Hyper Link
single • Nov 6, 2024This will be music graphics in 2014
A collab with EX-LYD
+ Bandcamp release includes a bonus track!
Hyper Link
This will be music graphics in 2014 • a collab with EX-LYD
The year was 2022. EX-LYD was a headline performer at a chiptune rave called “EINDBAAS”.
I managed to talk to him backstage, and it turns out we had a lot in common! Before this show I had been listening to his music a lot, so it was quite the surprise.
We thought it’d be fun to make a song together. Little did we know it would take over a year to finish…
Concepting
I remember starting this project back in April of 2023. EX-LYD and I had an idea about the type of music we wanted to make, but couldn’t really settle on one music style alone. In the end we decided to create a track inspired by artists such as Snail’s House, nuphory, meganeko and Mameyudoufu!
Written by @EX-LYD
It turns out EX-LYD’s strong suit is writing chords and melodies, while mine are sound design and mixing. With our forces combined we managed to come up with cool ideas!
Production
I started out with a simple trance arp, and made a chord progression along with some upbeat drums. EX-LYD quickly came up with a piano solo on top and it already sounded pretty cool.
It’s amazing (and a little funny) how many versions this track went through. It felt like we switched moods, vibes, or even genres at least five times (probably a lot less!). But I’m so glad the piano melody at the beginning made it to the final cut. That part was inspired mostly by the “Super Smash Bros. Melee (Menu 2)” theme. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact influence.
As usual I tried to make a recognizable melody line for the song as well, and I think it worked out because the main melody got stuck in my own head for weeks…
At some point the project file got so big it would take 2 minutes just to load the project, with up to 19 GB of RAM usage. Now I’ve learned to optimize my projects by removing elements I’m not using to save memory. That memory usage quickly builds up if you’re not careful!
The middle part, where we now have the dnb breakdown, went through the most transformations. My first ideas for it were more low-energy and ambient, lasting nearly two minutes. Eventually, I trimmed it down and turned it into more of a buildup for the next section.
Then sunnexo came in with an amazing idea to transform it into a breakbeat-inspired part and cooked up some sick drum and bass sounds. I tried to accompany this part with a synthy-solo.
Eventually, everything was cut again ; - ; (for the better) sunnexo had the idea to turn it into a nuphory-style breakdown. I had never listened to nuphory before (except for Hyper Trance), so I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she absolutely delivered. Created some Y2K-inspired synth melodies to accompany it which ended up in the final cut. YIPPIE!!
There were a lot of ideas we came up with that I thought were interesting, but wouldn’t fit the context of the song. I’m sorry for taking out that many of your ideas EX-LYD!
One of my favourite memories from the project was during the first big overhaul. Originally, we aimed for a happy-hardcore vibe, but then sunnexo started cooking and created something completely different: hyper-sex trance. And wow, it sounded incredible! The main looping lead that you hear throughout the song became the track’s centrepiece, and I thought it sounded amazing.
I’m a big fan of syncopation, and the way it was used here was perfect. I got so excited and inspired that I couldn’t wait for sunnexo to send the project files over. So instead, I opened up my laptop, downloaded the track, dropped it into FL Studio, and recorded the melodies I had in my head. Those melodies ended up in the first drop. I sent the stems over to sunnexo, and she included them into the project—YIPPIEE again!
That main synth lead I wrote is pure earworms. It stays in your head. It won’t even leave mine. I’m proud of it…
Drop breakdown
- 01 - Drums
- 02 - Bass
- 03 - Synth
- 04 - Hyper Link
Artwork
For this song’s artwork I asked Avolicis and chocographix to help me out! Both of them have helped make song covers in the past, and I’m glad to have them again for Hyper Link.
To get everyone on the same page I made a Figma board with all the ideas I had:
Here I wrote down what kind of art I had in mind. Fast-paced, dynamic and webcore. The main inspirations for the theme were Windows XP and the Wipeout games from the original PlayStation.
The character, logo and backgrounds were all created by different artists, so I wanted to use a color palette to keep everything cohesive. Even though they’re completely different styles of pixel art it still looks coherent thanks to the matching colors. For this artwork I used a palette I found on Lospec called “Web Memories”.
Logotype
Choco’s usual logo design involves vector art, but I wanted to know whether he was able to make something using pixels as well.
Written by @chocographix
‘Hyper Link’ was a unique type to construct as Sunnexo and me gathered inspiration and settled on something angular, techy and modern. I love doing angular types like these (as seen before with ‘NERVE DAMAGE’ for example) and as Sunnexo showed me the first drafts of the cover I started with pixeling the type in GIMP, which is usually something I don’t do right away.
