How I Did It
Uses samples from:
Samples are used in:
Tools I Used
Orion Pro (host program + a few really good vst drum sequencers and synthesizers), Junglist, Absynth, Superwave, and various soundfonts/drum sounds from my top secret underground bunker archive in New Mexico. : )
Samples I Used
Just that singing bit from Sister Saviour.
Original Samples
Not samples, but I either modified some existing presets or created new ones for Absynth, Superwave, Junglist and the synths provided in Orion Pro (Wasp mainly). Also used a custom soundfont for electric guitar.
Process
I started with the piano piece. I have a midi keyboard controller that I use to compose keyboard and chord pieces on my computer. I actually started out wanting to make an epic soundtrack type song. Once I had a couple of piano frames completed, I added a reverb plugin to give the piano more depth. This is a big tip! I always treat each instrument individually with it's own bit of reverb. You can use the same effect for multiple instruments, but the amount of reverb or delay or whatever should be judged individually as the song is built, then tweaked at the end as the whole song is playing.
Anywayz, then I added the warm background accompanyment using Absynth, which is ideal for this sort of thing. Absynth makes the best pads and mood-inducing backgrounds/soundscapes of any softsynth I've ever used. Make sure and go buy it...it's a bit expensive (300.00), but you wont find better sound and flexibility. After the background, I started building the rhythms. You can produce very real and complex rhythms by taking a basic rhythm, adding a decent amount of large room reverb and cranking up the midrange while decreasing the treble, bass and volume. Then open another drum instrument, and create a new rhythm which is more complex, and turn up the treble and bass, and add very little reverb, but add just a tiny bit of ping pong delay to the high hats. Gives the rhythm section depth, resonance, and more flavor. For more diversity, you can tie in the first highly reverbed track to an LFO controlled Cutoff filter, which will make it modulate slowly between bright and dark sound. You gotta play around with it and see what feels right for the song. Never over do the effects. Effects should be like salt on french fries. Not enough, and they're boring...too much and you'll gag. : )
After I had the basic rhythm ideas down as a couple of tracks, I worked on a few different versions with deep bass in them. It's important to make low bass in a note that matches the song well. It's also important to control just how long the bass hit lasts. You can get a much better sound if you make the deep bass note end right on a high hat. It will make the bass sound deeper and the high hat more crisp. After I had a few variations on the beats layed down, I moved on to using Junglist, and Superwave to create the driving lead synth sounds and sequences. It was at this point that the song changed character. I have no idea why, but it did. I always try to construct the song chronologically the same as I come up with the various parts. It's like building a story. Once I had the synth sounds and sequences the way I wanted them, the song really started changing, so I created a more upbeat rhythm with elements of the previous rhythm as a base. I added some little electronic zaps with no reverb or effects and at low volume, to kind of fill in some of the gaps between the drum hits. At this point I actually started arranging the various patterns and tracks into a song. As I went, found I needed something to tie in the mellow initial part of the song, and the fast part. I remembered the Sister Saviour sample, and tossed it in, and it sounded perfect. I added some large hall reverb and just a bit of delay to open up the stereo effect on the sample and to make the voice kind of 'hang' there in the air a bit longer after the voice stopped. Worked out well. Then I decided to really spice things up, and add the electric guitar riffs in with the fast beats and bass and synths. Kind of a White Zombie-style flavor. The soundfont I used for this was an unprocessed, raw electric guitar chord. To add life to it, I added LOTS of large room reverb, cranked up the resonance and lowered the cutoff frequency a bit, turned up the midrange on the EQ, and turned down the treble a bit. This made sure that the guitar riffs were very easily distinguished from the high treble and deep bass already going on in the song. Then to add some flair, I used the pitch wheel on my midi keyboard controller to pitch up the initial guitar note live, while I recorded the pattern. Gave it way more of a real guitar feel. I also turned down the Release knob so that the guitar note would end immediately when I stopped playing it....that way it has a more driving, controlled intensity, and it doesnt get mushed up with the previous note. After that I just tweaked the EQ's for every instrument a bit more to make sure that no instrument was drowning out the other one unless it was intentional, and I also adjusted the piano sound to be a bit warmer and less harsh, to match the background sound better. Then I played the whole song through, and watched all the EQ levels to make sure there was no clipping or distortion, and finally rendered it to a wave file. Later I created an mp3 version for CCMIXTER, and I tried several bitrates until I got the highest one that I could fit under 10mb (the upload limit here). I started at 320kbps, and finally worked my way down to 192kbps. It was still something like 10.4mb, so I loaded the mp3 into Sound Forge (THE best sound editor), and cut off some of the empty sound at the end of the track, and faded out the tail end of the track...which means less data in the track, which means less file size. Came out at around 9.8mb...perfect!
Other Notes
This was actually a pretty simple song compared to others I have made. It was a fun track to make, but not overly complex. Oddly enough, the most complex songs seem to be the ones that sound the simplest. Like Samurai Story, and Cuckoo - Lonely Remix. Even though there isnt alot going on at the same time, the creation process takes alot more time, and arranging everything. Also the individual sounds need to be tweaked so much more because the listener is focusing much more on fewer instruments, so anything wrong with the sound or the feel will really stand out. I love making any music though. Hope this is helpful to someone! : )
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