Game:

Pikmin 2 (2004)

Duration: 9:14

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77

Internal name: n_tutorial.bms
BPM: 100
Music by Hajime Wakai, music recreated in Logic Pro X, visuals made in Corrscope.
Download: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xyViPZeccXADKyl-00_EL3wrb5ecVeWv?usp=sharing

The theme for the Valley of Repose. Despite being the initial tutorial level of Pikmin 2, this song doesn't score the gameplay as much as it does the sleigh bell-happy background scenery. When the player finishes their first cave and finally makes it to the second area, the Awakening Wood's strong brass ensemble does a better job at firing the player up for the full Pikmin gameplay experience, and encouraging them to begin multi-tasking with their newly found variety of Pikmin. The beautiful and harmonically complex Valley of Repose theme is more of an intro to the aesthetics of the planet itself.

The music will activate extra instruments depending on the game state:
Main: 0:00
Working: 1:19
Carrying treasure: 2:38
Enemy near: 3:57
Battling enemy: 5:16
Near burgeoning spiderwort: 6:36 (Unused)
Sunset: 7:55

Instruments used:
Harp: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Pizzicato Bass: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Crystal: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Sleigh Bells: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Log Drum: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Mandolins: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Harpsichord: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Percussion: Kurzweil - K2500R, & Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Timpani: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88
Orch Pad: Kurzweil - K2500 FARM: ANAPADS
Celesta: Roland - Sound Canvas SC-88

Instrument ramblings (Feel free to ignore):
All 5 of the main instruments here interestingly have the SC-88's reverb baked into the samples themselves. In most instances, recording a dry sound is better, as Pikmin 2's music engine is capable of applying an amount of artificial echo to instrument tracks, if you really desire the extra ambience. Though it appears that the instrument samples here were all recorded for this song specifically, with the reverb likely being an intentional element of this wintry background piece.
The pizzicato strings here are different than the usual pizzicato heard in most songs; only bass notes are sampled.
Then there's the "Crystal" instrument... The original program on the SC-88 uses the Haas Effect to create the full stereo sound. It sounds quite different from how it does in the actual game; when the L and R channels are forcefully merged into a single mono track, the sound is chorused, and only then does it perfectly resemble the Pikmin 2 sample. For these recreations, the true stereo sound is usually what I'd prefer to use, but in this case, it just sounds wrong in the mix. The chorused mono sound is the true essence, but I decided I could sneakily preserve just a teeny bit of the stereo-ness.
The sleigh bells and mandolin here are a little bit fun, albeit annoying. They both have tremolo samples, where Wakai recorded them playing a rapid succession of notes, and looped the whole second-long recording. Also, the purpose of there being two different mandolins in this song is because both of their tremolos are playing at different speeds.
The harpsichord sounds a bit more of something like an accordion or concertina in its performance here. Its a singular sample recorded on A4, with a softened attack, making it difficult to make out this instruments original stringed origins.
The percussion set includes a bass drum and crash cymbal from the SC-88, and a hi-hat and tom from the K2500. Most of Wakai's songs that use a tom use the one from the K2500's "Studio Kit 1", but this song uses the sliiightly different tom from "Studio Kit 2". As far as I'm aware, Studio Kit 2 doesn't get used anywhere else in the game.
The timpani and celesta are some typical Wakai sounds. I will talk about the neat unused spiderwort mix though. Despite this mix's unfortunate status in the final game, the chords here are very sophisticated! It's mostly due to this song having some very complex harmonies. The chillingly high pitch of the instrument is also quite breathtaking; it's similar to what's heard from the pads in The Distant Tundra's theme in Pikmin 3.

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