Pelasta Punainen Pallo - charity concert

Ok, let's break this long overdue silence on this diary.

I  did a pretty rush job at work. Due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there was a charity concert in Helsinki, which YleX was a part of. The sound work for the radio and TV spots and the YleX Areena web-TV broadcast fell into my lap.

The first thing that was decided was the tone of the sound. None of us working on this project wanted to have the sound feel too solemn or downcast. We wanted to give people a good feeling about the concert. In the end they're going to see their favorite artists perform and the side product is them helping out. How can you do that if they get a dark mood from the sound? On the other hand we didn't want to go with something overly energetic since that would give out a wrong signal as well.

I started with the beat. I didn't want it to be too in your face but it still needed to have a driving force. I took the human heart beat and built the basic beat around it. Over this I built a mix of dub and downtempo drums that rolls forward slowly but steadily. I made the drums sound quite dark to give them a more dramatic tone.

I didn't want to use your traditional Japan clichés so I steered away from your normal goto Japan instruments: the shakuhachi and the koto. Instead I focused on getting the feel of Japan into a set of modern pads. I gave them a lot of air to contrast the dark tones of the drums. I also layered some electric guitar licks into them.

The final touch I added was the sound of a geiger counter ticking. For me this was the most dramatic part of the sound of this project. The geiger counter is such a regocnizable that it really drives home things. It's a simple touch which doesn't underline the tragedies too much.

One Dollar Trilogy: A stranger in these parts

And this is the third piece from the "One Dollar Trilogy".

A stranger in these parts.

This is again built with the same instrument set as the two other tracks. I saw no need to change the sound too much since all the parts of this trilogy are short (hence the cheap sounding name).

I imagined this as a sort of farewell for the nameless (these dudes never have names, their parents must have hated them) hero as he limps into the sunset boding ill omens for the next town he stumbles into.

Although this trilogy was a rush job it was great fun to write these and I think I will return to these on a later date to create more pages for this story.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 3
• Independence Free
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter
• Melda Equalizer
• Sonar PerfectSpace

Libraries and impulses:

• Project SAM Brass
• VSL Horizon series Chamber Strings
• VSL Horizon series Overdrive
• VSL Horizon series Concert Guitar
• NI Kontakt 3 Library
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Ilio Origins
• Independence Free Library
• Gnomehammer Sleigh Bells

• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion impulses

One Dollar Trilogy: Bullets, bloody bullets

So, today I finished the two other parts of my "One Dollar Trilogy". The second track is titled:

Bullets, bloody bullets.

I built this one around the same palette as the first one. It's actually in the same frigging project file. This one needed to be a battle music, but I didn't want to go the normal way and raise the tempo to make it more faster paced. I kept the tempo same but used the snares to bring a military march type feel to the track. I also gave more room for the trumpet to play to give that Texas/Mexico feel so essential to Westerns.

This is clearly a tighter sounding song and it's a track I might want to extend once I have more time to do it. But for now (and for the theme of this trilogy) it is as it is.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 3
• Independence Free
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter
• Melda Equalizer
• Sonar PerfectSpace

Libraries and impulses:

• Project SAM Brass
• VSL Horizon series Chamber Strings
• VSL Horizon series Overdrive
• VSL Horizon series Concert Guitar
• NI Kontakt 3 Library
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Ilio Origins
• Independence Free Library
• Gnomehammer Sleigh Bells

• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion impulses

One Dollar Trilogy: Red Creek

I received a project at work which required me to write three short western themed music bits for an awards gala. It was a rush job since I only had a few days to do everything. And to top that I didn't get the video clips the music was meant for since it was in edit at the same time. Here's the first of these tracks. I titled it:

Red Creek.

Since time was sparse I didn't even begin to create something inspired and new but started with a basic western palette of sounds: lonely primitive drums, the Mexican trumpet, the acoustic guitar. Around these I wrote a simple progression to create a foreboding mood; a waiting but driven atmosphere. The track grows as it goes along. I used a lot of other familiar elements on this one as well. The always ominous church bell is present as is the massive french horn section and the gritty distorted electric guitar.

