Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, Musically Speaking.

László

László

Too Many Notes
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Messages
34,607
Location
Michigan
My wife often asks me why many of my compositions are on the dark side. The answer is simple:

I don't know.

Anyway, this one's called 'Phalanx', but it's not about ancient Hellenistic warfare. It's because I was reading a book on the subject and couldn't think of a title for the DAW file.

The piece is under two minutes. This one's an opening credit piece for an imaginary film about darkly serious imaginary things. Hey, I write scores for picture. It's how my mind works.

leslieschefman.com

Phalanx

Phalanx by Leslie Schefman
leslieschefman.com leslieschefman.com
 
I have already told my wife that if I ever get any of the stuff in my head recorded to not freak out about it. For some reason when I get a flow going that feels like it is something that could go somewhere, it is dark, sometimes really dark. I have no idea why that is, it just is. My theory is that it is coming from seeing all of the pain and struggle going on these days along with the blatant corruption that nobody seems to be able to or want to stop.
 
andy474x said:
Really nice synth work!
Click to expand...
Thanks! You'll be surprised to learn that there aren't any synths, at least in the traditional sense! There's just my own mad methodology at work.

"Got a Pro Tip on how to do that, Mr. Laz?"

"Sure do, Dr. Watson, just don't tell Holmes how I did it."

Here's how I created the 'synth' Vocal sound at the head of the piece (do try this at home, folks!):

I used a sampled small choral ensemble patch (performed by real singers), and parallel processed it (OK, I mangled it) through a Spectral Processor, blending the processed and unprocessed voices.

The metallic, phasey tone of the spectral processor gave it a somewhat alien tone. I ran that through two delays and a large reverb. Then I ran that mishmash plus all the orchestral instruments through a specialized impulse response reverb that incorporates some algorithmic elements, from Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Hall.

This reverb was created by the brilliant folks at Inspired Acoustics in Hungary, and what makes it great is it not only sits the orchestra in the sampled space, it also shapes the sound of the orchestra in the way that being in real a space shapes an orchestra's sound.

So the result is a melange of the familiar and the imaginary - at least, that's the hope...

"Laz, that's all interesting but it doesn't sound like fun."

"I think of it as my fun-substitute, since I don't remember how to have actual fun."🤣

Everything else is orchestral instrumentation from various Spitfire Audio orchestral libraries.

There's also an unusual instrument involved that gives me most of the metallic cymbal style sounds. It's a sample of this device, created by one of Hollywood's percussion players specifically for use in film scores:

hPgsb3d.jpg
 
Last edited:
László said:
You, sir, are way, way, way too kind!
Click to expand...
No, this really is about you. You're justifiably proud of your successes and of your family's endeavors as well - and you should be.

And, I can be very unkind whenever I encounter sh!t being peddled as caviar, but that's another story.

So, a big thanks to you and a critical mass of forum members who consistently post interesting, informing and at times hilarious comments that induce laugh out loud reactions. I don't log on to this site very often any more. Too many "real life" interruptions it seems. But, when I do, I always find something intriguing.

So, once again, thanks to all you who make this forum work. I'd list names here, but I'd unintentionally leave someone out, and don't want to do that at all. You "good guys" know who you are.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top