#soundfont help

[unorthodox-soundwave]

Just to ask bc there must be something I don't know; Does anyone...

Have access to a pikmin 1/2 .sf2/.sf3 file that they could give me?

Know where to find such .sf2/.sf3 file and can link me/point me in the right direction?

Know how to get a .zip to turn into a .sf2/.sf3 through some magic process?

People are out here using a pikmin soundfont that must be a ghost or something because it's nowhere on the internet.

[rocketbirdie]

i shit you not, demon gate's theme has a measure of 9.5/4 immediately followed by 17/8

[star-rot]

fl studio is a bitch send post

ALL I WANT IS T LINK MY FUNNY LITTLE CHORUS EFFECT TO MY SOUNDFONT SO IT DOESNT FUCK UP TH ENTIRE SONG JUST TH SOUNDFONT. I HAVE FOUND NOTHING THAT LETS ME DO THAT

[steampunkemo]

As a lesbian

I don't care what gender you are, how tall you are, how rich you are, or any other what you are*s there are to care about

MARRY ME YOU PUNNY POSTERIOR POSTER

HOW AREN'T THERE MORE TUMBLR POSTS ABOUT THE GIANT AIRSHIP THE AIRLANDER 10 WHY DID I ONLY JUST FIND OUT ABOUT IT

IT LOOKS WORSE AT EVERY ANGLE

NO

[brucewaynehater101]

i'm gonna be real idk if your the right person to go for young justice core four headcanons but you give the best replies by far so heres my own idea idea

I was listening to the Roblox Soundfont remix and now the og Gone Angels and now I'm thinking . . .

Tim became Robin to prevent Batman from ceasing to be the symbol of heroism and good he started off as

The symbol that spiraled into destruction of even the self with Jason Todd's death

imagine a world where Red Robin becomes the very thing he swore to destroy with his own death

he dies along with Bart and Kon. Cassie due to this and maybe other factors fucking looses it, Batman post-Jason's death but pre-Tim becoming Robin style

or maybe instead he dies but the rest of the core four lives. either way Cassie still looses it, by herself or with her other teammates

And maybe, just maybe, they get nobody to be the Third Robin to their Batman, no Third Robin to Tim's Second Robin

likely improbably in canon but the idea of Cassie and maybe even Bart and Kon having a villain arc (maybe Black Silence style) is too good of an idea not to share

(Side note; imagine a Gone Angels cover where the survivor(s) sing and for the itallian lyrics in the midway point the deceased sing)

((extra side note: imagine this is what gets Batman and maybe the other Bats to reflect on the time before and after Tim become robin, post Jason's death; seeing their history repeat with Young Justice))

((hell maybe the Justice League realizes as wells))

"you give the best replies by far." Thank you. Sometimes, it takes a bit to reply to asks cause I'm taking a few hours to really answer the prompts/ideas/questions people pose. I also sleep at random times, so apologizes in advance to any asks that take a while!

My image of YJ is a codependent platonic polycule. They are Young Just Us because they didn't receive proper support from their mentors. This is part of why Cassie and Tim fell apart after Kon and Bart died. This is why, in their own weird ways, both of them tried to get a form of Kon back. Tim tried the scientist cloning avenue, and Cassie tried the cult.

If you want Tim's death to inspire Cassie and YJ to go evil, might I suggest Tim sending proof of Bruce being alive in the timestream and then succumbing to his spleen injury (perhaps an infection)? This would create a delicious amount of angst, anger, and mental breakdowns.

Cassie, the only nonretired YJ member alive at the time, didn't believe Tim about Bruce being alive. This was in part due to the cloning stuff but also in part to trusting Nightwing (or Batman at the time). If Tim didn't make it out of that alive, Cassie may be desperate to find anyone to blame but herself for that. She was a kid, she was lost in her own grief, and Tim should have had the support of literally any other hero.

