Area Zero Theme (Pokemon Scarlet/Violet) | Metal Guitar Cover

Area Zero theme from Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, a metal cover by High Z Productions. Professor Turo shaves his head and grabs a guitar to perform the theme song for his version of paradise. Instead of a Pokemon battle, prepare for a guitar battle.

----------
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/c/HighZ?sub_c...
Discord:   / discord  
Twitter:   / highzproduction  
Instagram:   / nos_corvidae  
Tiktok:   / highzproductions  
Patreon:   / highz  
----------

After covering the Cassiopeia battle theme, it was time for a complete 180 (and now for something completely different!). The first time venturing into Area Zero with the Made in Abyss -like look, this song hits you with its giant choir section and you know you're in for something serious. Then the second half of the song comes on with its quirky chords and you can’t help but feel something terribly wrong and utterly unnatural has happened here. So many questions pop up and the Pokemon are strong, aggressive, and start to get really strange the further down you go. This last part of the game proved to be an incredible crescendo and is easily one of the top moments in all of Pokemon game stories. So I just had to cover this song even if it isn’t a typical kind of song.

Did you beeline straight for the story objectives? I have to admit that I took my time descending into the crater and caught as many new Pokemon as I could to fill up the pokedex as much as possible before reaching the bottom. While creating this cover, the choir section was the first thing I went straight for. It only felt right to attempt it with guitars, so I brought my computer to its knees piling on the layers of guitar tracks. I also used layering for the second half. Panning and quieter trackers really helped create the unhinged vibe. To create the slow attack I used a compressor triggered by a kick you actually can’t hear - in order to make Cubase trigger the side chain I had to have a kick unmuted but not routed to any output.

It's been pretty cold (for the area) at night and sunny during the day, and this has had an affect on the tuning stability of my guitars lately. To get this cover done I went ahead and picked the guitars that stay in tune the best. I still had to tune them every once in a while but thankfully the evertune on the Solar decided to cooperate; it didn't get stuck when I tuned it up and it didn't drift out of tune. I've had the most luck with the seven string versions of the evertune, but again, that might just be the way the luck landed.

The biggest challenge was mixing this song - there's so many layers that they would cause clipping with overlapping frequencies. I tried my best to mix this without it being too ridiculous, and while I'm not a professional studio engineer, I give it the good old hobbyist try. The next most challenging thing was the performance. Not so much because of the difficulty, this song is relatively easy, but because I've been pushing to finish things up in real-life. This video was filmed mostly after midnight over the span of two days (sorry neighbors, I tried to keep it quiet) so I did my best to play without falling asleep. The show must go on!

I pushed really hard to get this song out as soon as possible - I just felt so motivated. That’s the power of the impact this game had on me. I’ve been a huge Pokemon fan since red and blue in 1998 and it’s simply breathtaking to see how far these games have come and how incredible the OSTs have been with each generation. So I’ve done my best to make this song live up to its avant garde inspiration.

00:00 Through the zero gate
00:13 Extreme ecosystem
00:45 Traversing the upper layers
01:17 Encounter at the abandoned station
01:45 Violent exotic fauna
02:04 Entering the cave
02:16 Unnatural selection
02:48 Paradox Pokemon attacks!
03:05 Uneasy coexistence
03:20 Watched from above
03:37 Fighting through the path down
04:08 Iron Meow