Category: Tracks

120bpm – A walking soft brassy part, low frequency filter, delay, starts things off, forms the basis – this is a sound-designed preset of my own in Lagrange (based on Daiba). A cello-ish long-held melody played in Continua (Baroque Sonal System (Lead)) is added underneath. Then a melody which sounds like something I can’t quite remember from the 80’s, Lagrange again with Bleass granulizer Reverse Beats.

Continua provides a dreamy, sweeping pad (Fresher Pad by Red Sky Lullaby), a pulse short note sound-designed synth is added as a second melody. Then comes a highlight/lead calling over the pads (Injection Pad Red Sky Lullaby).

As the song nears its end we raise the frequency of the filter on the walking base melody until you can distinguish the saw oscillators. Everything but this and the long melody from the beginning – which you now realize you missed hearing – ring out until it stops.

138bpm – I started out with Tal-U-NO-LX and found a good phaser/chorus-y preset which I tweaked to have even more sawtooth, filter open, with a chorus sound. I came up with a melody, but it wouldn’t be the main, first melody in the track like what’s often the case.

Next I found a pad (PD Traumstation BT) in SynthMaster 2 with bubbling accents. It would be a good soundscape to end the piece with.

I added three synths and came up with varying counter melodies: Mela 2 with a Bleass chorus and two SynthMaster 2 instances. Those plus another SynthMaster 2 pad made the count 6 different synthesizers to control, mute, and start, part of the time 2 off, 1 on at once, multiple fingers moving in AUM in every direction. 

It took a while to figure out the placement of the layers, a lot of practicing, testing things out. It’s just over 6 minutes, but there’s a lot of motion, changing things up, and it’s not the build up and break down structure I used much of the time in tracks that came before.

That first melody? It ends the song sounding like an anthem chorus, and the Traumstation pad completes the dream. — Listen with headphones!