The entire hero community turned against a teenager in his time of need that he resorted to conspiring with the LoA and ended up losing his life. Whether she chooses to be mad about nobody believing him (Tim's possibly a better detective than Bruce and people have revived before, but his evidence at the time was flimsy), she can be very pissed that not a single hero offered to help him. They didn't even need to trust in Tim's decision. They could have just accompanied Tim until the teen gave up or proved himself right. They could have treated it as a grief road trip while Tim found himself.

Anyways, losing the last nonretired YJ member that way may cause her to just snap. The JL was already on thin ice with the YJ for their lack of support to her generation of heroes. Them failing YJ enough that two children died in the field and one died as a direct result of their actions? She would, rightfully, loathe the JL. On top of that, she does already not trust the government for what they did to Secret. If she can't prosecute the JL, she'll become their enemy.

Cassie lost all of her main polycule. She wants revenge.

After Bart and Kon come back, they see how JL left Cassie and what they did to Tim. Cassie is part of their ride or die, and she has been treated so horribly. Tim has died. They obviously join her.

Now, with Bart there to give evil ideas (Bart is the scariest member of YJ and you can't convince me otherwise), YJ is a force to be reckoned with. Maybe some of the other members come out of retirement, maybe not. They would be unstoppable with Tim helping them, but that's the problem. They don't have Tim. Tim isn't there to help them nor hold them back. That's why they became "evil" anyway.

I like to imagine someone, probably Nightwing, screaming at them from across the battlefield. "This isn't what he would have wanted! He became Robin to stop Batman from destroying everything. This is the antithesis of why he became a hero!"

For a split second, YJ would pause. There's merit in those words, after all. Cassie would recover first as she shakes her head. "He became a hero to be the leash to Batman's rage. He's not here now. He's not here to temper our rage, and you did that. You abandoned a child." She plants her feet more firmly and points her sword at Nightwing. "We won't let you do that again."

It's dealers choice on whether YJ win the battle or not. Also, I do believe YJ would be obsessed with trying to bring Tim back. Perhaps some of their evil deeds truly stem from them trying to find ways to bring back Tim. They are incomplete without him just as they were incomplete without Kon or Bart and would be without Cassie.

Now, is Tim actually alive or does he stay dead? Did Ra's revive him using the Pit? Did Ra's lie or misguide the Bats while keeping Tim hostage? Will Tim come back, either after being brainwashed by Ra's or escaping, to find his platonic polycule has officially lost it and turned evil?

[vyl3tpwny]

do you have a preferred method to get vsts and other such instruments for a DAW?? im poor as heck and dont know ANYTHING about piracy, im so scared of getting goobered by people on the internet

i wish i knew more about the best go-to sites for pirating rn unfortunately i have no clue. ppl on the internet can have such shit intentions too so i dont even know where to look or who to ask. but also here's some free + VERY cheap things u may consider (below the break):

vital synth (i will always shill for vital bc i use it constantly and its free lol)

ob-xd synth (it says buy for $49, but the free download is on the left. the buy link is just a donate)

klanghelm plugins (all these are made by one dude. mjuc is a great vintage style compressor, the dc8c is a pretty featured compressor for the price, sdrr has a particularly nice tube saturation/distortion, and vumt is a great metering plugin, i have vumt on every single project since 2019)

analog obsession (if you donate $5 to their patreon you can get every single plugin they make. also all made and maintained by one person. lots of different things, so i recommend just downloading everything and exploring the functions of the plugins)

tokyo dawn labs (all very high quality mixing stuff. they have free versions of most of their premium stuff and they're quite featured despite being free. ez.)

kilohearts (they recently made all their main effects free. and if you want their flagship stuff, its all rent-to-own as well.)

