Composing by colors

This is one of the weirdest composing tasks I've had so far. I'm responsible for how an outdoor event sounds like and the only thing I have to go with are palm trees swaying in the wind and the colors green and orange. So now I'm pondering how does green sound? And what about orange?

The helping hand of technology

I've been battling with a crowded monitor display for quite a while now and finally the camel snapped. I went out and purchased a new monitor. A larger one. My previous display had a resolution of 1280x1024, which isn't bad if you're used to just surfing the net and writing the text or two. But for anything as large scale as my compositions tend to be it started to get rather small. So yesterday I bought a BenQ G2222HDL wide screen display with a resolution of 1920x1080 and boy is my screen now a lot less messy.

After the fall: Prypiat suite

"After the fall" is a video game inspired apocalyptic story. The first part (which is actually the third track, writing these isn't going to happen in sequence) of it is:

Prypiat suite

Prypiat is an abandoned city originally built close to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and inhabited by the plant's workers and their families. It was transformed into a ghost town after the, umm, minor malfunction at the plant in 1986. It has already been featured in a few games, but since this is simply a concept production I feel that it's a good place to use.

As the name suggest this is a suite of cues, in other words this is a collection ideas what might happen in the Prypiat chapter of the fictional game. The different cues that make up this suite are:

1. 00:00 - Out of quarantine
2. 01:03 - Abandoned
3. 01:55 - Where am I?
4. 04:09 - Death
   
5. 05:44 - Strange footprints
   
6. 06:21 - Run!
   
7. 07:48 - Leaving Prypiat
   

I was originally inspired to write this kind of music after playing Resident Evil 4 and being a long time fan of post-apocalyptic scifi I felt like writing music for a fictional game in the vain of RE4 set in the future after the world of man has fallen. So it's the vein of survival horror. In this chapter the main character is mainly unarmed and running and hiding and just plain surviving.

In this chapter the main character also has his first contact with the horrifying creatures preying in this cold world. He doesn't yet stand a change in fighting them so he has to keep quick on his feet if he wants to make it out alive. The chapter ends with him leaving Prypiat.

I started out to write music that is less thematic and more dramatic and ambient. I started with several NI Absynths at the core of the sound for this. From them I got the spacey desolate whining pads the play through out most of the track. They are the lungs of this song as they breath in and out of the listener consciousness. They provide the track with a welcome feeling of alienation and unfamiliarity, which is a must for such subjects.

If the pads were the lungs then the beating heart are the percussions. For most of the track there is a steady presence of massive low booming drums that keep the track in motion. These sounds were provided by Project SAM True Strike 2, Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion and NI Absynth. To contrast them I used the Epic Dohls from Tonehammer to give the track a feeling of suddenness as they provided a shard rushing sound to mix. With them I could rush at the listener if I needed to.

A big part of the sound is the female vocals provided by Tonehammer Forgotten Voices: Francesca library. The vocals are a key element at bringing a human side to a track filled with alien noises and on rushing sounds. They brought warmth and emotion. They also increased the feeling of alienation from as they brought an element of home into the dark and hollow soul of the track.

An interesting fact about this track is that for once I didn't spend more than an hour tweaking the mix. It had all come quite nicely together in the composing phase, so the end mixing consisted of some equalizing and level checking. Wish every project was as easy to mix.

In the end this kind of sound is something I want to explore more and will do so as I compose the other parts of "After the fall" concept album.

Gear I used for these tracks:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 7
  
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 4
  
• NI Absynth 5
  
• NI FM8
• NI Battery 3
• PSP Nitro
• NI Guitar Rig 4 Pro
• UWI Workstation
• Timeworks Equalizer

Libraries:

• Tonehammer Epic Dohl
• Tonehammer Forgotten Voices: Francesca
  
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
  
• Project SAM True Strike 2
• Project SAM Brass
• NI Battery 3 Library
• NI Kontant 4 Library
  
• Cinematique Instruments Bowed Psaltery
• Soniccouture Music Box
• MOTU Ethno Instrument
• Vienna Horizon Series FX Percussion
  

A perfect moment of freedom

Do you know that feeling of total independence of the world when you're pushing yourself to the extremes of your performance ability? That moment when the world around you just fades away, all the stress of daily life disappears, your mind is freed from all arbitrary things and the only thing left is you, your body and the movement?

A perfect moment of freedom.

