Analyzing "Core (Gameboy Electro)" by Zef (JSAB) | Basterd's LFA (Layman-Friendly Analysis)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Next up, we have Core Game Boy Electro by Zef featured in Geometry Dash is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this is a bastard Zelf say, a layman friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician composer and my objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what is happening here musically. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever. Not Not Not Not Not Geometry Dash, just Shapes and Beats, sorry. So, just Shapes and Beats, just Shapes and Beats and Geometry Dash, I believe. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you do. Like the video, share it, leave a comment, turn on notifications, become a member.

[00:00:37]Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server, join the Patreon, subscribe to the gaming channel. How to request songs if you're not on the live stream. Members getting early access to the content. I have a spiel for this and a bunch of other things later than this video, so stick around for that. Disclaimers showing on your screen right now, so go ahead and pause the video to read them in full.

[00:00:57]Otherwise, please be patient with me. I am acoustic and guitar nerd, so please keep that in mind. With that, let's go ahead and do this. Core by Zef. LET'S GO.

[00:01:16]OKAY, SO WE START, OF COURSE, WITH A sound of a little glitchy sound going up and down. Uh kind of the sound that you get from um from what's it called, uh turning off a turning on a Game Boy. Then, we bring in this bassy synth giving us that initial melody or bass line, which contains our initial motif, I believe.

[00:01:36]Motif being the smallest version of your musical idea, the seed, the essence from which everything else comes from. Let's see where this goes.

[00:01:47]Yeah, this is done with chiptune, which sounds like you're trying to emulate the um the sounds of an old um what's it called, Game Boy. So, we do have another synth up uh up above giving us some very slow arpeggios, I think. We're probably doing an arpeggio, right? So, an arpeggio being when you play a chord one note at a time. So, for example, here's E minor. Here's arpeggiated.

[00:02:16]So, yeah, we're having that happening.

[00:02:18]Let's see where this goes.

[00:02:20]>> [music] [music] >> Okay, very fast, we bring in four [snorts] more layers?

[00:02:34]Three or four more layers, all of them doing something very very different. We bring the drums, we bring in a second synth giving us some uh a more rhythmic melody, and we have another one doing a melody that shoots up. Um that's a lot to include in a span of 6 seconds. That's a lot of material to include, fresh unrelated from one another material to to jump in in 6 seconds. When you're making music, you want to keep a careful balance between what is familiar and what is new. Too much familiarity, too much repetition, too much of the same thing, you risk boring the listener, they tune out. Too much new material too quickly, you risk overwhelming the listener, they tune out.

[00:03:20]What is that point for the listener?

[00:03:22]It's entirely entirely subjective. I had to think of the word.

[00:03:30]It's entirely subjective. It depends on each listener. However, the more you lean into either of them, the higher the risk becomes that the listener that you will meet that threshold for the listener. So, yeah, we made we brought in a lot a lot of new material very fast.

[00:03:48]It's a risk. Let's see where this goes.

[00:03:53]All right, we have a drum in the background there.

[00:03:58]It also doesn't help that everything is super loud.

[00:04:02]It also doesn't help that everything is done very very loudly, but it is there.

[00:04:07]Let me go back a second cuz I think we just introduced the drums. Let's see where this goes.

[00:04:11]There we go.

[00:04:16]>> [music] >> So, yeah, now we're starting to build.

[00:04:23]We bring the drums in to give us a little bit of a drum beat.

[00:04:28]And we just repeat what we've just done.

[00:04:34]Now that is the third time that it's playing, it's a little bit more um digestible. But, the problem was it was way too much at the start.

[00:04:46]And we didn't because the the um simplest way of doing this to make the listener acclimate to this that you include one layer per repetition. You bring in one layer at a time, you extend the duration by like 10 seconds because each repetition is what, like 8 seconds long, and you bring in one layer at a time, and you get more play time, and you get to acclimate the listener to each repetition. But, the problem is that we're having a lot of material switching in very fast that is not related to one another in the same way, and it's all playing at the same time.

[00:05:24]So, that's difficult to keep up with cuz when you're making music, you want to make sure that you give your listener, especially when it comes to a change of any form, you want to make sure the listener has something to hold on to.

[00:05:37]But, right now, these higher sounds are drowning the bass that we were having that was our anchor point. So, we're having this very very risky. Let's see where it goes.

[00:05:55]All right, we bring it back.

