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Jungle Swing

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Author Comments

This is a track I made for the HUGE Harmony of Heroes project, a fan-arrangement album filled with 101 arrangements of Smash Bros tracks! Check it out here.
http://www.harmonyofheroes.net/

For a total change in direction, have some jazz/swing! This is an arrangement of the Donkey Kong Congo Jungle theme, with cameos of the Tiki Tak Tribe theme from Donkey Kong Country Returns, Stickerbrush Symphony and the Overworld theme from the franchise too. This would not have been made possible without the REAL INSTRUMENTS and amazing jazz improvs by these extremely talented people:

Live Instrument Coordinator - Samuel Hébert
Trumpet - Félix Rheault
Flute and Tenor/Alto Saxophone - Alexandre Beaudry Corbeil
Trombone - Jérôme Boisvert
Acoustic Guitar - Félix Blackburn and Jonathan Gjertsen

Apart from those instruments, I used East/West Stormdrum 2 VERY heavily in this track, along with Symphonic Orchestra Silver, Ra, Omnisphere, Sorohampler and royalty free animal sound effects.

This is a total departure from my usual style but since I love the original track I just had to arrange it. Thanks to camoshark in particular for giving me a lot of help with the track, and of course coordinating all those talented musicians. I hope you like this departure from my usual style!

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very funky, wish it included more of the tunes tho! 9/10 would jam again

This is so epic! Perfect jungle theme, gonna use this for my GD level. :3

Wow! Love the DK song and melody! after playing most of the DK games, this brings back good memories! 5 Stars

Step responds:

Thanks! That's awesome to hear. I am also a big fan of DK music.

Hmm...I love the tribal theme. I can see why both "donkey" and "kong" are tagged. ;) The monkey FX helps establish the mood. This is an excellent arrangement, friends. Obviously, the original is a classic, but the amount of creativity and originality you bring to the table is superb. I especially love the guitar solo around 2:15. The heavy use of drums really adds a lot to the theme of the piece, and the structural relief provided by 3:10 helps create some much-needed contrast. I like this style of music...somehow it fits Donkey Kong. :) I definitely think it was appropriate to bring back the main theme as you did at 4:35. That said, I didn't think the bit at 5:00 was quite necessary. It's a little misleading to have a soft ending after an apparently grand conclusion at 4:59. I know a lot of your pieces have quiet endings, Step, but it doesn't quite seem appropriate here to me...Anyway, marvelous work overall! I greatly admire people who can play real instruments this well! :D Nice job, everyone!

Step responds:

There are two things I strive for when making an arrangement. I want it to be enjoyable (surprise surprise), and I want it to provide an experience that's WORTH listening to, even with the original in place. I mean, what's the point of an arrangement if it sounds similar to the original? So I always try and add new things that weren't in the original, and basically create a listening experience that differs from the source material. Therefore, it's great to hear that you think it's creative :3.

You know, regarding that fluff at the very end... I initially didn't have anything there. I added it afterwards to add more references to the Stickerbrush Symphony theme, and because I intended it to transition into Rush of the Rainforest by Buoy (in the official track order of the album). With an ending like that it would transition beautifully into that track. It ended up not being before Rush of the Rainforest in the final album order though, and by then it was too late to remove it haha.

But yeah, I agree it isn't entirely fitting. Thanks for the review!

I've never been on this website before until today. I saw a lengthy post from you about orchestral composition on a questions website, one where you wrote a great post on the subject, and then proceeded to promote several people's music. At the very end of the list, you had a link to your own music. I've been giving it a listen, and gotta say you make some truly impressive stuff.

I joined just to comment on that, your music blows my mind. That it's done on a computer is really something. I've definitely played around with some orchestral libraries before, but you have them at your whim. This song is one that really caught my attention.

Good work.

Step responds:

Wow, I am genuinely honoured that you'd go out of your way to make an account just to stop by and leave a review on my track. I know which post you're talking about - that was years ago! Reading through it again with more experience to back me up, I probably would've worded it a little differently, but yeah, the point is you can achieve some astounding results with orchestral plugins.

For me, the absolute master of using real instrument plugins/samples would be a guy on here called SoundChris. If you're interested in hearing what computerised samples can really do, I'd definitely recommend his stuff:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/560768

Anyway, I digress. Thanks a million for this review. I just woke up recently and this was a great way to start my day haha. I'm glad you enjoy my music :).

Credits & Info

Artist
Artist

Listens
10,991
Faves:
54
Downloads
478
Votes
40
Score
4.84 / 5.00

Uploaded
Oct 4, 2014
9:33 PM EDT
Genre
Jazz
File Info
Song
13.7 MB
5 min 14 sec

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.

* Cover / remake of a third-party piece.
Excercise caution when using it, refer to author comments / contact the author for details.