Album Spotlight: nanoBots by God of Rainbows

nanoBots – a one synth album using the RYM2612

nanoBots by God of Rainbows is a result of his participation in the One synth EP Challenge, a challenge initiated by ReasonTalk member, TritoneAddiction. The synth used for this album was Mathieu Demange’s RYM2612 Iconic FM Synthesizer. It is an emulation of the Yamaha YM2612 FM soundchip, best known for being the vibrant voice of the Sega Genesis/Megadrive videogame console. We did an interview with the creators of the RYM2612 and RYMCast back in January and you can read it here.

Jump to the end to listen to the album, but don’t miss the goodies along the way! 😉

Being a huge fan of the RYM2612 and Sega Genesis music, this album immediately grabbed my attention. And when I gave it a listen, I was very impressed. God of Rainbows makes it very easy for us to imagine nanoBots as being an actual Sega Genesis game. And I think that is not only a testament to the accuracy of the RYM2612, but also to God of Rainbows’ composition skills. Everything from the catchy melodies, the soaring leads and duos, the energetic arpeggios, and that good ol’ FM grit helps to make it sound like a classic. When listening to the song, nanoBattle, someone who is a gamer may be struck by that anxious feeling; imagining themselves reaching a boss at the end of a level.

While this album makes heavy use of the RYM2612 (many songs having 100% of their sounds generated by the RYM2612), God of Rainbows also showcases his skills playing other instruments throughout, such as electric guitar, cello, and flute. And it’s performed extremely well, used sparingly with purpose, and very complimentary to the overall sound.

All sounds, including most percussion, are generated by the RYM2612, except where I briefly play some live instruments, and my voice saying “nanoBots rise” in nanoBots: EVOLUTION. I wanted to blend in some live performance too, so on nanoBattle I play electric guitar. In nanoCat Dungeon I very briefly attempt to play flute. In nanoFairy Fountain, I play some nylon string guitar towards the end. In Death Of A nano: RETALIATION, I attempt also to play cello in the intro. In nanoBrutes I play more electric guitar.  – God of Rainbows

Most of the patches used on the album were built around RYM2612 factory presets as well as patches imported from RYMCast. Some examples are sounds originating from Alien 3 (for some of the keyboard sounds), Moonwalker (for rock guitar sounds), Jungle Strike, Ecco Jr., Sonic The Hedgehog, and Gauntlet IV for hats, kicks and snares (both sampled percussion and synth percussion). nanoBrutes is where he used most of the sampled kicks and drums, and layered them for a big sound. The links above will take you to each game’s page at http://www.project2612.org/ where you too can download the .vgz files to play in RYMCast and import into the RYM2612.

God of Rainbows wasn’t only inspired by Sega Genesis music when writing this album. Aside from Sega games like Phantasy Star III and The Immortal, he also pulled inspiration from Nintendo games such as Zelda (particularly Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker) and Final Fantasy III and IV. Although, given the familiar sound and qualities of the RYM2612’s FM synthesis, the album still screams Genesis.

“Ooh Yeah!” Having the synth speak for itself

In the song, nanoRacers (Ooh Yeah), God of Rainbows gets creative by using RYM2612’s CSM mode to synthesize vocals which say, “Ooh yeah!” Another great example of this effect can be found in the song, One Giant nanoStep. He may have made the discovery by accident, but the rest of the fine tuning and automation is a great sound design accomplishment.

The “ooh yeah” in nanoRacers is the RYM2612 saying it! Not me! It was an accident that it started sounding like voice synthesis, so I tweaked as best I could to make it sound realistic.  – God of Rainbows

There are various “ooh yeahs” throughout. A great example is around the 26 second mark. God of Rainbows has been very kind to share with us patches and a Reason song file showcasing this effect with use of automation!


Download the files!

Included:
•  2 Combinator patches
•  1 Reason song file

Listen to the album!

From start to finish, I found this to be a very creative and enjoyable album. Nostalgic and new! You can tell a great amount of time and effort went into it and the result is fantastic. Give it a listen! Be sure to read the full description and the individual song descriptions via the SoundCloud album page. The album is also available for purchase on Bandcamp. If you have any opinions of the album, the best place to express those would be the One synth EP Challenge thread in the ReasonTalk forum! Enjoy, comment, and share!

A very little bit about God of Rainbows

There is much left to the imagination about God of Rainbows and his origin story.
What we do know about him is this:  “I exist as pure photonic energy, and I am in the business of creating rainbows and shattering realities.”  – God of Rainbows