sforzando (soundfont player. if you dont know what soundfonts are, theyre essentially really condensed, lightweight sampled instruments. they can often sound rlly cheap or tacky [which might be good, i definitely love that sound] but just install this and google [instrument] soundfont and just find lots of free instruments that way)

togu audio line (some free effects and instruments if you scroll down. but i also recommend TAL Sampler if you want a cool sampler and can afford it)

meldaproduction (has a free plugin suite. theres an annoying watermark at the bottom for free versions, but everyone understands. shit is expensive)

native instruments (they have the komplete start bundle which is just a bunch of free decent stuff)

musicradar FREE SAMPLES (ive sworn by a few of the sample resources that i've gotten from musicradar as far back as 2011 lol)

looperman FREE SAMPLES (looperman is a user-sourced sample website where ppl upload samples they've made* and you can just download and use them for free. sometimes people request specific credit, so check for that if you can. *NOTE: its very possible for people to upload unlicensed samples or stuff they didn't make so use your best judgement when sorting through stuff)

freesound FREE SAMPLES (freesound rules always reliable)

synth1 (AHHHH IM SO HAPPY I CAN RECOMMEND THIS RIGHT NOW!!!! synth1 used to be abandonware but was finally picked up again and is supported by modern systems once more. i used this religiously from 2013-2017. and i'm going to start using it again honestly)

valhalladsp (this is the only exclusively premium thing i'm going to leave in this thread [aside from bitwig, below], but it's just that god damn good. every plugin of theirs is $50, so if you can manage to go for ValhallaVintageVerb and/or ValhallaDelay you will basically never need another reverb/delay ever again; would recommend NOT pirating from them if you can help it bc theyre definitely a very small company but u know.. ur call)

bitwig (if you need a DAW, i can now heartily recommend Bitwig. it's on the rent to own program through splice if you're ok getting it legally...)

—

i know this isnt what u asked but i hope its still helpful. i've also rescinded my recommendations for spitfire audio bc the company was revealed to be run by a bunch of queerphobic knuckleheads. everything in this list i have personally used for my own music and can vouch for them from actual experience (YES even bitwig, i made the song "Futura" on Carousel exclusively with Bitwig, making it the first time i've made an entire song outside of Ableton since 2014).

again i hope this helps, forgive me for not knowing enough about pirating at the moment 😭 please make so much music and please look at this animal:

[who-the-fuck-is-sennalye]

Have you ever heard my Wilson Sings covers and thought "yeah this is cool and all, but what if every character was singing?"

I doubt it but for sake of argument let's say you haveToday's your lucky day! I've turned every playable Don't Starve character (including DLC characters and Wonkey but not including Werewilba) into a soundfont, and now I can make them sing whatever I want. And for my first trick, I've made everyone sing Bad Apple, just as God intended.

also if anyone with perfect pitch can help me tune some of these (cause I know some of them aren't) do get in touch

[themadzarka]

I think the only thing stopping me from dropping the first episode of DR-SIM is music. Sure, I'm gonna use already existing music, and I have minimum knowledge of music-making at my disposal... But FL Studio is supposed to be simple, and I can't wrap my head around it. I know exactly how I want the music to be like, what soundfonts, what motifs to use...

If someone wants to help make soundtracks for a mary-sue recap version of Deltarune, I am right here. It's also good if you like Kikuo. For some reason.

Aa I don't expect anything from this post. Just wanted to say I'll be making video tests soon. Someone told me that making bite-sized episodes is better than making people wait any more time.

For the comic version of the AU. Didn't forget about it.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 03/05/2024

frisk hosts a SICK ASS RAVE in teh core

Season 4 Episode 2 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume for Wii U

Rip credited to nekolvr420

Requested by cathode-glacier! @cathode-glacier (Ask Box)

Yeah, look, it's been another long day for me, the same as yesterday with The Great Weed. And though there I found lots to write about anyway despite my weariness, I'll try to keep this post short and sweet. I mean, really - everything you need to know about frisk hosts a SICK ASS RAVE in teh core is evident as soon as you click on the video. Althesame, it's an incredibly funny gutpunch, the kind of surprise I don't think anyone was expecting to see so deep into the channel's life - even when you think you've got the SiIvaGunner team all figured out, they find new ways to fuck with you.

