Hi there, I'm EmoShep, and as you've already guesses, I make guitar covers of songs from video games!
As the story often goes, I'm both a gamer and a huge fan of rock and metal, so, why not combine them? If you're so inclined, give one of these tracks a listen. If you enjoy it then I really appreciate it. If you find something lacking, don't hesitate to let me know so I can take into account what I should improve on. In no way do I see myself as a professional musician, so any and all advice and constructive criticism is welcome.
If you're simply here to chill and listen to some music, kick back and enjoy.
Good! You're here. Glad to see my notices in the description worked! Alright. So. I want to start off by addressing some very unfortunate news that came out as I was finishing this project. For those who are unaware, it was announced recently that starting May 6th (tomorrow at time of writing), all news players will have to link a PlayStation Network account if they purchased the game for PC. For those of us who've bought the game already, we'll start seeing a mandatory login starting May 30th, and have until June 4th to link our PSN and Steam accounts. This is regarded as a serious invasion of consumer privacy, and I agree completely. The claim is that this is in the name of player security, which is very funny considering how Sony is known to have suffered major data breaches in the past. They are the LAST company on earth that has any business discussing data security. Now, it's not hard to make a PSN account. You don't even have to pay for one. So what's the big deal? Well, there's another serious aspect to this in addition to the breach of privacy: PSN is not available globally. Globally as in "all countries." Helldivers II has in fact been pulled from sale in 177 countries at time of writing. Because guess what? If this change goes through, there are countless players who straight up won't be able to play the game THAT THEY PAID MONEY FOR. No joke, there's one Level 90 Helldiver who will lose their access to the game if this goes through. I cannot overstate how far over the line this is. Sony has effectively burned straight through all of the goodwill that they may have had with this game. And to be clear: it's an amazing game. I wouldn't have covered this song if I didn't love the game. So please, spread the word about this where you can and do not let corporate greed destroy yet another of our beloved games. If you ask me this is a crystal clear example of why we need to have some regulation in the gaming industry. Now, to let an honest opinion through that I genuinely believe contains zero hot takes: I don't like that we have to have all these accounts just to play the games we pay for. I do not like it. I WILL not like it, and there's nothing anyone can say to make me think otherwise. I believe it should come down to: you pay for a game, you get to have the game, physically or digitally, and you get to play it. Forever. That's it. No always-online requirements for offline games, no additional accounts, none of that. No. Unfortunately, until a more fundamental change takes place, this is the system we're stuck with. We have to bring about that kind of change if we wanna throw this nonsense out for good. And no, at this point I'm not just talking about a Steam review bomb, though that is still one way of letting your voice be heard on this specifically so rock on. Oh, and before the one person who still respects Sony mentions it: we've read the off-platform EULA. PlayStation Network accounts and requirements to link them to Steam aren't even mentioned in it. Go ahead and erase that essay you just wrote on how much of as idiot I am, I already see through your nonsense. As one Redditor pointed out, claiming the game always required something but only implementing that requirement months after launch is disingenuous at best when such a requirement was never in the EULA to begin with. Okay I'm running out mental bandwidth for this. I hope you enjoy the song, at least! Hopefully my next project won't be so poorly timed. (and just in case this crowd shows up here because apparently they wanna rear their ugly heads again nowadays: hey gamergater, buzz off. i ain't your friend. go away.)
Update: VICTORY! For now. I learned this morning that Sony has backtracked and stated that they will not go through with this horrifically idiotic decision. We can take a breather and just go back to enjoying the game and laughing at dumb fascists for the time being (all many of us wanted to do to begin with), but we shouldn't get complacent. That this change could have happened *at all* shows that the mega-conglomerates cannot be trusted. So, Helldivers, stay vigilant, stay active, keep talking to folks. This deal is about so much more than a single (albeit amazing) game. Oh, and Free Palestine by the way. Be sure to go hit up www.arab.org and click buttons, they need every bit of help they can get.
i have! don't have anything in the way of highlights but i streamed a good chunk of my first playthrough of violet a while back. (as for any streams lately, i just had other games i wanted to play, namely: ffxiv and atelier sophie.)