[00:06:00]So, we now we bring in only two layers higher up. We simplify the drums a little bit, and we have the bass continuing to do the same thing. By now, the bass is doing what is called an ostinato. Ostinato meaning that you're repeating something over and over and over and over and over again with little to no repetition or variation. So, yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:06:23]And we immediately bring back.

[00:06:29]And we immediately bring back. So, even we removed the bass from this very much cluster of sounds, it's funky, but it is a lot. It's a It's a bit cluster of of sound that we are getting from this. So, it is a big risk, especially with how loud it is. As I keep saying, your number one priority in electronic music is your sound design, and that includes your mix. If something is a little too loud and it becomes noticeable and becomes a problem, that plays against you. In general, it does, but in electronic music, even more. So, yeah.

[00:07:19]And melodies just keep And on top of that, the register at which each melody is happening. So, we're having a bunch of different melodies happening, and each of them is happening at a different register. So, one of them is happening in an octave kind of >> [music] >> Then, we have another one in the octave above.

[00:07:41]And then another one in the octave above.

[00:07:45]Which, by itself, would sound okay. But, the problem is it's not one octave.

[00:07:52]It's two or more. So, one of them is down here.

[00:07:56]>> [music] >> One of them is then here.

[00:08:01]And then the other one being up here.

[00:08:06]So, we're having a lot of space between them, and we're switching really fast between one another, and they are not the same material. So, because they're not the same material, it's very difficult, again, and because they are drowning the bass because the bass would be our anchor point. It would be something to hold on to while we get all the other changes. But, because the mix is done a little bit roughly, like the mix is a little bit rough over here, as a result, we don't have that thing to hold on to. So, we are going up and down. We're bouncing up and down, being forced up and down, and we don't really have anything to hold on to.

[00:08:47]So, yeah, Z I cycle welcome today. Each individual material by itself is not bad. The problem is how it's put together and the very very aggressive nature of it. Let's see where this goes.

[00:09:05]All right, we bring this back to this one.

[00:09:15]Continue with the same, all right.

[00:09:17]Little bit of change in the drums.

[00:09:22]Okay, so we drop the beat, we bring in the new drums, but because this this mix is so rough, we can't hear the drums.

[00:09:30]Like the drums are really far behind.

[00:09:32]They're there, but it's difficult to tell that we changed the the the the section that we're in. Let's see where this goes.

[00:09:41]Okay, this is better. We removed some of the elements.

[00:09:46]All right, here we go. We bring a dubstep.

[00:09:50]Okay, now we bring one part back.

[00:09:55]Okay, this this should have been brought way back. Maybe not with the same drums, but way back because now we're doing one at a time. Now we're doing one at a time. We're introducing, we're exploring each of the sounds one at a time and we're taking our time to introduce them individually.

[00:10:15]It's one thing if you introduce the triplets one at a time and give me a little bit of time to to meet them and something else to just have all of three slap me at the same time.

[00:10:27]So, yeah. Let's see where this goes.

[00:10:36]I believe Game Boy could could play these but would have been even limited three four layers. Yeah, no, and the space between them.

[00:10:44]We are respecting the Game Boy. Like the Game Boy emulation is happening over here because they are not really happening at the same time. They're just off beat from that you can have this.

[00:10:57]So, yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:11:02]Not really. The drop is not usually when the drums are introduced. The drop is usually a heavier point. Like you can tell it's usually going to deviate from the original material. It's going to have um the drums it's either going to be deviation or climax. It's going to be one of the two. It's going to aim for one of the two. You're going to deviate from the material and focus on exploring the rhythms of your bass and your drums or you're bringing in the drums you're dropping the drums big them in very very fast very not very fast very very nice and grandiose and you are going to explore the material further depends on the genre that you're working. But yeah, all right, let's see where this goes.

[00:11:42]I like the sound of there nice.

[00:11:46]Enough of that enough of the build up yeah.

[00:11:51]Okay, there we go. So, we have the drop happening right now and we are slowly giving us slower and slower material to acclimate with. This is really good.

[00:12:01]This we needed something like this two minutes ago.

[00:12:05]>> [laughter] >> Let's see where this goes. Let's see where this goes.

[00:12:10]Nice.

[00:12:12]Little bit of Yes, very similar to what we're doing.

[00:12:16]Are we doing polyrhythms technically?

[00:12:19]Technically but these are still very much on beat to one another. Like a polyrhythm usually refers to when you're using conflicting rhythms. In this case, these are very much on beat to one another. They're very much aligned but technically still having a polyrhythm like polyrhythm means multiple rhythms, right? So, technically that is technically a polyrhythm. It's just not as contrasting. So, yeah, you almost said something very stupid.