That's sort of a similar sentiment that I expressed back with Sex - Steve Harvey, come to think about it? Here, of course, we don't have as much of a gutpunch of the incomprehensible - moreso a completely unpredictable hook not even part of any larger event. In the midst of all other rips uploaded that day, frisk hosts a SICK ASS RAVE in teh core presents itself as a Nightcore remix of the CORE theme from Undertale, or in other words - speeding up the music. The joke goes the extra mile similar to what we'd just seen this past April Fools with super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont by also changing the video's metadata - the thumbnail having a random anime girl, the "plz support teh original artists =ω=" - parts of SiIvaGunner's typical metadata template remains, but its clearly riffing on the very specific (and once very prominent!!) subculture of nightcore remix channels.

It's kind of funny how frisk hosts a SICK ASS RAVE in teh core sort of foreshadowed the entire bit of the aforementioned April Fools 2024 event, actually. As you've likely already noticed, the nightcore is only half the joke - its not a sped-up version of the unaltered CORE theme, but rather of a mashup/arrangement of the track set to Skrillex's Bangarang - an absolutely natural fit both for the Nightcore jokes and to CORE in general. Thus, it's a double-joke - the nightcore part immediately registers due to the increase in tempo, and then only a second later do you realize that it's not even the original CORE theme being used. The embedded MP3 link on this post is of the "daycore remix" - in other words, the version before the speed-up was applied to it - and I'd say the rip could stand perfectly strong on its own. Granted, I do think wub-wubby Skrillex music is typically very funny in rips, a sleeper favorite of Season 7 for me is still UUN4's skrillex tribute 2023, so maybe I'm biased - but althesame, I just love the idea that someone making this rip, or someone who saw it being made, thought of this absolutely absurd way to make the rip yet more memorable, and just decided to go for it.

It seems to have worked - completely unbeknownst to me, frisk hosts a SICK ASS RAVE in teh core inspired a half dozen rips made in the same "nightcore" vein throughout Seasons 5 and 6. So it's not exact hit the status of a "running joke", but its clearly had an influence on the channel in some small way - and I just love that, yknow? I love that complete left-field curveballs like this always seem to stick in people's minds. Like, even though they're not the most popular in terms of views, you WILL remember them just for their novelty.

In other words, here an already great rip is made all the more memorable through having an above-and-beyond bit applied to it. Why? For seemingly no significant reason other than to have fun. I can't help but respect that.

[chartcarr]

Hi, I LOVE your song called HEAVEN SAYS, so I was wondering what it was like making this song

Hello,

I wrote the original HEAVEN SAYS around a year ago as a Deltarune fan song because I had just played Chapter 2 and was thinking about other darkworlds and where they could take place in the town and I thought one in Toriel's classroom would be fun.

A little bit after that original version I made the remake that most people know because I wanted to try to make something simple to try out some new samples I found.

As for making the song itself, I always wanted to use samples from a Speak and Spell in a song because I thought it had a really interesting sound and so I'm glad to have finally done it. I mainly just used FL Studio and a bunch of free soundfonts you can get online. Looking back at it now I think the song is a little simple and the melody really is almost non-existent, I'm not really sure if I even like this song anymore lol. But it has a vibe to it I guess and people seem to like it.

The lyrics really don't mean anything and I picked them almost at random with the limited words the speak and spell had. I also would have removed the direct Deltarune/Undertale reference in the lyrics had I known how popular it would be with people outside of that community.

The response to the song has really been overwhelming, which I mean it's not like a super popular song or anything but for me it has been a lot. I didn't want to write music because of the amount of attention it was getting it kinda spooked me. But I think it's good that people have been enjoying it (I mean mainly enjoying Gameplayah's cover lol). I've enjoyed seeing all the edits and covers people have made. I've also made some good friends through it like my friend Yuki who helped make some character designs for the song although we never really ended up finishing them... I still want to use something similar to these characters in a game I want to make but I don't know if I'll be able to finish it.

[Early concept art for characters to be the secret boss attached to HEAVEN SAYS by Yuki]

...But that's all I've got to say I guess. Thanks for your question!