featuring: May, who wants to lead the Pokemon gym and become champion, and battles everyone she makes eye contact with to the point of some avoiding her. Brandon, who wants to complete his studies and become a leading expert on Pokemon, but (ironically) groans when reminded that he needs to go outside for a good chunk of that. And Professor Birch, the teacher who very obviously sleeps in his office during the day but is also a department chair so no one says anything. or, whatever somebody comes up with that's better.
okay, time to reflect a little on this past year i guess! i like to think i started this year off pretty strong. i put out a bunch of songs, some of which were quite challenging and on some i really pulled out all the stops! one of the early songs i literally recorded, mixed and mastered in one night due to a trip i was going on the next morning. one of the songs even blew up! (well, for someone with under 100 subscribers at the time.) that early couple of months of 2023 was filled to bursting with music i loved, and it was sick to get to cover some of the most iconic video game songs! march brought with it a major change: working full time. i'm sure i don't have to spell out how that affects things here. long story short, having limited time on my hands meant i simply had less time and less mental bandwidth to use for music, and though i managed to pump out some killer covers in my opinion, it eventually had me burning out some. i was also trying hard to maintain a regular upload schedule, first weekly, then bi-weekly. eventually i just threw in the towel and took a couple months to focus on other things, namely, getting a professional certification for my line of work (avixa cts if you're curious) and twitch streaming. i've actually had a blast streaming this year! i played through the third and final game of the atelier ryza story, there was pokemon violet, i gave splatoon a try, and i experimented with making final fantasy xiv my main twitch game, which has been a nice change considering how chill a game it is (even if i still get nervous in dungeons)! i'd be remiss not to mention the regulars that come in, well, regularly, they're legends. i kept the guitars close by though, and with the help of bernth and his course, managed to work out a nice warmup and practice routine to go through. i'm working on those guitar skills, hopefully i'll see some more improvement in the new year! i've managed to settle into my new routines over the past months and have found new rhythms through which i can do what i seek to do. i've found that not rushing myself to upload a new music video as often as i can gives me all the room i need to work with, and putting out, say, a video a month is nice and flexible. i can focus on bringing out all my tools and shooting for the highest standard i can hit when i just let myself breathe and, sometimes, just let a project sit for a day or two. and when i come back to it, it's all still there, waiting to be synthesized into whatever i want it to be. ready to be thrown at even the toughest bosses! code of the universe ain't got nothin' on these jams for real. (you're a real one if you get it lol) so that's where i'm at right now! i can say with a fair degree of confidence that there won't be as much music next year, but, heavens willing, the music i do share will be absolutely freakin' SICK! that's what i ultimately want to do after all: make music that folks enjoy listening to. so here's to the metal, all the jams to come, the good folks who've elected to support and follow me, and a happy new year! rock on, pals.
Pretty sure the same person listening to it doesn't add up views, or half of those would be me lol Great job! I hope to see more whenever your up for it
thanks so much, i'm glad you like it! things have settled down and i feel like i've improved some and have a good practice routine now. and it's been a few months! i got the itch so i'm workin' on the next one now
thanks so much! in case you didn't catch it my latest cover at time of writing is also from atelier ryza 2, it's the theme that plays in the big ol forest if memory serves. i've been away from the covers for a minute but i wanna pick it back up within the next month or so!
thanks a bundle! i'm glad you enjoyed it for sure i want to cover more of the series in the future, it feels like it's mastered mixing hype with chill and i love that for it.
hey hey! first off, i'm glad you like it! it was a ton of fun to make and for what it is, i'm happy with it. i'm sorry to say that i've never made tabs for my music before so i don't have one for the bass here. it might be a good idea to start learning how to make them, though! this part doesn't have too too much going on, so it'd be a jumping off point i suppose. something to think about for sure! thanks for bringing it up, i haven't thought too much about it over the years.
Very nice, insatiable from the shadowbringers expansion would be fire or a cover of a song that doesn't get many covers from xiv like hard to miss or hell i have a long list of interesting songs that could be covered if ever interested. I'd do it myself but i lack the equipment rn ;w;
Thanks! I hear ya on the equipment, it's a thing we all deal with trying to get started. Insatiable is definitely noted, but I actually covered Hard to Miss and Close in The Distance a little while back! The former can be found here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wHgPlaTvus4.html To this day I still hope I did the song justice, it's a banger.
