8 bit World ~Early Works of Naomi~
Naomi(links for Amazon, Apple, Spotify)
"8 bit World ~Early works of Naomi~" on YouTube :
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mZZZTgbG5VqY_C5U1JDsEVw5GG7VJHyxc&si=6HWKSDk0_nprz5Fj
or
Thank you for reading this page, and sorry for my poor explanation. I'd like to improve this page, so some expressions may be revised.
(Apr. 20, 2026)
Naomi's early works collection composed during the same period of "Game Nostalgia", Only 4 tones will give you magic.
8 bit World ~Early works of Naomi~
Songs;
01 Into the Forest (1:58) / 02 By the Seashore (2:03) / 03 On the Cloud (2:43)
04 Stage (Fun) (2:19) / 05 Stage (Memories) (1:46) / 06 Stage (Tiny) (1:52)
07 Stage (Futuristic) (2:04) / 08 Stage (Game Nostalgia) (1:50) / 09 Stage (Chance) (1:59)
10 Stage (The Final Boss) (2:27) / 11 Fanfare (Exotic Remains) (0:12)/ 12 Gamemates (2:43)
*Preface*
Thank you for waiting. This time is the collection of my early works.
The period that I started to make music using computers was before my 30's, and around 2016, because I wanted to pursue my moving experiences gained from music.
You may feel it's unexpected, but I'm not originally a kind of person that loves every music because I'm rarely impressed by listening to music.
But once I get moved from a certain tune, I tend to be into it deeply - I listen to it repeatedly so much- and I didn't notice such a behavior was a little strange and different from those of others until recently.
Before I began to compose, my passion was listening to songs made by others that I felt were wonderful, but once I decided to make music, the passion turned into the question whether I could write such music by myself or not.
***
1.Why did Naomi choose 8 bit music for her first practice?
I understood well that it's key to use a computer for making music because it was necessary to do it alone and affordably.
Then, since I thought it's very simple at a point that 8 bit music is limited to the *maximum 4 tones that sound at the same time, I chose 8 bit music for my first practice, this expression, '8 bit music' represents retro video games' music in the 90s of 8 bit computers.
So to speak, I just need to arrange music only for 4 parts and only decide each sound's positions for the 4 tones; for example, the ①melody and ②bass are put the center between two speakers but ③arpeggio is programmed as moving from left to right of the speakers, and ④percussion is put the center between left speaker and the center. I thought like this.
I think it's easier to capture this image if you see the illustration below.
*a note for the maximum 4 tones>>>
Some creators say that they make video games' music for only 3 tones, so you may feel why Naomi made a conclusion as 4 tones. Let me explain! While playing video games, there are also significant sound effects with BGM, right?
There are some games that count 'BGM:3/effect:1', but the others count 'BGM:4/effect:1' because sound effects do not always ring and in case when all sounds ring at the same time(beyond 4 tones), bass sound is programmed so that it doesn't ring while the occasion. I noticed them.
Since I wasn't a developer, it's not beyond supposition, but I repeatedly used to listen to music as if I were Zombie,,,after counting sounds in games many times, I reached this conclusion!
↑ Though I wrote it with a digital pen, it was hard to draw lines clearly.
Of course, it was easier saying than doing.
2. What did Naomi think about when she stated to create music actually?
While there was the ease that I just arranged for only 4 parts and decided only 4 positions, there was also a difficulty to consider not to be over 4 tones.
Of course, the reason why we were limited to using the number of the tones when we create 8 bit music was for the function of the game machine 30 years ago, so today we don't have to obey this rule necessarily, but I was very interested in creating music in the limitation, because it looked so fun!
To compose music with only 4 tones, I thought it was most important that songs had charm solely on their own, even if we play them on the piano, guitar, or anything else, the songs have to be appealing. So I poured the most power into thinking melody and chords, which is the first thing of making music.
Though I also wrote on the page 'About Naomi', to decide melody and chords while playing the piano is very plain but essential, and this way became the most important parts of my music creation later.
