Track Variations

[Star Catcher]

So I'm trying to listen for the track variations, and I am curious to know - what instruments are used for the various tracks? I can hear bells in Oleander's themes, and both a tinny sort of instrument with sparse sleighbells in Velvet's theme, as well as the eastern influences in Tianhuo's, but I don't know instruments well enough to know what's what here. Anyone with a better ear care to take a jab?

 

[Pom d'or]

The Chinese instruments you hear in Tianhuo's music sound really great. If this thread catches the composers' attentions, I'd love to know what sample library those come from.

I think the plucked string you hear is a yangqin or maybe guzheng.
The flute sound you hear is a dizi. (I actually play that instrument! Maybe I should learn to play some TFH music on it, hah.) What gives it its characteristic sound compared to other flutes is that it has this vibrating membrane on it, so it's kind of like a cross between a flute and a kazoo.
The bowed string is an erhu. Because of the way erhu players can bend pitch (by squeezing the strings) - and because it doesn't really sound right if you leave out those little bends and scoops and so on - it's a really hard instrument to make digital samples of, but the one in TFH sounds great. At least, I'm assuming it's sampled. Maybe someone knows a player and recorded it live!

 

[WereWeasel42]

I know Arizona’s theme uses organ (sounds like a 4 bar to me, but it’s probably electric), heavy electric guitar, and harmonica. I think there’s some regular acoustic guitar too, and some woodblock and cowbell in the rythmn section for good measure. Most of these instruments are used in christian rock, but the harmonica is heavily used in western movie soundtracks.

Oleander’s theme uses harpsichord, bells, electric guitar, and violins. Classy stuff.

Velvet’s uses sleighbells and a really cute slide-y electronic synth. There’s a flute, an electric guitar, a bass synth, and a piano in there too, I think.

Pom uses acoustic guitar, bells, electric guitar and some sort of wind section. (Maybe also pizzicato strings?)

I dunno for Tina. I don’t know much about Asian instruments. I dig that electric guitar part though.

I haven’t listened to paprika’s on its own much, but it has kind of a chip tune sound to it. I remember maybe a violin too? It’s got kind of a polka sound in parts so an accordion wouldn’t surprise me either.

Anyway that’s my two cents. Hope it helped!

 

[Earlybird]

Yeah, on top of Wereweasel, Pap's tracks have an accordion, along with sharing an organ with Arizona and some kind of sawtooth wave showing up occasionally on melody. If I had to guess from RC88's Rein video, the chiptune sound is probably a game boy sampled square wave.

(Paprika also has a little "ow!" sample that shows up once in every track, I love it)

 

[Pom d'or]

One neat thing about the soundtrack is, I think if you asked 100 composers to do this soundtrack, 99 of them would have put cheesey faux-Peruvian music for Paprika's stage, with the panflutes and all that (think MK Mushroom Gorge).

But the TFH team were just too cool to go that route, and the game is better for it. Paprika's stage music is probably my favorite.

 

[Star Catcher]

One neat thing about the soundtrack is, I think if you asked 100 composers to do this soundtrack, 99 of them would have put cheesey faux-Peruvian music for Paprika's stage, with the panflutes and all that (think MK Mushroom Gorge).

But the TFH team were just too cool to go that route, and the game is better for it. Paprika's stage music is probably my favorite.

Indeed. I kinda want to say that the Alpake Highlands music is more representative of Paprika's frenetic nature than it is of the Alpake tribe. Also, it was, to my knowledge, the first track shown off, when Mane 6 released the Dynamic Music showcase.