This is my first track of the year 2010. For quite a while now I've wanted to do a track about movement. The idea came out of watching pictures of parkour and free running. Both sports break the norms of moving in the urban environment by finding alternative routes going about. They both contain a certain search for freedom. Then again one can experience freedom from the world in basically any sports you really concentrate on. For me this happens every time I walk into a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym. What's outside the walls doesn't matter, it simply doesn't exist. The only thing that matters is the movement you're doing right then and there.

I actually had less trouble figuring out where to start than with most tracks. Somehow this track seemed so clear from the start. I wanted to use a lot of airy instruments in this one. For that I fired up several NI Absynths and a few NI Reaktors, since they provide some of the best soundscaping possibilities. Also on the top of my list was Soniccouture's Pan drum, a sampled hang drum. It has an amazing out of this world sound, which was just perfect for this song. They created the backbone of this track. On top of them I layered lush strings, ethnic percussions, massive french horns, a Chinese Gu Zheng zither, the legendary Japanese Shakuhachi flute and a Boesendorfer grand piano.

As I said this track is more about the feeling than head on action. That's why I didn't write hectic drum lines, even though there is a strong beat in the song. Hectic just wasn't what was needed. Tranquility is more like it. A slight meditative state of mind, without actually being meditative music. This thought I carried with me to the melodies. They're ambient in nature, but there are parts you can grab a hold of. The different instruments play with each other, one taking the lead after another. I'm thrilled that the mesh of different sounds came out so well. For me the sounds of this track breathe positive energy out of the speakers.

This is also one of those tracks I'm completely satisfied with. I wouldn't change one note or sound from it. Creating this track has been a real pleasure.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 7
  
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 4
  
• NI Absynth 5
  
• NI FM8
• NI Battery 3
• NI Massive
• NI Reaktor 5
• Vienna Instrument
• EastWest Quantum Leap PLAY
• UWI Workstation
  
• Noizware TriDirt
• Cakewalk Perfect Space
• Sonic Timeworks Equalizer
  
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter

Libraries:

• Analogue Drums Big Mono
  
• Fixed Noise OTTO
  
• Soniccouture Gu Zheng
  
• Soniccouture Konkrete
  
• Soniccouture Konkrete 2
  
• Soniccouture Pan Drum
  
• Vienna Horizon Series Epic Horns
• Vienna Special Edition
  
• Tonehammer Epic Dohl
• EastWest Quantum Leap Ministry of Rock
• MOTU Ethno Instrument
  

EMMA music awards gala 2010

I had an interesting project to work on: writing music for a music awards gala show. This was again new ground to tread on, since I've never composed music for a live awards show before.

The theme of the show was the circus. But we didn't want it to sound like your traditional circus but a more modern, a little macabre circus. Then again we didn't want it to sound like any other Finnish award show and so we opted to go big.

To get that massive sound I turned to Tonehammer's Epic Dohls and slave ships. You know the age old worn out image of slaves rowing and an obese guy in a loin cloth beating their pace. That's what I started from. To get that kind of driving solid beat at the core of the music. The same drums control the music in different variations from one cue to another. The music in all is percussion driven with several smaller percussions and electric and acoustic drum kits joining in.

The next step was to create the kind of circus atmosphere without going too traditional. Electronics was what everybody wanted. But what kind of electronics? You couldn't go too spacey and or too pop. In the end I chose to use some really odd electronic sounds to form the basic progression. They're on the border of being really out there, but still have an edge of familiarity. They also gave the music that desired macabre feel. Needless to say that I relied heavily on NI Absynth. An important element was also Tonehammer Phonautogram library.

On top of these core elements I wrote layers of stuff ranging from light string arrangements to rough and tough heavy guitar riffs via ethnic flavors and electronic buzzings. They come and go as the elements of the show require them to do so.

An interesting part of the project was writing background music for a magician performing there. This is where I broke the basic back bone which had dominated the other cues. It needed to be swifter than the rest and I think it needed a more mysterious air about it. The sound here is still dominated by the Epic Dohls, but massive brass and strings come out to play essential parts. The end result is a mixture of awe and fright. And I like it.

One of the things about this project was that I didn't actually get to see the results until the show was aired. Everything was being developed still on the day before the show I had no idea how all the elements would work together. In the end it worked well, which is always a relief.

As I've said all along this was an interesting composing project and I'm glad I got the chance to do it.

Update 6.2.2010: Finally I have these in presentable form so here's a bite of what the music sounded like.

EMMA 2010 Theme (short version)
EMMA 2010 Theme (longer version)
The Magician
The Nominee Categories

The Nominee Categories is mixed from several different loopable elements, so don't mind the rough edges.

