Animation X Audio Project Update 3 - Major Changes

Hey guys! Its been a while but I'm back! Another update on my second major project is long overdue so its about time I delivered! In today's blog I'll be taking you through everything that has changed throughout the project over the last week as well as some things that I forgot to mention in my previous project 2 blogs! Let's go!

The current session

Straight away you'll notice some key differences. Firstly, you're probably thinking "what the fuck happened? This is nothing like the last one" and that's exactly what we're going for. We realised in one of our recent sessions that, given both Jackson and my own musical inexperience, we simply could not find chords that suited our original layout to save our lives. Upon a closer look we also came to find that although we had a spacey sort of theme to our soundtrack, we had actually strayed quite far away from our reference track as we didn't check up on it regularly enough. Below you'll find the new session! Session View: Screenshot taken 17/4/18

Upon seeing this screenshot you'll probably be wondering, what are they doing with their kick, snare and other percussive elements? Honestly, we haven't yet found a proper use for them yet so they've been set aside. However, instead of reminiscing on things already mentioned, why don't I address the elephant in the room and discuss some of the major changes and improvements!

The reference track...

Now this is something I should have mentioned a while ago, funnily enough it just seemed to slip my mind! Below you'll be able to find and listen to it. However, we are only basing our project off the first 2 minutes of this track as a 7 and a half minute track is clearly out of scope for a project this size.

I'd say it's about time I got into how we're going so far with making something similar to this! Let's jump right in!

The ambience chords

These chords are located right at the beginning of the track/session and coloured dark blue. Originally, this was a preset instrument within Ableton however, it's rather intense piano chord strikes weren't exactly necessary for the beginning of the track so I took the liberty of removing them. Once they were removed, we came to find that it sounded a lot lighter and smoother, which was perfect for our intro. Below you'll see a screenshot of this instrument. Ambience Operator Synth: Screenshot taken 17/4/18

Soon after the intro begins, this synth is joined by strings, supplied and found in the Drum Lab from the Kontakt 5 library.

The Strings

These were also supplied by the Kontakt 5 library within the Vintage Strings section. We realised that one of the most obvious additions to the intro of our reference track was string instruments. Therefore, we figured why not add some in our intro too? However, the strings in our project seemed a little dry at first and the tail end of the audio wasn't meeting with the reverb from the ambient synth. This was easily fixed though as within most libraries within Kontakt 5, you can add reverb to your instruments without needing to apply true processing. Luckily, not as much processing will be needed for these strings as they are relatively smooth the way they are. However, This may change in future sessions as this instrument is going to be a major part of the soundtrack and transitions within it. Vintage Strings Library - Kontakt 5: Screenshot taken 17/4/18

the new bass

Another new and improved aspect to our track is the bass! Unfortunately, most of the instruments besides the main synth chords from our previous track were not very useful as they were too powerful for what we were aiming for. However, luckily enough, a new and improved bass was rather easy to construct as it was simply a combination of two waves: a Sine-Triangle wave and a Sine-Square wave. These two waves were then run through a lowpass 4 filter in massive (located on filter 1) and their cutoff was monitored. After this, all that was needed was an adjustment to the master volume and we were ready to rock! Our New Bass within N.I's Massive: Screenshot taken 17/4/18

This then leads into our new chords so far!

The new chords

Upon researching and listening to our reference track, we came to find that most of the transitions within the track occur after quick 3-chord rise progressions. We have begun to replicate this to some degree as we are steadily adding more elements to the track after each progression. Below you will find two screenshots, one of which displays the layout of our current chords and the other which displays the N.I Massive layout for the new main synth patch. Our New Synth Chords: Screenshot taken 17/4/18NOTE: This MIDI Data is also being used to form the strings chords

The New Synth patch for our main Synth chords: Screenshot Taken 17/4/18

Firstly, the new synth patch, we realised that in order to avoid erasing everything we had worked for up until this point, we needed to salvage as much as we could. Even though, most of what we had was rather useless in terms of what we were aiming for, the main synth chords still stood a chance as they could be easily modified. Most of the settings on this synth patch are rather the same as the last such as the wave types and filters. All that really needed dialling back a little was the intensity of both square-saw waves. Once again, Jackson and I reminded ourselves that we are indeed outside of our comfort zones as we are NOT making a future bass style dance track. We are simply deriving light, future style chords to use within our progressions.

Secondly, by now you will have seen our new chord layout (unless you scrolled past it...), this is clearly still in the works as it has only just begun. The main reason as to why we have decided to essentially start over was that, although the animation we are writing for is very short, we will not be marked unless we submit a substantially longer piece of audio to our lecturer. Therefore, Jackson and I have begun increasing the size of the project slightly to be marked properly. When the time comes to place audio on the animation, Jackson and I will most likely duplicate the Ableton Live session and create a minimised version of the original soundtrack.

And now, the last new addition to the soundtrack... the timpani!

After screwing around with different tom drum samples for a substantial amount of time, Jackson and I realised that they simply won't give us the loud, boomy sound we're looking for, no matter how much we process them. But then it hit us, maybe it wasn't the processing... but the instrument we were wrong about! Surprisingly, we were both happen to be thinking about the exact same instrument at the same time! That was it, the timpani would be our lord and saviour in this part of the soundtrack and fortunately for us, Ableton came in clutch once again with a near perfect sample! Below you will find a screenshot of the timpani sample we are using. However, stupidly I seemed to forget that the instrument was in multisample mode at the time so it currently is not displaying the waveform :/.

Timpani Sample: Screenshot taken 17/4/18

To finish

Well this was quite a large blog today guys! As you can see I had a lot to talk about as a lot has happened over the course of the last week! As for the rest of this week, make sure to stay tuned as I'll finally be bringing you some updates on the progression of my side-projects! Until next time!

Levels :)