[cyonofgaia]

[NEW SONG] [VKirby Crossover] TRISAGION ~ Seraph omnis iudicii

WARNING for Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe Spoilers - especially Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler

Audio Only Ver | Download (SoundCloud)

This is a music video and the first part of the VKirby crossover project featuring characters from VShojo (mainly Ironmouse) and the Kirby series by HAL Laboratory. Please note that this crossover is non-canon and may not correctly reflect any canon details shown in VShojo lore videos and any lore material in the Kirby series (eg. pause screen special pages, Kumazaki interviews, etc.)

This scenario is what happens if Magolor is somehow diverted in his escape when an entrance to a fallen Heaven has opened up in the deeper depths of Another Dimension. Joined up by a dimension-traveling Bubi who seeks to find a helpful magician who might aid him in freeing Satanael, Magolor ventures into Heaven and follows his orders.

In this adventure, Magolor & Bubi will encounter the Seraph of Aeons - ELYSIUM, who despite being sealed away for thousands of years, has been summoned to judge Magolor for his misdeeds. (Seems pretty fishy, though.) The music video details ELYSIUM's theme song, "TRISAGION ~ Seraph omnis iudicii".

Credits can be found below. Leitmotifs can be found in the video description - can you recognize them all?

Artwork from the music video will be posted to my Tumblr soon, and to most Kirby servers if I see fit.

VIDEO CREDITS

Inspired by Ironmouse Lore - Heavenfall & The Origin of Bubi, uploaded on Ironmouse's YouTube channel

Also inspired by Morpho Medley music videos by Light MetaS, as well as Kirby Star Allies & Super Kirby Clash (additional inspiration from Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler)

Characters by Ironmouse, EleCyon, and HAL Laboratory/Nintendo

Artwork made in Inkscape by EleCyon, featuring fonts from Kirby & the Forgotten Land & Kirby Star Allies

Featuring footage by: sparkswordkirby (Super Kirby Clash), Samwell/umbra/kirbypwnedyou (Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, some footage was made for WiKirby)

Featuring music by: Hirokazu Ando (Onward to a Pain My Heart Knows Well, Limitless Power), Yuki Shimooka (Settling A Score ~ Atone for One's Misdeeds!)

FEATURED SAMPLES

Soundfonts:

Kirby Super Star

Kirby's Dream Land 3

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Earthbound

Kirby: Squeak Squad

Lil Alien's Lil'Sness

Lil Alien's KEYGEN

Sampled from:

Bright Spinning Planet (Kirby: Planet Robobot. Composed by Hirokazu Ando)

When I Die (S3RL ft. Razor Sharp & Krystal)

Elysium (Scott Brown & Special D, Original Mix & S3RL Remix)

Famitracker (Arpeggios, Nintendo MMC5 Chip used)

Miracle Matter (Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, deconstruction by Perfectdisharmony. Composed by Jun Ishikawa

[unorthodox-soundwave]

WHY would you make a SOUNDFONT FILE that isn't formatted LIKE A SOUNDFONT?????

WHAT POINT DOES THAT SERVE?!?!

[sukimas]

Okay, I'm nosediving into hifuu everything atm, and I gotta say, the song SLAPS. It's got this weird little mix of eerie and adventurous, and also that soundfont midi tinge that makes me kinda nostalgic, funnily enough. And because I can't help but make connections, it reminded me of the Nox Arcana band and Blood's OST in a very good way... I'll def continue nosediving, this slaps.

Good! Hifuu is best when accompanied by the CDs' actual music- it's very good at setting the tone. And it has some fun remixes of mainline Touhou music too.

[houndfaker]

Are mercury byte and pluto part of a story or are they more like standalone OCs? They're all super cool I'd love to hear more about their personalities if you've anything you'd like to share :]

iiiii. wrote so much in response to this forgive me.

they ARE part of a story that ive been on and off working on for a little while (development extremely slow and very 'this only makes progress when im REAAAALLY feeling it') to keep things loose given so much of it is still liable to change in development, its about robots fighting and exploring a world with autonomous machines living alongside organic life?

