Pelasta Punainen Pallo - End Credits

 I finally got around to actually uploading this piece online. A detailed account can be found in an earlier post.

Pelasta Punainen Pallo - End Credits

So that's how it sounds. I'm proud of it.

The Frontier

Every now and then I start up a track just for the heck of doing something. Anything. With out any real purpose to begin with. This is a journal of one such track:

The Frontier

Like I said this started out as something to do on an idle day. I layed out the beginning pads and bleeps one day and then nothing. The track sat on my hard drive for quite a while just waiting. Eventually I just forgot about this.

Then another idle day came and I browsed through my projects folder to find this one. I gave it a listen felt I could build on the simple beginning I had in my hands. I began laying drums and strings on, but the strings began to have a little too much of an ethnic vibe, which I for some reason did not want for this track. So I dumped most of the strings and pulled out the brass. They began with a simple idea that grew.

The more I wrote for the horns to play the more I felt the melody push you towards an entrance to some unfamiliar (yet all too familiar) place. So that became the theme to carry this track. The brass melody became grand and everything felt like it was going to plan. Then I hit a wall. What next? What happens when you get to the gate?

For a second time this track was left to wait.

For a while I had no answer. I made several different versions in my head but all of them sounded wrong. I actually spent a few weeks thinking about how to go with the second half. Then yesterday I fired up Sonar and began to write without much thinking of it. And the second half kinda just wrote itself.

In the end it was fitting that writing a track to portray the transportation between two worlds was so hard yet so easy to write.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar X1
• Sony SoundForge 7
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt4
• NI Battery 3
• NI Massive
• NI Absynth 5
• Z3ta+ FX
• Vienna Suite

Libraries and impulses:

• MOTU Ethno Instrument 2
• Zero G Animato
• Sonic Couture Konkrete 2
• Nine Volt Audio Stickbreakers 2: Ten Man Taiko
• Kirk Hunter Symphony Orchestra Diamond
• Cinematic Strings Monster Staccatos
• VSL Horizon series Epic Horns
• NI Kontakt 4 Library

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