Thunder Force IV ~ Stand Up Against Myself [S.S.H. Mix]

for YM2612 + SN76489

by MetallicOrwell

Creativity is a funny thing, because it can be sparked by the smallest things. A few days ago we were having one of those extremely nerdy and enjoyable conversations about video game music over at the Furnace Discord server, and the venerable ChiptunedRaijin enthusiastically remarked that it's not often the staff roll theme is one of the best in the entire game. And that was it--I decided to do Stand Up Against Myself on the spot. Saitama Saisyu Heiki did this song in December of 2001, so I knew that'd be a perfect base for my arrangement, although a few things would need to be tweaked. Not even the gods themselves are safe from criticism, and their work can certainly be improved upon.

Time for a quick lore lesson about extremely obscure Japanese MIDI VGM arrangers from 25 years ago! S.S.H. based his version on a MIDI file by one "Taz" for the Roland 88Pro, and even provided a link to his website--much appreciated. The Wayback Machine still has it archived, even if the text is garbled and any links to actual music are utterly dead. Well, Taz, your work lived on through S.S.H., and now it lives on through me, however unrecognizable it might have become after so many changes. S.S.H. said in his readme that this arrangement was 70% his personal style he was developing, and 30% hard rock from the 80s and early 90s. I think the hard rock angle is exactly right: Toshiharu Yamanishi was inspired by bands like Dokken and Loudness, after all, and there is one particular version of this song included on the Broken Thunder album that is done in that style exceptionally well.

Of course S.S.H., being the crazy motherfucker that he is, couldn't help himself: he made the riffs more complex, added harp glissandi, extra solos, strings, you name it. He even did away with some of the extremely recognizable and memorable square wave melodies from the original. Tsk, tsk, tsk! I don't think so, buddy--we're putting those back in. To be fair to the guy, he did restrain himself: he gave it three out of five stars in his "rage meter". That makes sense, because the hard rock essence of the song means that you can't go too hard on it without making it sound ridiculous and unrecognizable in the process, even if that might be your instinct. I know the feeling all too well.

His approach to this song was simple: in the first part he kept it fairly (?) close to the original, in the second he repeated the verses but with the main melody replaced by solos, and in the final part he did the chorus again in a higher key. It's exactly the same approach he took when he did Legendary Wings, and it happens to work. Again, due to the restrained nature of Stand Up Against Myself, a 6-minute epic at 216 bpm wouldn't make sense. You just don't feel the need to overcomplicate things (not too much, anyway), and in fact, my take on this song doesn't even have double kick drumming in it. Yeah, I was surprised too.

Hard rock and heavy metal are close cousins, so my formula works perfectly in its standard form. There is a deep, distorted electric bass on FM channel 1 (Chunky!) and two rhythm guitar tracks using my custom patch (version 5) panned to each side on FM 2 and FM 3. FM 4 is for the main melody, FM 5 is for echo, FM 6 is for PCM drums, the square waves provide supporting melodies, and the noise channel does the hi-hats. I feel like I've typed the previous three sentences half a dozen times already. Anyhow: for the intro, I actually ripped the instrument from the original Mega Drive version of the song, and included detuned echoes in stereo for enhanced effect. I think it's supposed to be a harpsichord, although with FM synthesis sometimes you can't tell. For the lead guitar we have my custom Orwell Lead with the usual pitch slides, vibrato and portamento, as well as my "trumpet synth" and a softened version of the Synth Lead 7 instrument included with DefleMask. There are also those wonderful orchestra hits from Sunsoft's Batman, modified by Molkirill and further tweaked by me. I've used them quite liberally, especially at the end, and they sound very realistic at high octaves.

Compositionally, my version follows S.S.H.'s fairly closely, but like I said, some things needed to be tweaked. First and foremost, I restored the square wave melodies--you don't get to trash those under my watch. Just about every melody/solo is played an octave lower, and the arrangement is better for it. There is a little more variety in the lead instruments, and the drum patterns are mostly mine. They're a little more intense, but not by a lot--again, no double kick drumming. There's one specific moment in the second chorus which was inspired by the hard rock arrangement from Broken Thunder I talked about before, and I think it works very well. The drum samples are, of course, from the Arachno Soundfont. Finally, at the end, I replaced the fade-out with a shorter, more impactful finish.

I toyed with the idea of extending this song even more and composing my own solos, but I just didn't feel like it was necessary--it's pretty complete as it is. It's supposed to be a credits theme and it has a feeling of heroic, melancholic finality to it (spoiler alert: the ship gets damaged and it's unclear whether the pilot has survived... and you don't even want to know what happens in Thunder Force V). It's not like Rising Blue Lightning, where adding the fast part at the end made sense thematically and musically. Stand Up Against Myself is *complete*--that's the best way to describe this piece of music. This arrangement is simply light seasoning on a meal that tastes perfectly fine without it. It's just a little bit better than the original.

See you around.

 

Back to the index