27th of January

A simple video blog this time. Just check it out:

Don't forget me

I recently released a single track called:

Don't forget me.

Remembering things seems to be a little difficult sometimes? You tend to forget the little things, but we usually remember the big things, the important things. Important people. But what if we didn't? What if your spouse simply couldn't remember you? What if they really forgot who you are when you've left their side?

That is the feeling I tried to channel in this track. No loud parts, no epic percussions or brass here. This one's about the emotion.

This track is basically an evolving loop since the main melody the piano plays repeats itself through out the progression of the song. I chose this form because most of our days pretty much go along the same routines as the others. We don't usually even notice it and most of it is good for us. Routines aren't that bad.

I wanted to keep the feel of this track a little hopeful. Because maybe, just maybe, she or he will remember you when come home. That would be something to look forward to.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar X1

Samplers and instruments:

• NI Kontakt 4
  
• NI KorePlayer
  
• NI Massive
  
• NI FM8
  
• Vienna Instrument Special Edition
  
• Sample Logic Cinematic Guitars
  
• NI Kontakt 4 Library
  
• Cinematique Instruments Bowed Guitars
  
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
• Project SAM Brass
  

Effects:

• Vienna Suite
  

Chase

The elevator doors slide open. The first thing you see is that they're carrying guns. You don't wait to see more but turn and bolt back inside the room and towards the window...

Chase.

This one's set into the same story line as "Sunburn". This delivers even more of an adrenaline punch than the previous installation as I've upped the tempo and intensity quite a bit.

...The balcony. A quick look around. You turn and jump just as the door of the room is kicked in. The railing of another balcony, swing up, break the window, dive in. Bullets behind you...

I wanted this track to be more relentless in pace and sound. The beat drives on with force and only breaks for short periods before the release at the end. There's no time to breathe, no quiet moments of peace here. The beat makes sure your feet won't stop. Because if they do, you're dead.

...Yank the door open. Quick look around the hallway. Staircase to the right. You dash to it. Sounds from above, men rushing downward. Jump the first railing, a few steps along the wall, then another jump...

I also made the overall sound a lot harder. The sounds are sharper and more broken. I didn't want this to be as ambient as Sunburn, but rather be an in your face kind of track. The sounds will assault you and probably mangle your ears and nose a bit, but they're there for that reason. Because they are harsh. Because they will kick you. Because if they don't, you are going to die.

...You land and roll to an open door. A window there, the roof of a building visible there. It's far. But hopefully not too far. Your feet move, you gather speed. Jump. The window breaks. An eternity. Then the roof. You roll, and sprint for cover. Shooting behind you, bullets miss. A door. You open it, duck inside.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar X1

Samplers and instruments:

• NI Kontakt 4
• FutureAudioWorkshop Circle
• Cakewalk RXP
• Synapse Audio Junglist
• u-he Tyrell Nexus 6
• HG Fortune Serenity
• HG Fortune Altair 4
• NI Massive
• Sample Logic Cinematic Guitars
• FM Future Loops

Effects:

• Vienna Suite
• Illformed Glitch 1.3
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter
• Kjaerhus Classic Delay
• u-he Zebrify
• Variety of Sound Ferric TDS

Burning Jetfuel

I've been a wee bit delayed in writing this but here's my rant about:

Burning Jetfuel.

I started this for a competition on Audiodraft. The competition was for a World War II era aerial battle game and the makers wanted to have that style in the music. Well, this track isn't exactly what you might expect for that era. When I laid down the first pieces I noticed that this track got out of hand. And frankly I didn't mind.

I didn't mind because I started to have too much fun writing this. Everything just sort of fell in place as I went along. I didn't think about grand aerial battles, but my thoughts were more focused on the feeling of rushing through the clouds and smoke. So this is more about the adrenaline of survival than the violence of combat.

This track though orchestral in color is really more of a rock song. It's driven forward by a heavy bass and drums and the melodies are saturated with electric guitars. Don't worry it's still layered full with lush strings and big brasses.

And that's about all I've got to say about this one.

Another calling card

We did another calling card video. This time it's for Teemu:

Calling cards

(I've spent quite a lot of time this autumn thinking about our calling cards. I've tried to re-imagine what our cards should be like. I wanted them to show our sounds somehow (which incidentally is frigging hard when you're dealing with cardboard). The first thing I came up with was memory sticks. We got them printed and packed them full of music and sound design stuff (a whopping 11 hours and 28 minutes worth). 

But I wasn't really yet satisfied. I wanted to have something we could just easily give someone. For some reason I started to think of videos. They've usually got some sound and most people are kinda visually oriented.(Geewiz, film composers making videos with images and music... That's original.) But I gave it a shot and came up with this:

(And here's the music on SoundCloud)

Now, if we could only get our hands on something like this:

Come on Sony. Get that sucker into production so we can finally have our cool calling cards...

Sunburn

The sun shines brightly. The pavement feels rough under your running feet. Jump. Grab a drain pipe. Start climbing. Gravel on the roof splatters around as you jump on it. You move again, running...

Sunburn

Sunburn is a track started out as something else than a track. I originally needed a loop to fill out the background of a radiospot. For this I used about an hour but then the loop started to sound pretty damn good on it's own.

In the original loop I only had some atmospherics and the beat, which clearly were not enough for a ful fledged song. The biggest thing about the original loop was the lack of  a melody since it was not meant to have one. And that was the first thing I started to work upon. For the melody I drew inspiration from the soundtrack of Bladerunner. I kept it fairly simple so I wouldn't loose the atmospheric nature of the song.

...The sun light reflects of the glass and steel around you. Foot steps on the gravel behind you. They're chasing you. The roof ends. You jump...

After I got the melody down I started to work on the structure. I wanted to have this track rolling and not change too much, but still wanted clearly different sections as I imagined this to be the soundtrack of  a Mirror's Edge like video game level. I wanted to have some calming moments, some dramatic moments and some parts that rolled forward. And all the time I wanted to keep a good pace. So I imagined different kinds of situations you could get into and began to mold the section according to them.

...A railing. You grab it mid air. Fling yourself over it. A fire escape. Kick the ladder down. Slide...

After I had finished the structure and mixed the track I still wanted to mess with it a bit. I popped the beats and the melodies on different tracks in Sonar and started to mangle them with Illformed's Glitch plugin. I used it to create new drum fills and section changes. I used it to stop the beat, reverse it, retrigger it and just generally abuse the hell out of those drums. And then I did the same to the melodies. To top it of I intentionally forgot about making clean and smooth cuts between the effected parts and the clean ones.

...Head down the alley and back into the sunlight. A plaza, people there. Blend in.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5

Samplers and instruments:

• u-he Tyrell Nexus 6
• Synapse Audio Junglist
• HG Fortune Serenity Free
• HG Fortune UltraSwamp Free
• HG Fortune Altair 4 Beta
• Cakewalk RXP
• NI KorePlayer
• Novakill Neokiller III
• Ummet Ozcan Genesis

Effects:

• Cakewalk z3ta+ FX
• Variety of Sound Ferric TDS
• Illformed Glitch 1.3
• MeldaProductions MEqualizer
• Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter