From A Dark Place

Increasingly I think the music I am making is less about sound design and more about expressing some of the things inside of me that want out. I guess I may be starting to know what I want.

This one started with a beat (using Stylus RMX to provide kick drum and snare) although I really just wanted that to lay down the rest. I’ve learned that’s easier with a beat.

I went hunting in Omnisphere for a cello patch since I am on a cello jag and came up with ‘Uillean Cello’. So I played it (on the SP3X) along to the beat. After that I layered on some droning ‘Deep Bowed Glass’.

Everything is pretty heavily treated using two separate inserts of Replicant on the drums going into an effects chain containing Little Spacey, Ricochet, Eos, Northpole, and the 914 fixed filterbank. The cello and bowed glass parts are treated with Ricochet, two instances of BigSeq 2, and Little Spacey before going into the mix.

This is the first time i’ve used the Northpole filter. It doesn’t come with presets so I just faffed about until I found something that gave the drums a bit more grit. I’m not sure about the 914 filter. It has a particular sound that I liked when I started but I’m less certain it worked by the end. But it’s there.

The astute listener may be able to detect the influence of Old Joe Clarke’s Boogie (a piece from my beginners piano course) in this track. If you can figure it out you get a cookie!

The master channel uses my, now default, triumvirate of gain, multipressor, and adaptive limiter.