[00:12:49]How would that be any different from the usual?

[00:12:52]>> [laughter] >> Anyway, so yeah, we are building we are we are We are building by deconstructing what we've been doing and slowly focusing on the dubstep drums over here.

[00:13:04]So, good play over here good way of developing the material I would say.

[00:13:10]It's just with that very aggressive start it's difficult to it's difficult to have the goodwill left, right? So, it is tricky. It is tricky especially when you take that kind of risk. So, there you go. And speaking of risks, I risked things up and I made the patron.

[00:13:30]>> [laughter] >> patreon.com/jamesrbastard if you want to support that work that we do over here consider joining the patreon today. Even if you're not pledging money consider joining at least this free the free tier because this is where the non-gaming LFAs are going to. What are they? Anime, film, TV, label music the kind of stuff that we usually don't do on the main YouTube channel. Why? What we do on YouTube is inherently fair use but that does not stop bad actors from abusing the YouTube copyright system.

[00:14:02]So, in order to just not deal with those risk and that headache, those will be going here to the patreon free for everyone to watch with members a certain tier and above getting early early access to it. Paid members also get more voting power in polls that we do.

[00:14:18]Early access as I said to the content to the content that goes here behind the scenes content. I'm also planning some music lessons kind of stuff. So, yes, if you want to support what we do here consider joining the patreon becoming a paid member.

[00:14:31]patreon.com/jamesrbastard link in the description. Thank you to those who are already members particularly and especially to Real Nemesis, French Guy and Amire. Your support means the world to me. Thank you so much for your support. So, yeah, join the patreon today.

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[00:14:50]All right, back we go here to the part that we are doing and yes top hat yes there is. So, we're continuing the drop over here. Let's see where it goes.

[00:15:01]Oh.

[00:15:05]Okay, so now we bring in a new synth.

[00:15:09]We're getting some arpeggios from it.

[00:15:11]Um we're in two synths actually. One of them giving us arpeggios that then speed up and when we speed up we get a second layer of arpeggios giving us a second melody engaging in a little bit of counterpoint.

[00:15:25]Counterpoint being the study the art of melodies how they are how they develop how they interact with one another usually in the context of having two or more at the same time. So, let's see where this goes.

[00:15:41]All right, we're bringing in the drums and the bass.

[00:15:47]And we bring in a solo. So, I need to sneeze.

[00:15:53]Okay, excuse me.

[00:15:54]>> [laughter] >> Excuse me. So, as I said, when you're making music balance between what is familiar and what is new. There is one universal exception no matter the style or genre which is solos and then electronic music has an additional exception which is dropping the beat.

[00:16:07]You bring in a solo you drop the beat as long as it sounds cool enough and it fits enough you can get away with almost anything. What does that mean? The principle of familiarity and new material becomes more relaxed which means you can do more it doesn't mean that it's you become infallible to it.

[00:16:24]It can still happen it's just that the risk becomes lesser. So, we are doing this we're bringing in a solo basically showing off the skills of the player deviating from the original material while the drum beat while the beat and the accompaniment does something else. Let's see where this goes.

[00:16:45]>> [music] >> Nice, yeah new drum beat new bass.

[00:16:49]And you can hear we're just having fun with the melodies here.

[00:16:53]Nice.

[00:16:54]>> [music] >> Nice.

[00:17:00]Nice.

[00:17:05]Okay, and now we're starting to mess with the volume. We're turning the volume down and then back up kind of giving this sense of fading back like fading out and then back in.

[00:17:16]Risky considering the very rough mix that we are getting with this.

[00:17:23]Um This part is working though. This part is working so let's see where this goes.

[00:17:33]Nice, moving into a new chord nice.

[00:17:40]All right, one of the parts we did before nice.

[00:17:44]And I just realized we're still continuing the dubstep drums with this but because we had the solo we bring this one in it doesn't really matter.

[00:17:52]So, yeah, this was one of the layers that we did. It's almost like this piece was composed the wrong way around.

[00:18:03]It's because we are now we are exploring each individual bit that we had in this very aggressive part one by one.

[00:18:16]Like we've spent the rest of the piece exploring that.

[00:18:20]So, maybe it's just Zef experimenting and seeing what happens and this is what happened. So, yeah, let's see where it goes.