slipping most of this under a cut since im gonna be wordy

mercury is the protagonist, they were created by dr. lumen, a retired hero having sought to make something of a child that doubled as an aid/bodyguard for themselves in their old age. mercury quickly became much more than that as they became familiar with lumen's past as a hero and sought to take lumen's place as a local hero. mercury is relatively young and as a result is a little bit foolish and overconfident. they are extremely well-meaning and love to help people, but theyre also wrapped up in this desire to be adored as a hero and theyre going to have to contend with what parts of being a hero actually appeal to them, what they are capable of realistically and what compromises they'll have to make, and how to mature as a person. they're curious, excitable, and eager.

you didnt exactly Ask for these but i'll throw in funfacts for each character that i like to share

mercury curates a small collection of retro gaming tech; their favorite thing to collect is gameboys!

mercury also curates a physical library of their favorite music and they love dancing. They also often create tunes in their spare time. All of them use some sort of old game soundfont.

mercury has a small camera behind their head's lense! They use this for their photography hobby, and can open up/connect to a small port in the back of their head that lets them download the images/recordings onto a computer.

mercury does not verbally communicate (robots using verbal communication is common in this world) but is able to emit a variety of beeping sounds. (i actually have examples of what this sounds like as i had to create them for a bomb rush cyberfunk mod that puts mercury in the game!)

byte is mercury's adoptive sibling. he kinda has a 'born all alone in a wet cardboard box' thing going on; he's a half-baked computer program (programs are semi-corporeal, able to move between machinery and the real world) that was set for deletion but forgotten about so quickly that he winded up worming his way out of the computer he was made on! hes one of the very first individuals mercury saved after deciding they wanted to be a hero, getting rid of some feral virus entities that were intending to eat byte. merc had lumen smooth out byte's gnarly code and he wound up pretty much adopted afterward. he looks up to mercury but is also their little brother and is thus a little bastard about it. hes also loud, emotionally unstable, scares easy, and loyal to a fault.

surprisingly a huge fan of origami and does it to calm down from stressful situations. mercury keeps emergency folding papers for him in a compartment on their body.

he loves cartoons and animation and will ramble without a second thought if you watch something with him

pluto i have admittedly ironed out the most despite it being the most recent design of the trio, which means i have The Most context to give regarding it. it is the eventual deuteragonist, an old robot that was once a member of the story's main antagonistic faction, DEADSUN, a robot assassin group. pluto was initially built as the perfect champion of an unsanctioned robot fighting ring, but after being cheated out of its purpose, attacked and killed numerous participants, both organic and not, in a blind rage when no one would believe it. after this, it was scouted by a member of DEADSUN that had been observing it. not long into its time as a member of the group, though, it was deemed too reckless and untrainable, and it was forcibly deactivated and left in a basement of the group's headquarters at the time to be eventually used for scrap parts.

pluto was forgotten when DEADSUN transferred to different headquarters. the original base's site became a junkyard. after a planned story beat where mercury unleashes a burst of energy in that specific junkyard after losing the trail of an antagonist, the energy surges into the depths of the site and jumpstarts pluto back to life. it claws its way out of the abandoned facility and instantly tries to pick a fight with mercury because it wrongfully identifies them as a member of DEADSUN.

pluto is my favorite so far as you might be able to gather from the above. it is a machine with anger quite literally written into its soul. DEADSUN was intending to “tame” pluto in a sense. this backfires because pluto never regretted its previous actions. it never rejected its anger. it embraced it, owned what it was; a dangerous and powerful machine with no master. it still doesn’t regret what it is. it feels its reasons were justified. it expects people to be deterred from it when learning what it did and who it is, and therefore kept as few friends as possible. its blunt, rude, and doesn't take any shit. but at the same time, if it trusts you, its very personable and playful.

it likes skateboarding but due to its low capacity of patience it has snapped numerous boards and is always seen with a different one.

its feet are bendy; its able to jump really high and deliver kinda devastating kicks. its body is built to be pretty agile despite the bulk of its arms. it likes parkour and urban exploration.

its wholeheartedly accepted and even cared for by mercury and byte and lumen. without the strings attached for once. it hates mushy shit, but its grateful for them and shows that by being deeply protective.

and to cap this off i'll leave some misc doodles involving the trio. since ive poured my heart out regarding these three i might as well give a peek into their dynamic directly on the post yknow

[thesinglesjukebox]

'WEIRD AL' YANKOVIC - "POLKAMANIA!"

