"Earth Below" - New music, film score type! (NO Axe-FX, NO SD2.0, YES dynamics!)

[Kurkkuviipale]

What's up SSO!

I got in the mood of doing something rather different to what I normally do so I did. It's short, it's work in progress (though I think it won't get changed structurally much), hope you dig it!

https://soundcloud.com/kurkkuviipale/earth-below

I used SoundFonts (if you don't know what they are, I strongly recommend checking them out) for all the instruments except piano and synth. There's cello (though playing in a sub-cello register, so it sounds like a contrabass bowed), pizzicato strings, strings, a bigger orchestra and some percussive low thump that I found.

 

[AryaBara]

Love it

 

[niffnoff]

Very beautiful sounding piece dude!

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Cheers guys, if you have anything in particular to ask about the song, be sure to shoot it in here!

 

[porchy]

Love it

+1

I guess I have two questions:
1) Which piano plugin do you use/did you mic a real one? The dynamics are wonderful.
2) How do you program a synth to have that gliss between notes? I've been trying to get it right for a while now.

Thanks!

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Glad you like it,

I used an oldie for the piano, Pianoteq 2. Not the best piano VST out there, but it's got a good set of tools for modifying the sound (including the overtone manipulation), and with a little amount of EQ (-3dB high shelf and a notch to take out harsh hammer noise I didn't like) it got rather smooth.

The thing with the dynamics though, might come from the extensive velocity manipulation I did. I'm a pianist too (been for what, 10 years?) so that helps to nail what sounds good and still not disrupt the composing flow.

Glissando in synth world is either called 'portamento' or 'glissando'. Look for these features in your go-to synth (or change your go-to synth, haha) and if you program your synth in your DAW, be sure to overlap the notes in order to trigger the glissando. (Sometimes the glissando will get triggered through release of the envelope too, but as far as I know, most commonly it's the midi input)

I think there's a special midi command for glissando too (so that you wouldn't have to manually overlap notes in your DAW), but I haven't looked that much into it that I could speak for sure. I get well along with only what I know so far so I'm happy.

 

[bladlus]

Love it, thanks for sharing!!
Could perhaps become even better with some slight cleanup in the mids/low mids. Might lack a touch of definition and air, but that is of course my subjective opinion.

Kind regards,
Ben

 

[vansinn]

Very lovely

 

[TheKindred]

sounds good. looking forward to the completed piece.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Yeah there's lotsa crap in some of these samples. I also mixed and mastered this with only my headphones (should've probably master it with my other setup), which should be fine, but I'm not used to it, so it's always different. There's really just minimal EQ applied to anything in the mix (as far as I remember, the only EQ I used was a 4-band EQ that's integrated in the Cubase channel strip).

But point taken, I won't be working on this in a while now, but I still take notes on how this sounds on various systems so thanks.

And glad you guys like the song, really. I know it's not what I do often, but I still feel like I succeeded with the composition. (As in, it came out pretty much how I imagined it would)

 

[Experimorph]

It's a really cool theme, sir! I could definitely imagine hearing it in a movie context.

The best thread title I've seen in a while as well.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Yes the title was the thing I put most effort into.

Thanks bud!

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Bump :]

 

[porchy]

Glad you like it,

I used an oldie for the piano, Pianoteq 2. Not the best piano VST out there, but it's got a good set of tools for modifying the sound (including the overtone manipulation), and with a little amount of EQ (-3dB high shelf and a notch to take out harsh hammer noise I didn't like) it got rather smooth.

The thing with the dynamics though, might come from the extensive velocity manipulation I did. I'm a pianist too (been for what, 10 years?) so that helps to nail what sounds good and still not disrupt the composing flow.

Glissando in synth world is either called 'portamento' or 'glissando'. Look for these features in your go-to synth (or change your go-to synth, haha) and if you program your synth in your DAW, be sure to overlap the notes in order to trigger the glissando. (Sometimes the glissando will get triggered through release of the envelope too, but as far as I know, most commonly it's the midi input)

I think there's a special midi command for glissando too (so that you wouldn't have to manually overlap notes in your DAW), but I haven't looked that much into it that I could speak for sure. I get well along with only what I know so far so I'm happy.

Cheers, dude. That actually answered a follow-up question or two as well. I'm definitely going to look into this!

Excited to see the final product.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Glad I was of help. There won't be a finished product in the near future, the plan is to involve a sax solo in the song and before that I won't be putting work into this really.