This is not a very difficult track as it is simple in structure and melody. But I like it all the same.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 3
• Independence Free
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter
• Melda Equalizer
• Sonar PerfectSpace

Libraries and impulses:

• Project SAM Brass
• VSL Horizon series Chamber Strings
• VSL Horizon series Overdrive
• VSL Horizon series Concert Guitar
• NI Kontakt 3 Library
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Ilio Origins
• Independence Free Library
• Gnomehammer Sleigh Bells

• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion impulses

Way of the Fist

I've been a fan of Hong Kong action movies for I don't even remember how long. This track is a tribute to them. The name of the track comes from Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist):

Way of the Fist

I originally started this track as a way of learning to do Asian drums (taikos and Chinese style). It kind of evolved from there. The backing of the track is firmly rooted on the beating of the taiko drum, which are accompanied by Indian dohl drums (for the taiko drums I used Nine Volt Audio's Stickbreakers Vol2 and for the dohls Tonehammer's Epic Dohl). To these I combined Chinese Bangu drums from the MOTU's Ethno Instrument and a modern drum kit (well, the NI Abbey Road 60's drums, but that's close enough).

After I had the drums down I thought it would be cool to combine instruments from different continents into one. So I began to go through my arsenal and see what kind of a crazy instrument mix I could get. There are plucked strings from Japan (koto and shamisen), Finland (kantele) and North America (a telecaster guitar). Strings range from western orchestra strings to a gypsy violin layered with a Chinese Erhu. Woodwinds from North America (Native American flute from Orange Tree Samples' MesaWinds) and Japan lead the solo section of the ensemble. Then everything is layered with synths and massive orchestral brass.

This is one of those tracks that I didn't build around a story, bu rather just let it unfold itself as I went along. Rarely has it been so easy to write a song not centered around pivotal story points. What drives this one is the general mood of things happening and the hero simply kicking ass. So enjoy this one.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 7
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt4 
• East West PLAY 2
• UVI Workstation
• NI FM8
• NI Massive
• Sonar PerfectSpace
• Timeworks Equalizer
• Waves L3 Multimaximizer

Libraries and impulses:

• Nine Volt Audio Stickbreakers Vol.2: Ten Man Taiko
• Orange Tree Samples MesaWinds
• Tonehammer Epic Dohls
• NI Abbey Road 60's Drums
• NI Kontakt4 Library
• Project SAM True Strike 2
• Project SAM Brass 
• VSL Horizon series Epic Horns
• VSL Horizon series FX Percussion
• Bela D Media Sampled Landscape
• Ilio Origins
• MOTU Ethno Instrument 
• EastWest Quantum Leap Gypsy
• EastWest Quantum Leap Ministry of Rock
• EastWest Quantum Leap Voices of Passion

• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion impulses

Avatar Pony Quadrille

Ok, as I said in the previous entry that the theme for the horse show we wrote music for was the film "Avatar". So there isn't much I can say about the sound of this score, since it was really defined by James Horner before us.

An interesting thing happened while working on this though. I had already passed the music on for the final rehearsal when it was noticed that the practise arena and the show arena aren't the same size. The practise arena was smaller so the ponies took a shorter time to ride through the program than they did in the show arena. So I hauled ass back to my gear and extended the drums and the ending for over 2 minutes. So the end result is 11 minutes and 34 second long.

In the end I believe we created an enjoyable score for the show. Take a listen yourself.

Avatar Pony Quadrille

The show was performed on 24.10.2010 at the Helsinki International Horse Show.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 7
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt4
• UVI Workstation
• Sonar PerfectSpace
• Timeworks Equalizer
• Waves L3 Multimaximizer

Libraries and impulses:

• Cinesamples Drums of War
• Tonehammer Epic Dohls
• Tonehammer Forgotten Voices: Francesca
• Project SAM True Strike 2
• Project SAM Brass
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Bela D Media Sampled Landscape
• Ilio World Winds
• MOTU Ethno Instrument
• Kirk Hunter Symphony Orchestra Diamond
• Cinematic Strings Monster Staccatos
• NI Kontakt 4 Library

• Tonehammer Epic Hall Convolutions

Breaking new ground

For the last few weeks I and Teemu have been working on something really new to us. Well, the material we've been writing isn't actually new but the reason for it is. We've been commissioned to write performance music for a live performance pony quadrille. This is something neither of us has done before. Actually neither of us has been that close to anything resembling a horse (ok, ok, they're ponies) before and we know basically nothing of such shows. It's not the first (nor will it probably be our last) leap into unknown territories and we're really getting a crash course in horse shows. At least no one can say we wouldn't live up to our motto: "If you need music we'll create it."

The music will be in the vein of Avatar, since that is the theme of the show.