"Weird Al"'s first Jukebox appearance... today, we have finally truly become the Singles Jokebox.

[4.38]

TA Inskeep: Oh look, vaguely recent pop hits set to polkas. <Miranda Priestly voice> Groundbreaking. </Miranda Priestly voice> [2]

Kat Stevens: There are a certain subset of songs which I've only ever encountered in "Weird Al" polka medley form: I have no idea what the original "Cradle of Love" sounds like, nor have I any real interest in finding out. So it spoils the fun a little when it turns out I know all the tunes already. [4]

Julian Axelrod: "Weird Al" Yankovic was one of my first favorite artists, which means I was exposed to some of the biggest pop hits in history via parodies and polka medleys. So while "Polkamania!" might disgust and confound the average listener, I find it charming that he's still committing to this incredibly specific bit forty years into his career. It's been a decade since "NOW That's What I Call Polka!", which means Al has a wide array of hits to cover, from the obvious ("Shake It Off") to the inspired ("Vampire") to the baffling. (My biggest laugh came not from his polkafied version of "WAP," but the censored rendition of "Thank U, Next" that immediately follows.) It's hard to judge this through a contemporary critical lens when it exists mainly as a funhouse inversion of pop's immediate past. Listening to a "Weird Al" polka medley in the year 2024 feels like returning to your hometown and finding out your favorite old haunt is still standing and still run by the same curly-haired weirdo, untouched by the evolution of taste and the passage of time. [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: A foil to Eminem: Em is crass where Al is gosh-darn unoffensive, dying to offend where Al is dying to please, but the two artists share a drive to present themselves as more chaotic than they actually are. (I interviewed "Weird Al" once, and he was so unwaveringly on-message that it felt like interviewing a career politician.) Their pop-culture medleys are as routine and unsurprising as holiday concerts, though Al's are more event managed: doing the press circuit, he was happy to break down all the logistics of the "Polkamania" assembly and approval process. In doing so, he critiqued the song better than I ever could: SZA ghosted him, but Lin-Manuel Miranda returned his call in like 30 seconds. [4]

Tim de Reuse: I'm sorry, Al. This kind of thing was your bread and butter, but we've pulled the rug out from under you. The genre-cloud of "recognizable song awkwardly re-rendered in different style" is the basis for a million clickbait YouTube thumbnails, ten percent of all videos on TikTok, and probably a quarter of all audio-based generative AI prompts. I've already heard all of these songs as Gregorian chant, as Norwegian black metal, Midwest emo, using the soundfonts from Super Mario 64, performed by a bad Kate Bush impersonator, in fucking "Negative Harmony" -- never of my own volition. This stuff is just in the air now, competing for my attention, and it all sounds the same as every cell phone ad. Wat's left here? Polka? Is polka still funny on its own merits? Was it ever? It's not you, Al. It's us. I'm sorry for what we did. [1]

Joshua Lu: "NOW That's What I Call Polka!" was a guilty pleasure of mine, operating as a genuinely catchy and humorous summation of then-recent hits made by a man with a palatable appreciation for pop music and a knack for taking on unserious tasks with the utmost seriousness. "Polkamania!" is mostly the same, and in being his first mashup since then (aside from some Hamilton thing I can't bring myself to listen to), he's had to distill over a decade of hits down instead of just a few years' worth. All of these songs included make sense, but every other song just instills a sense of "Oh yeah, that was a thing once," culminating in a Taylor Swift remake that surely would've amused me in 2013 but now just feels a dozen lifetimes old. It doesn't help that some of these songs are just kind of boring and don't offer much by way of humor, forcing pretty straightforward polkafications and awkward transitions.  [5]

Ian Mathers: Look, none of these will ever equal "Polka Your Eyes Out" to me, both because of the song selection there and because I was 10 when it came out. But I'm happy Al's out there doing his thing, and I hope he never changes. [6]

