this track started off as a clip of my playing that i posted on instagram in 2015, making this tune five years in the making. after rediscovering it recently, i decided to take it on. the high pitched ticking clock/ekg sound (which was, originally, a looped guitar part, then double-timed) fueled the direction for this track, but everything else was basically scrapped and rewritten from new ideas. i hope you enjoy this track as much as i enjoyed making it.
full performance video on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAbZKWynoyt/
click the buy link to stream or purchase from bandcamp.
how it's made:
i used addictive keys mark one to emulate the sound of the looped, double-timed guitar part. originally it was the back and forth sound throughout the entire track, but a friend recommended i change it somewhere in the middle, so i changed the parts around gradually and fed them into an arpeggiator.
the swells at the beginning were fueled by my demedash t-120 deluxe to get a nice, warbly sound. i found a random patch on my bigsky (using the chorale algorithm) to give it some stereo spread, as well as the dual delay sound on the walrus d1. i might have had the matthews astronomer reverb on as well, but i can't remember. there's a low undertone of the spitfire labs electric piano just to add a faint touch of timing to otherwise ambient swells.
the swells eventually fade out and migrate into some early recordings of the chase bliss audio mood in stretch mode that captured a B major chord set at different clock speeds. this sets up the underlying drones and a change of movement and mood (pun intended?) for the last half of the tune. both had the bondi sick as enabled (with the gain basically off) for a little bit of eq and filtering.
the metallic ping sounds are a combination of a metallic instrument from roli studio and the felt instruments wolno. drenched with reverb, it reminds me of some of the synthetic orchestration used by hans zimmer on the pirates of the caribbean: at world's end soundtrack. i'll absolutely use this sound again.
the end lead guitar part is the 1981 drv set on zero gain, fed into some reverb and the iridum on a round setting. i don't often use the round setting, but it felt warmer and more fitting for the part.
the vocal "ahhs" at the very end were an unintended side effect of the chorale sound on the strymon bigsky over the mood drones. a happy accident, indeed.
signal:
jennings navigator deluxe
pigtronix philosopher's tone micro
ehx hum debugger
matthews astronomer v2
bondi sick as
1981 drv
demedash t-120 (featured predominantly on the repeating guitar pattern)
walrus audio arp-87
chase bliss audio mood
walrus audio d1
neunaber immerse
strymon bigsky
strymon iridium (chime and round settings, york irs on the chime)
board:
emerson custom 18x32 board
sinasoid cables
strymon zuma and ojai (2x) power supplies
other tools, virtual instruments, and post-processing:
roli lightpad block
logic pro x
addictive keys mark one
felt instruments wolno
roli studio player
spitfire audio electric piano
output exhale
izotope rx7
neunaber wet
valhalla vintage verb
drawmer s73
kdr kotelnikov
