Super Galaxtica

"Super Galaxtica"
Song by Mike Shinoda
from the album Dropped Frames, Vol. 1
Working title:	4.17 Super Galaxtica
Recorded:	2020
Released:	June 30, 2020
Format:	Digital
Length:	2:29
Writer:	Mike Shinoda
Producer:	Mike Shinoda
Label:	Kenji Kobayashi Productions
Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 tracklist
Open Door Super Galaxtica Duckbot Cupcake Cake El Rey Demonio Doodle Buzz Channeling, Pt. 1 (feat. Dan Mayo) Osiris Babble Bobble Session McSessionface Neon Crickets Booty Down

"Super Galaxtica" is the second track on the "Dropped Frames, Vol. 1" instrumental release by Mike Shinoda.

Background

"Super Galaxtica" is a song by Mike Shinoda made during the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, the global pandemic created by the COVID-19 coronavirus caused communities to quarantine at home. During this time, Mike Shinoda decided to start live streaming online and inviting fans to watch him create new instrumental music.

"Super Galaxtica" was made on April 17, 2020 by Mike under the working title "4.17 Super Galaxtica" and streamed live to fans via Twitch. The stream's title was "Nintendo Game Boy sounds" as parts of it were created with a Nintendo Game Boy. Mike used software called Nanoloop by Oliver Wittchow. Oliver made software that uses sounds already in the Game Boy, so users can use them like a keyboard - choose unique patches, put them in an arpeggio, etc.

Mike ran the Game Boy through his tape echo, what he referred to as his "gear of the week." He sampled the Game Boy samples individually as well, which he did when he originally got the Game Boy, and put them over his drum loop.

He said, "You know what I did? I sampled the Game Boy sounds individually as well, so I didn't do that just now, I did that a little while ago when I got the Game Boy. So what you can do if you're feeling resourceful.... you can play regular Game Boy games on this, by the way, which is kind of great. It came in an original Game Boy case, which is pretty tight. So what I did when I got it is I went through all the sounds in it and I sampled them, so these are the original sounds. And in Ableton, you can just take one of those and put it on your sampler." He messed with the Ableton plugin for vinyl distortion for some of the samples.

An hour into making the track, Mike decided to spin his "Wheel of Destiny" on the stream, and it landed on "needs more." Mike said, "It needs more, I agree, we need to keep going. We need to keep going with our Game Boy beat."

On his June 30, 2020 stream announcing the album, Mike said, "I named it Super Galaxtica partially because it sounded like space and also because you guys keep joking that the stuff I'm making sounds like aliens are coming down. So second track off the record, I wanted to reference that."

On July 8, 2020, Mike tweeted, "In case you missed it the first time around, I will be rebroadcasting the Twitch streams from the making of Super Galaxtica, Open Door, and Osiris. Jump in the Twitch chat @ 6pm PST." The stream was titled "Rerun: restreaming the making of Dropped Frames." He tweeted, "The intro to Super Galaxtica was made using a customized Nanoloop Game Boy"

Mike held a listening party on Twitch for "Dropped Frames, Vol. 1" on July 10, 2020, the day of the album's release. About "Super Galaxtica", he said, "The intro to "Super Galaxtica", I posted this one the other day, the original video of that stream. The intro was the Game Boy, which is a weird thing. There is a guy who does a hacked Game Boy cartridge and you can use the Game Boy as an instrument, so you can use all of the sounds. I had it forever ago. I may have used it once or twice like back in the A Thousand Suns & Living Things Linkin Park album era. But it kind of sat in a cabinet, I mean a closet and then I brought it out and it became this jam. These drums, I love these drums. This was originally going to be the first song on Dropped Frames but then I tagged "Open Door" on the front of it because it was kind of the first thing that happened. But "Super Galaxtica" is really the first song."

Listening to the track during a September 21, 2020, Twitch stream Mike said: "This one is still one of my favorite jams from this channel. What I like about this jam... First of all, it's just the vibe, the overall vibe of it. The hardest thing to do is to have a jam you like and then, at some point, you'll be like, 'Oh, this piece of music sounds good to me" and then at a certain point you're like, 'Ok, it needs to go to somewhere different and this section in the song it needs to go somewhere new', and to be able to find a way to make something that you like as much as the original part, or more, that part is unusual."

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Super Galaxtica	Dropped Frames, Vol. 1	2:29	April - June 2020	June 30, 2020	Streamed live on Twitch (Part 1 / Part 2) on April 17, 2020. Theme: Game Boy sounds.

Gallery

• 

  "Vol 1" Cover

• 

  "Vol. 1" Tracklist

• 

  YouTube Cover

• 

  Spotify Playlist

• 

  CoronaJam Session (April 17, 2020 via Twitch)

• 

  CoronaJam Session (April 17, 2020 via Twitch)

Personnel

• Mike Shinoda

External Links

• Super Galaxtica (Official Audio): YouTube
• "Making Of" Video: YouTube