Mark Sinker: OK, back in April some clown called on him to become our beloved worm-man god-emperor, and now look what happened: “Brat Al” Yankovic! There’s a whole slab of cultural and music theory to be explored one day, about what happens when you convert modern pop into sheet music and then convert it back out again into your favoured local sound-style: what gets elided, but also what’s gained (not nothing)! And maybe some day someone will write it up — but that day is not today and that someone is not me.  [5]

Hannah Jocelyn: The polka medleys were never my favorites; it's almost always the same shtick and there's none of the cleverness of his usual material or his (underappreciated!) style parodies. There's inspiration here to be sure, "Weird Al" doing "Bad Guy" as klezmer gets this a positive score on those grounds alone. Maybe if he released this five years ago or in five years it would work and not fall victim to the Anxious Interval. But this is "Weird Al", long-reigning king of kitsch. Who wants him to be in touch? [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Both 10 years out of date and 10 years into the future. Welcome back, polka. (And "Weird Al," too.) [10]

Taylor Alatorre: I appreciate that there's a person out there who can get me to say with a straight face a sentence like "I miss when the polkas were more thematically consistent." [5]

Jonathan Bradley: "Weird Al" sucks. I feel so mean to say that: people love this guy who, let’s face it, is completely harmless and has been delighting (mostly) children for decades, and here I am telling you how appalled I feel that we celebrate such a pristinely executed vision of pure crappiness. And yet, here we are blurbing him, so: I hate the querulous insipidity of Al’s interpretation of pop music. His schtick demands familiarity with pop — otherwise the parodies make no sense — but shies away from the music’s flair and vision and emotion, as if the pleasure these things offer is too terrifying and too adult, and must be remediated through the lens of banality so as to be controlled. His jokes rarely riff on details of the texts themselves, the way a Lonely Island video might, but replace any intensity of feeling with artefacts of suburban triviality: crappy television, crappy minor medical ailments, and so much crappy, crappy food. Even the verisimilitude of his productions — his greatest actual talent — runs headlong into the crappiness of his adenoidal voice, reassuring us that he’s not so proficient at his craft as to be mistaken for a star. And then there’s his sideshow of playing covers with an accordion, which we understand to be a joke instrument, in the style of polka, which we understand to be a joke genre. Is his polka any good? None of his listeners care. Do they go on to explore more polka? Why would they? Do people who enjoy polka think Al is contributing anything to the music they love? Who cares; the incredible notion that someone somewhere might enjoy polka is part of the joke. Because the most desiccated and shriveled aspect of Al’s relationship with pop is that he can’t imagine it has its own jokes. Cardi B is funnier in “WAP” than he is here. Lil Nas X was a better troll on “Old Town Road.” Billie Eilish had better comic timing with her interjected “duh” on “Bad Guy.” And I understand how churlish I sound saying all this. I am Seymour Skinner; I am Ed Rooney. But I like jokes! (I’m not mad. Please don’t put in the newspaper that I got mad.) The problem is that there is nothing fun happening here! [0]

Alfred Soto: I'm happy Al exists. This song sucks. [2]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[scorchrend]

what applications do you use to make music? everything you post always sounds so lovely

i use fl studio 21 mostly! sometimes i’ll post something made on garageband on my ipad though. usually fl studio 21 though.

i like fl’s own soundfont player it’s really convenient for me because it makes it really to use slide notes and portamento hehe.

it’s not free though, in fact it’s quite expensive. though it’s also on the cheaper side compared to other daws. it’s not free. unless you try really hard.

anyways i used to use LMMS which is a free and open source daw and can still make a lot of good stuff in anyones hands i just found fl studio easier to use.

not what i normally use but i also have lovelycomposer (makes chiptune) which i really liked to use when starting out, really helped me get into making music and having fun with it at first and using limited tools (though it’s had many updates since i last used it, i’m sure it has wider functionality now!) it’s paid but cheap for what you’re getting. $7.50 USD