I found that if I was convinced well of the music framework once decided, I could go to the next step smoothly.
3. What should have Naomi done after deciding on a musical framework?
After deciding melody and chords, (and I'm satisfied with them,) in arrangement, I wrote notes on a musical score each of 4 parts and displayed 4 parts vertically, and I pay attention to the vertical line not to be over 4 tones, checking carefully that musical score.
Since the melody has already been decided, I could naturally think of rhythm feelings for the next step, which is also an important part of making music impressions.
In this process, the harmony of bass, percussion and chords is the key, because these combinations can change musical impressions widely. (It's very interesting, I think.)
So while playing bass and chord tones on the piano, I tried to think of many rhythm possibilities while thinking not to be over 4 tones.
4. Naomi tried to synthesize sounds for the first time (Coming Soon)
(postscript on Apr 22)
Please allow me to have been late for adding this sentence, I never regarded the word 'coming soon' as 'after 2 months', time flies...sorry you.
Let's compare the track #8 'Stage(game nostalgia)' from "8 bit world" to the track #1 of 'Game Nostalgia' from the album"Game Pop".
The former is the original, using synthesizer's tones that have already been programmed by a synthesizer company, it's often called 'preset sounds', attaching synthesizer softwares basically.
And the latter is made of the synthesizer tones programmed by me.
Before programming synthesizer tones, I read many books about synthesizers and charged my knowledge of it. It was a very primitive way, wasn't it? But at this time, I hadn't had my (software) synthesizer yet, because I have been wondering what synthesizer I should buy.
By the way, 'software synthesizer' is the synthesizer which works on the computer.
(postscript on June 14 / I apologize for the delay repeatedly.)
And next, to try as many synthesizers as possible, I took the way to use 'trial period' of software synthesizers or DAW softwares that contain software synthesizers. (If you wondered what DAW is, please refer to the 'About Naomi's page.)
Usually, the kinds of softwares written above give us trial oppotunity before buying for about 1 week to 1 month, so I tried them one by one.
The knowledge from the books were really helpful, though there were lots of parameters to have to tune, it was easier comparatively to guess where I should touch.
5. After changing tones from preset to programmed by me (May 5th, 2026)
In parallel with the step 4 above, I tried to use sounds programmed by me. As soon as I started this, I found out that each song has the 'right' sound.
In other words, if it seemed as great, I was often facing cases that 'though the sound itself was beautiful, it didn't match this song's impression', so the most difficult thing in this phase was to choose the 'right' sounds.
I did trial and error many times. Firstly I decided a tone for a melody part in this case so that I thought out which tones programmed was suitable the most and chose it, next I chose a tone for a rhythm part while using parameters for adjustment.
I also learned choosing these combinations was difficult, because my preferred tones were inclined to have similar character(subdued) and it means my tones tended to turn off each other acoustically.
So I gained valuable lessons about the combination of synthesizer sounds; it's very important when I use multiple tones in one song, I should choose and mix different kinds of tones so that every sound is alive and it was helpful for all my musical making after that.
6. About the songs (May 9th,2026)
So at a glance, each song has a similar sound but they have different sounds little by little because of the making process above, and the acoustic effects of each song also differ, to give variety to limited 4 tones, I programmed each note to sound from many directions. I hope you'll pay attention to how each sound appears, there are a lot of effects between from left to right/right to left speakers! You'll find sounds are moving lively.
I imagined adventure games' situations on my mind for the track number #1 to #3, and from #4 to #10 were kinds of pinball games'. #11 and #12 are for ending. At #11, I set that we cleared all stages and saw the end credits with #12.
I looked back at these songs, there are many premature elements but I tried five quarter time on #3(On the cloud) for the first time, and I discovered what I really wanted to write on #8(Game Nostalgia), so I think they are interesting!
Some people seemed to prefer vibraphone tone on #8(Game Nostalgia) to 8 bit tunes of other tracks, so I'd like to try again to compose for limited tones. I look forward to hearing your advice! Thank you for being interested in this page!