After some back and forth I was nailing down my guidelines and overall art direction for this typography, and in less than an hour I presented Sunnexo the finished type. We did some tweaking together and I sent the file over for some more processing in Aseprite. Some days later I was presented the final cover art and I love how it looks on there!
Character art
If there’s anyone who’s mastered drawing sunnexos its probably Avolicis. Almost all pixel art you see on this site is drawn by him, so as per tradition I asked him to help me out with the character art. And he delivered! He did it quickly too, as it took Avo about a week or so to make the whole thing. Faster than everyone else in the art department.
Here’s a timelapse of the character art process:
Music video
I wanted to make a music video in the same style as my Please Wait track, but with some extra action to reflect the high energy in the song. At first I considered hand animating the visual effects like BVSSIC or no mana, but I really don’t have the time to do that.
So I went looking for a simpler way to create interesting visuals; by recording video game footage! I’ve been playing Bomb Rush Cyberfunk quite a lot and I really like the cel shaded artstyle they use. Besides that game I’ve also included some Voices of the Void and ULTRAKILL for the background footage.
I wanted to somehow limit the colors of the video to match the color palette. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought, and scouring the internet didn’t give me any meaningful results. Then I remembered I know someone who knows a lot about video (and more specifically ffmpeg). I messaged nasso, a programmer who’s helped a lot during the making of this site, whether they had any idea on how to do this color palette idea I had.
As I expected, they knew exactly what to do and immediately replied with a magical line of code.
thanks nasso
Time, perfectionism
This project took way longer than I expected. You might know that I haven’t been uploading music as frequently as I used to. Studying and my part-time job have been taking up most of my time, so I only get time for music during my weekends if I’m lucky.
Besides time I’m also extremely picky about the music I release, about 90% of the music projects I make never see the light of day. Up until now I’ve just been revising projects constantly, even if those projects could get a full release without issues.
Working with EX-LYD actually made me aware of the unrealistic perfectionism I have and I’m loosening up a bit, to hopefully release music more often!
Thank you for reading all the way to the end, you can stream or buy Hyper Link below.
Hyper Link
single • Nov 6, 2024This will be music graphics in 2014
A collab with EX-LYD
+ Bandcamp release includes a bonus track!
PS
Written by @EX-LYD
This part will only make sense if we decide to release the bonus track… On a hot, hazy summer night, the cranks in my dusty brain started turning. We still needed to make something for the second drop, so I went searching for my favourite sample and Phase Plant preset: the iconic “anime chant 2.mp3 (onii-chan)” sample and my beloved “hardstyle-kick” preset. I loaded them up and started cooking.
What came out of it was probably the most cultured, genius, affirming, sexual, and euphoric thing I’ve ever written. I don’t even listen to hardcore (EDM). Basically I had no idea what I was doing. My only reference was a track a close friend made for our “secret” collab project. But man, reversed hardstyle kicks sound freaking amazing.
“Voor deze ga ik naar de hel” translates to “I’m going to hell because of this”.
The notes you see in this pattern are playing an onii-chan sample extremely quickly and it makes me wish I didn’t have ears.
Unfortunately it’s a bonus track on Bandcamp.
chatlog hyper-link.txt
/////////////////////////////////////////
__ ___ __
/ / __ _____ ___ ____ / (_)__ / /__
/ _ \/ // / _ \/ -_) __/ / / / _ \/ '_/
/_//_/\_, / .__/\__/_/ /_/_/_//_/_/\_\
/___/_/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
crack has been tested and working, please install torrent software and try not wrong click download button. you need to generate keys to download fully: HYPER LINK KEYGEN DOWNLOAD ↗
big ups to ADMIN – Thank you, thank you, Thaaannnk yooou! wasnt sure about this (post) version of HL but after downloaded HL, installed, the WOW! glorious U.I. Update, some addition fresh features too. if anybody reading my words and thinks im full of shit -DOWNLOAD HL now, thank (Admin) Me later!!!
and admin great great success. Hopeful the update coming soon
im confused
wow ! the hyper link is finally here !! thanks
“Download” button doesn’t work
How to install it ….i followed the steps but still saying trial mode
Do you guys still have by any chance hyper link? Or even the older versions? If so, would it be possible to upload it here please? Thank you.
PLEASE UPDATE HYPER LINK TO 2024 VERSION , THANKS .