INTRO
For the project, I had a burning desire to create the music for it because it would bring together two things I am passionate about. I had the idea since the beginning to produce a piece of music that sounds sinister and dark, but with more sci-fi textures. I wanted to blend in the softer sounds of ambient and techno with harsher and darker industrial stabs.
As this was going to be an ambient piece, I wanted to incorporate a lot of drone sounds that would loop throughout and provide a foundation for the stabs. I wanted to keep some form of a beat in the music as this would help me sync the cinematic and provide some feeling of dynamics. The main influences in this track came from artists such as Brian Eno, Lundin Oil and Varg, artists who use lots of textures in their music.
THE EQUIPMENT
The equipment I used to produce this track include:
- Pocket Operator PO14 - SUB
- Grainstorm Granular Synthesiser using recorded samples
- Helm VST Synth
- Roland Rubix24 Interface
- Ableton Live 9
THE SOUNDS
To achieve the fundamental textures on the track such as the pulsating bass and the rhythmic noise, I used my PO14 to generate a soft bass and controlled the low-pass filter to give it a pulsating effect. I chose to do this by hand to produce more variation in the rhythm. I then added audio effects in Ableton to isolate the low frequencies and a panning stereo effect to make it sound more interesting. The rhythmic noise used more complex audio effects to completely transform the sound into something sci-fi sounding:
THE DRUMS
To produce the drums with spring reverb, I had to emulate the way the spring would behave in response to the music to produce a squelchy industrial sound. I started off by adding chorus to the drums (an 808 kick was used), as this would make the sound richer and then I added a filter delay to add some soft subtle bounce to the kick drum. I then added another simple delay node and a frequency shifter to add some variation and grit to the rhythm.
This was then processed through an EQ to boost the bass and then it was sent into a reverb with a tiny size and decay time. This will produce the metallic timbre of the spring and add some slight echo to the sound. This was passed into a frequency shifter to simulate the vibration of the spring and then into a simple delay to add some more vibration to the sound. Finally I ran this into a drum compression rack to give some punch to the kick and some clarity to the metallic sounds. Here is the full rack:
THE NOISE
Another layer of noise was added by recording a granular synthesiser (Grainstorm) that used a sample of the sound of my room air freshener activating. I pitched and slowed down the sound to create the sound of heavy machinery. I then added a ton of large area reverb to make the sound more atmospheric. A non--synchronised LFO controls the carrier modulation in the software and this is then recorded into Ableton. I then added a frequency shifter to make it sound more textured and a large area reverb again to enhance the stereo.
THE STABS
To produce the gritty stab sound, I used two sawtooth waves, modulated them together, and finally added some detuning to them (in the VST synth Helm). A sub bass was added to create more punch and feedback was used to create a harsh screaming sound. The tuning of the feedback was automated to give it a shifting sound, and the amplitude envelope was set to have only maximum sustain.
For the industrial stabs, I recorded percussion samples from the PO14 and added another ton of reverb to give it a haunting and dystopian sound. I also used subtle frequency shifting to add some electrical distortion to the sound.
ARRANGING AND MASTERING
I arranged the tracks in a way that would allow for the camera cuts to be made in a rhythm and to support the atmosphere of the environment. I wanted the title sequence to last about 20 seconds, so I decided to have it consisting entirely of rhythmic noise, with a few stabs. I then wanted to transition into the drum beat by having a brutal stab sound and a bold title card playing. This is synchronised to the music and starts off the main footage of the cinematic.
I then had varying stabs throughout the music to give opportunities to cut the shots on. For the end sequence, I wanted the song to calm down and finish on a suspenseful synth swell. This would then transition into a glitched sound on which my logo would appear through a glitch. To master the song, I simply added some automatic drum mastering which adds some power to the bass elements and retains the upper mid to high frequencies.
Overall, I was really pleased with how this turned out and it was really fun to make. I didn't really have any issues when making this as I was already familiar of the processes involved. The next step now is to add it to the master cinematic track and synchronise the shots to it. Hope you all like it :D
Comments