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Saturday, September 14, 2013

Song of the Week! 14 September 2013


With a new Taiko console game in the air, there's surely a lot more to talk about on this blog for the next few weeks... and that's why we are covering a new song that will join the starting songlist of the upcoming Taiko Wii U!

 Boku wa Synth (ボクハシンセ)
Version
Allx3 (144)x3 (195)x4 (316)x8 (612)
 Taiko 0.5, Taiko Wii U, Taiko 3DS 2, Taiko Switch, CD CC-6
 110
 none
 iamsyn


Codename Katsu-Don's swansong for the Namco Original genre, Boku wa Synth closed the first circle of Don Challenge unlockable songs. The song will be seen again this November on console as well!

Featuring buzzing sound effects and synthetic voices, Boku wa Synth's creators are two well-known composers in Taiko who haven't created another song together since the very first arcade release: Yano Yoshito (矢野義人) and Denji Sano (佐野電磁). We already know the former as a long-time contributor to the Taiko franchise (including some Muscle March songs and the very recent Ramen de Yo-Men!!), but we never divulged as much about Denji Sano (though his creations inspired the name for our blog), so let's recover the lost time with his latest original song.

Born Nobuyoshi Sano (佐野信義), this composer started working at Namco, making music for the first Tekken and Ridge Racer games as 'sanodg'. In 2001, he left Namco and joined a company named Detune, which he became president of a few years later (and still is). Even in his new position, Sano still composes music for Namco every now and then, which led to the creation of Taiko Time (the song) and Boku wa Synth. Between 2008 and 2009, Sano also composed music for Bemani's Beatmania IIDX series, resulting in a trio of console-exclusive creations: Playball, Sidechained Threats and From Time To Time. He even composed a song for Sega's arcade rhythm game maimai; a game music remix called Space Harrier Main Theme (Reborn).

Sano's company (Detune) is focused on the creation of music-composing software for different kinds of portable media, from iPhone/iPad to Nintendo's portable consoles such as the KORG synthesizer software for DS and 3DS. I'm bringing up this fact because today's song was made thanks to one of Detune's programs! Yoshito and Sano used the iPhone/iPad application I am Synth to create the music, and pre-recorded samples of Sano's voice contributed to vocals. This fact is reflected in the song's title, as Boku wa Synth is the direct Japanese translation of I am Synth!

The 8* Oni notechart for this song relies on confusing and slow-scrolling skip rhythm, like the chart for SORA-V Cosmic Bird. Together with the slow BPM is a complex rhythm with changing beat signatures, making this a challenge of mastering the beat of the song rather than simply looking at the note patterns.