually use my “Tascam Linear PCM recorder,” which basically is a handheld, battery operated dual headed microphone. It’s great for “field recording,” or recording audio in a large space, like a live performance or lecture hall. So I turn on the game I want to sample (this case being Pac-man World) then I’ll set up the microphone level with the speakers, but not too close. I’ll set the input levels and start recording live game play, which to me is more… I suppose… natural, getting the song, sounds FX, and sometimes the sound of the buttons mashing on the controller. I take whatever I can get, not just the song, because to me it’s more of a sample of “my” game play, not somebody else’s, no Youtube “rips”. I then I placed the sampled song out on my computer, sliced it into pieces and bits, organized it along with any other sampled percussion from my sample library that I have collected as well.

Here’s my mix then, Pac-man_Chunk_Mix

I’ll soon be posting it on Soundcloud as well, though in due time. Feel free to download the track from my Bandcamp!