Gear I used for this project:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 3
  
• NI Absynth 4
  
• NI FM8
  
• NI Massive
• NI B4 II
• NI Battery 3
  
• NI Koreplayer
• NI Guitar Rig 3
• QuikQuak Upstereo
• MeldaEqualizer
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter
  

Libraries:

• Tonehammer Epic Dohl
• Tonehammer Phonautograms
• Tonehammer Gnomehammer Kazoo Ensemble
  
• NI Kontakt 3 Library
• NI Battery 3 Library
  
• Project SAM Brass
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Ilio Origins
  
• Hollow Sun K3 Bass Station Library
  

Latest experiences

I wrote about ordering Native Instruments Komplete 6. Well I finally got around to actually using the new tools in productions and I have to say I'm impressed. Especially Kontakt has been tweaked really well from the previous versions. I always ran in to trouble with the Direct-from-disc loading with the older versions, but with version 4 this works like a charm and found myself just loading more and more instruments while working. It was just a joy to work with the new Kontakt 4.

Absynth 5 seems to be even better than the previous versions and the rest of the classic soft synths in the Komplete packet are killers. Sorry for the shameless product pluck but working with them is just sheer pleasure.

Also I've been waiting to really use Tonehammer's Propanium and Epic Dohl libraries. They are absurdly excellent. The propanium has such an off worldly sound that you just get inspired by that alone. Also the Epic Dohls are massively usable. You can hear the ensemble in the individual sounds.

Finally have to mention Bela D Media's The Giovani Edition is a brilliant choir library. I've had it lying on my hard drive for quite a while now but this is about the first time I actually use it. The library has a really aetherical sound which is perfect for haunting choral passages. Can't wait for Bela D Media to finish of their choir library with a male and female choir... At least the boy and girl choirs rock.

I'll chug the tracks I worked on here so you can hear what I'm talking about. They're just a collection of ideas and as such are rough and unfinished. They're for a short scifi film.

Landing
The ship descents
Killing time

Gear I used for these tracks:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 7
  
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers and instruments:

• NI Kontakt 4
  
• NI Absynth 5
  
• NI FM8
  
• NI Massive
• NI Koreplayer
• u-He Zebra CM
• NI Guitar Rig 4 Pro
  

Libraries:

• Tonehammer Propanium
  
• Tonehammer Epic Dohl
  
• Bela D Media The Giovani Edition
  
• Project SAM True Strike 2
• Vienna Symphonic Library Horizon series Epic Horns
• NI Acoustic Refractions
  
• NI Kontakt 4 Library
• Samplelogic AIR
  

Isolation

This is about a track called:

Isolation

I started working on this track at my day job when I needed to test out my new computer and the software I installed on it. So it's basically a test track.

Inspiration for this one came from the brilliant movie "District 9". I loved it's realistic approach to scifi, the themes it touched and well just about everything about it. I wanted to create something on a similar basis.

As the basic ideas and inspiration behind this track were quite opressive I wanted to create a gritty sound. This in turn gave me a good chance to get familiar with NI Guitar Rig 3, which I hadn't used before. Also getting my hands on FM8 was something I had waited for a while. I used quite a lot of distortion and compressing on a lot of the instruments to get that dirty sound. I found that Audio Damage's RoughRider gives out a quite nice crushed sound so I used that quite a lot on different tracks.

The biggest new technical thing on this track was mixing it in surround sound. It's a whole new world for me and experimenting doing a surround mix took some time. The first four or five mixes were totally and utterly incomprehensible. But after a few mistakes I found the right kind of balance for everything so that the track sounds good in normal stereo and surround. Listening to in surround gives a few more little things to the listener, but it's not necessary.

With a lot emphasis on the grittiness and harshness of sound I wanted to bring a "human" element into the track. I chose a set of natural sounds from an up close and personal violin to warm ethnic percussions and Arabian Oud lute. I used them to round out the overall sound and to get a more vibrant air. The middle between the earthy natural instruments and the gritty synthetic side I filled with orchestral strings and brass.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the results and will definately continue exploring along these lines.

Gear used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers and instruments:

• NI Kontakt 3
  
• NI FM8
  
• u-He Zebra
  
• NI Battery 3
  
• NI Massive
  
• Cakewalk TTS-1
• NI Guitar Rig 3
  

Libraries:

• NI Kontakt 3 Library
  
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
  
• Cakewalk TTS-1 Library
  
• NI Battery 3 Library