You are wonderful on the guitar, but if you feel your technique needs improvements and you need to step away from covers for a while, thats perfectly fine. Life is unpredictable and its perfectly ok to tske a break to focus on something you need or wsnt to do. It should be yourself over the content, so no worries man. Do what you need to. Also, DAYUMNNNN THIS IS GOOD.
I will! I recently decided to take a break from covers for a little while to work on getting better on my instruments and maybe explore musical ideas of my own, but I definitely will do more of them in the future. I'm glad you liked this one! Had a lot of fun with it.
Okay so, something I gotta talk about real quick. You probably noticed that this video was waaaaaayyyy low effort, even compared to the covers that had no video element at all. Let's get into what's going on. I had a lot of trouble finishing this cover. Not because I couldn't play my instruments well, for what it is I like to think I did alright and did the song justice, but there was a major roadblock when it came to nailing down some details. If you've listened to the original, which you should do if you haven't yet, you hear some fun runs especially on the brass and woodwinds. To put it simply, I just couldn't get these. This is actually not the end of the world, I have plenty of covers where I've simplified parts to make them a little easier to nail down, but for whatever reason it was especially frustrating here. Which isn't good, because it's kind of a small thing. It's also not the only thing, as, small confession, I had a lot of trouble just enjoying the process of making the music. I loved the music itself don't get me wrong, but the process of getting there was a hike and a half. You can kind of tell too, that the quality of my music has stagnated recently, with each cover, though thoroughly listenable (lol), not really improving upon what was learned from the last. Not only that, and I'll be blunt with this one: my guitar technique needs work. Lots of it. I don't know if this is the only one, but a reason for this is me getting in over my head and wanting to have a regular release schedule like all the cool kids have. I've wanted to have something like this ever since I started, but it was only at the start of this year that I actually tried committing to one. The thing is, life can throw a wrench in your plans at times. Having a full-time job and also trying to stream on twitch like all them cool kids can sometimes impact how much bandwidth you have for the tunes. I'm not giving myself much breathing room, and the music is suffering for it. If I continue like this I can't see it ending in anything other than me smashing my computer in a moment of frustration. (I've already had the "I should just delete my whole channel" moment, I won't do that don't worry.) So, where do I go from that? The first and most obvious thing is this: I might wanna step away from the covers for a bit. I'm not stepping away from this channel or music altogether, but I both need and want to do something else for a little while. I've listened to some amazing music by amazing musicians lately, and more and more I find myself wanting to explore musical ideas of my own. I often have ideas for riffs, motifs and progressions in my head, but I've never managed to develop them further than that. I'd like to give that a try. This is not an original album announcment by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd love to pursue that some day. I'll still be on twitch, though I may want to adjust that schedule again to make sure I'm not pushing myself too hard at it. (Also twitch's new affilate policy sucks so it's not like I'm especially fond of the website outside its creators lol) We'll see what happens! This was a lot, so if you read the whole I do appreciate it. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you when I see you!
ANNOUNCEMENT 1: I plan to play Atelier Ryza 3 live on my twitch channel when it comes out! If I have my dates correct the live playthrough should begin on Friday, the 24th. Please consider tuning in then! I'm starting streams around 9:30 nowadays, and I always share the links on Twitter and Discord when going live. Announcement 2 (the important one): As I mentioned in the description (which you should read if you have time), a major challenge with this cover was time constraints. To put it simply, with my new job and my twitch channel to consider, I don't have as much time to sit down and record music anymore. I still have time to, just considerably less than before. So, let's get a couple things out there so we're all on the same page. First, I've decided to push my next cover back a week so I can take a breather. I've managed to release a cover every week thus far in 2023, and I hope to continue to release music regularly, but I shouldn't do so at the cost of my sanity. So while I will continue to strive to release regularly (that is my personal goal for this year, remember), I'll occasionally just take a week to relax, reflect on what I did well and what I didn't, and shift focus to other areas of my life so I can come back refreshed and ready to get back into the jams. Second, you may have noticed that my most recent covers have no video component to them. This is for the same reason. I normally film on Saturdays anyway so I could theoretically still do it, but considering that I'm now recording lead guitars as late in the week as, well, Saturday, you can see how that'd be a bit stressful. So, until something changes, the video elements will be put aside. Thanks for understanding the situation! I hope you'll keep on listening and rocking out with me :)