[00:18:30]Nice and Yeah.

[00:18:37]Now we bring this part back.

[00:18:42]With a bit of extra added to it. So, yeah, we bring this part here.

[00:18:48]Now it sounds a lot better. Now it sounds a lot better because we have now grown accustomed to the rest of the sound that we've gotten throughout the piece. So, this time around it sounds a lot better. Not because it's it not because anything changed with the material but because we've now been exploring each smaller part of it or at least similar enough sounding parts that we are now acclimated to the sounds of all of them and now we can get all of them combined. Let's see where this goes.

[00:19:24]Nice.

[00:19:25]With the dubstep drums with the dubstep drums now. [music] All right, changing the drums around.

[00:19:38]Okay.

[00:19:41]Okay, so we have a brief moment here of some ritardando and accelerando, right?

[00:19:47]So, let me just close the water bottle I was refilling the water bottle. So, we bring in a quick we we tease the end of the track with a ritardando and accelerando. Right, so a ritardando is to gradually slow down the music, whereas an accelerando is to gradually speed up the music. So, we have a brief moment of a ritardando. We slow everything down teasing that the that the track is about to end. We speed it up and we jump back into this kind of stuff. Uh Violet says, "Are you a ritardando?" No, you are No, you're you're just a regular [ __ ] That's different, okay? So, with that, let's see where this goes.

[00:20:34]All right.

[00:20:36]And now we bring everything together.

[00:20:39]Let's see.

[00:20:45]This time the drums are a lot more more audible.

[00:20:50]Now, this iteration is good.

[00:20:55]This iteration is good. Uh does it have to be uh gradual or can it be sudden, too? If you suddenly change how fast or how slow you're you're going, that is just a tempo or a BPM change.

[00:21:09]Like that can just happen. That that can just happen. When you just suddenly go from uh 120 BPM, 120 beats per minute to 140, that can happen from one bar to another.

[00:21:21]It's difficult to do without a metronome, but it is perfectly possible to do.

[00:21:27]It is perfectly possible. Yeah. It's just that the gradual ones is just the ritardando and accelerando, whereas a tempo change, that's just a tempo change. Right, good. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. Like that's a sudden tempo change.

[00:21:43]It's just a tempo change. Like as there's no There's no um There's no fancy term for it. It's just a tempo change. All right, let's see let's see We got the last bit of of this over here. Let's see how this um I'm going to be honest here when I say I had a retelling of Murphy's Law on the monumental levels today. Oh, lovely. You will tell us all about it. For now, let's finish this. Let's see where this goes.

[00:22:12]Nice.

[00:22:19]All right.

[00:22:23]All right, we bring back this version as well. Then we do it four.

[00:22:30]Uh by the way, Murphy's Law in Latin America is different than Murphy's Law in the Americas. Cuz Murphy's Law, at least how I knew it, was the law of ironies. So, basically, you are waiting in in in Q1, like you're waiting in line one at the supermarket, and it's super long, and it doesn't advance. So, you switch to the fast lane that the one that is advancing a lot, and now you're stuck in the other one just goes super quickly. That is what we called Mur- Murphy's Law back. Maybe it's just a Guatemalan thing. But Murphy's Law in general is um anything anything that can happen will happen. Not not necessarily bad. Like it's usually referred to in in a bad context of oh, if something bad can happen, it will happen. But usually, Murphy's Law is if it can happen, it will happen kind of thing.

[00:23:20]So, uh let me go back over here. So, we're having the second variation of the material now for one more run. Let I mean let me go back a couple of seconds.

[00:23:28]Let's see where this goes. Let's see how this ends.

[00:23:34]All right, one more run, I think.

[00:23:38]And Okay, we run it We run its course. We do one last run of the beat. We get one uh one last low note. And we just cut it there. And with that, there you have it.

[00:23:54]Core Game Boy Electro by Zef, featured in Just Shapes and Beats and I think Geometry Dash as well as my understanding.

[00:24:03]A lot of risks at the start didn't pay off. Later down the line, a lot better. So, there you have it. There you have it. Once again, everybody, this has been a bastard's LFA, a layman-friendly analysis of a professionally trained musician and composer, and my objective here has been to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what's happened here musically. So, if you're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure to follow me on the channel. Subscribe to the channel.

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[00:26:59]Good stuff, man. Like it like it paid off in the end. It paid off in the end.

[00:27:02]So, good stuff, man. Good stuff. But uh yeah, let's move on. Let's move