Zelda's theme played on a single Heineken beer bottle

12:20 PM on 05.20.2009   |   Dale North

15 comments

Heineken is my go-to beer for open bars. It's the best of the worst, and a good stand in for not being that Bud Light guy -- or not being that beer snob douche. But as far as instruments go, a piano is my go-to. Remixer Mattias Holmgren get the most ouf of his Heine though, enjoying it as both a drink and an instrument to pay tribute to a great videogame tune.

The remixer explains his methods on his featured "Zelda Heineken" ocremix.org page:

The other day while having the friday beer I came up with a weird idea (as always). Why not make a song totally made up of sounds from a Heineken bottle? So later that evening I went into my studio with a beer, sampled it in all kinds of weird ways. Clapping the bottom (makes for a good and solid bass drum sound), hitting the sides with my nails, a screwdriver and some other stuff.

This song, which took Holmgren a couple of hours to complete, isn't just novel -- it's quite good. The percussion is pretty clever, and he manages to work in a pretty musical arrangement. Best of all, the whistling bottle sounds kind of like an ocarina! Download the full song and listen for yourself at Overclocked Remix.

Read more about the recording process after the jump.

"The other day while having the friday beer I came up with a weird idea (as always). Why not make a song totally made up of sounds from a Heineken bottle? So later that evening I went into my studio with a beer, sampled it in all kinds of weird ways. Clapping the bottom (makes for a good and solid bass drum sound), hitting the sides with my nails, a screwdriver and some other stuff.

Then finally to create a melodic instrument with actual tones I sampled the windy sound of blowing into the bottle with different levels of beer in the can (which obviously gives different pitch). I sampled the beer at 5 different levels and at each level I made 4 different distinct sounds (like hard, light, and sustained-note blow). Then some sounds from the cap hitting a table etc.

The sampling sessions gave me 28 samples of Heineken notes (all articulations included) and 25 samples of drum-like sounds from the can, and I was ready to start making some music of it. Well, not yet...actually I had to build the instruments in some sort of sampler and I chose Kontakt 3 since it's my main sampler and I love all it's features.

Building the instrument patches took about 2-3 hours and then I arranged a really experimental remix of Zelda with the sounds...creazy stuff!"