Synthesist Randy George shared his arrangement of The Legend of Zelda theme, featuring a unique arrangement for theremin, EWI, piezo drum controller and Haken ContinuuMini.
The ContinuuMini is designed to be an entry-level version of the Haken Continuum Fingerboard expressive instrument. But it uses the same powerful synth engine, the EaganMatrix, which George is here using as a sound module.
Here’s what George has to say about the technical details:
“All three instruments you see are functioning as expressive MIDI interfaces for a fourth instrument, the Haken ContinuuMini (not shown in video) and its built-in synthesis engine, the EaganMatrix.
Instruments I am playing in this video:
Moog Etherwave Pro theremin. It is connected to a Teensy-micro-controller-based Control Voltage to MIDI interface.
AKAI EWI4000s wind controller. It is connected to a standard MIDI interface.
Piezo Drum. (my construction). It is made up of a inverted plastic storage container, a piezo contact microphone, two pencils as drum sticks, and it’s connected to an audio interface and Audio-MIDI translation software I wrote called MIDI Merlin.
All three interfaces route MIDI messages to an additional software interface I designed, called Haken’s Razor, that formats incoming data into MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) compliant MIDI, and outputs to the Haken ContinuuMini (via USB connection). Each instrument is coupled with a sound design in the EaganMatrix that is appropriate for its part in The Legend of Zelda theme arrangement.
EaganMatrix sound presets used: [Wind] VBrass 2, [Wind] Saxmosis, [String] Vln Vla Cel Bass Bridge, [Sound Design] Wind Beach. Thanks Eric Von Bayer, Edmund Eagan, and Christophe Duquesne for the amazing sound designs!
The MPE MIDI data from all instruments is also being routed to a visualizer to reflect the expression data as its being received by the EaganMatrix. The display is a customized version of the surface display of the Haken Editor, the app for editing EaganMatrix sound designs and interfacing the Haken Continuum via computer.
I tried to stay as close as possible to the melodic parts of the original 8-bit Legend of Zelda theme. This was pretty crazy in some spots. The EWI4000s and theremin have a few giant leaps that are unavoidable in order to stay true to the original. Thank you Koji Kondo for the Legendary composition!”
Wow!
Extraordinary engineering. I’ve fitted transducers to MIDI devices with mixed results. Nice performance too.