Dreams

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Rainmak3r
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Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

Hi all,

I just posted a new song:

https://soundcloud.com/lminiero/dreams

It's a "momentous" occasion, as I dared try to sing on one of my tracks for the first time ever; since I'm most definitely not a singer, though, you may want to keep your expectations in check :mrgreen: Besides, I decided it was the perfect occasion to get some mileage out of another guitar I had bought recently, but not used much yet, a beautiful hollow body guitar that definitely proved up to the task.

As a composition, the initial arpeggio did come from a dream (where I remember thinking of the chord progression), so that's where the seed for the track came from: as it's often happening, I went way further, and what came out was a much longer and sad song on the power of dreams, which as an occasional lucid dreamer have always fascinated me. Musically I got inspiration by a ton of works out there: definitely Lost Reflection by Crimson Glory for the basic approach (emotional song, same chords repeated over and over, a heavy section following the slow crescendo), Swallow the Sun for the overall style (one of my favourite bands these past few years), Antimatter/Anathema/Trees of Eternity for the vocal style (somber and subdued), Ólafur Arnalds and Árstíðir for the strings arrangements, Nighttime Birds by The Gathering for the gothic/doom ending, and more.

As I anticipated, I decided to try and sing myself as well: I did come up with lyrics pretty soon, and as a pure instrumental track it did feel too long and a bit "empty", so I thought what the hell... I'm most definitely not a singer (I guess you'll be able to tell), but I tried to mimic a bit the style of Mick Moss by Antimatter, especially his work on Planetary Confinement (one of my favourite albums ever), as I thought it would fit the mood of the song nicely. I messed up a few notes here and there, and it's not a very dynamic interpretation, but I think it didn't come out as bad as I thought, so I hope you'll be able to appreciate it nevertheless!

For what concerns the recording and arrangement process:
  • For clean guitars I used two separate Rakarrack effects at the same time, "Nostalgia" and "Angel's Chorus". On their own they didn't give me what I needed, but I think that they sound beautiful together, especially thanks to the sound the hollow body guitar got ouf of them.
  • For strings I wanted something unusual, and in fact I mentioned Ólafur Arnalds and Árstíðir before, who as many Icelandic artists often have wonderful rarefied string sections that seem almost otherwordly. Spitfire Labs has a free VST called Frozen Strings that sounds close enough, so I definitely wanted to play with it more. I ended up not using just that, though, as I also used Scary Strings and (for swells) Strings 2 from the same guys. I had already tinkered with them a bit in the past (for Mary, for instance), but only for smaller portions, while I wanted to do more this time. This led me to work with them as I would with a strings orchestra (even though I didn't score them, but "played" them instead), where I sometimes used just one, and sometimes more, of those VSTs, depending on the effect I wanted to get: I think they sound particularly beautiful in the string interlude between the two verses!
  • Even though I did do vocals a couple of times, I have no clue what to do with voice (especially mine), so I just added a bit of EQ, compression and reverb to my raw take: it sounds "fine", but I'm sure more could be done (even though that may not be the case, considering the source material :grin: )
  • For heavy guitars, I took half a step back, as while I decided to still use my POD X3 Live for the solo, all rhythm guitars I did with Guitarix instead. Even though I guess it would be too much to ask of it in a faster metal track, I was surprised to hear how the hollow body guitar performed quite nicely in a heavier context as well! I like the sound it has in the solo a lot, for instance, but it's not that bad when doing those heavy power chords either. For the solo itself, I chose a more melodic and emotional approach, especially for the final buildup, rather than trying to overdo it with too many notes.
  • For the bass I kept things simpler as well, since I reused the "Bass FAT" that is available in the kokoko3k Guitarix preset to avoid working on the three separate tracks as I usually do. That preset seems to do both multiband compression and multiband distortion, which means it's probably doing in a single take what I usually do on the separate tracks (and probably doing a better job at it). I do like how it sounds, so I'll have to check if it's usable in other contexts as well.
  • Drums are done with DrumGizmo+Muldjord as usual, but this time I decided to not do any processing at all, and just add a ton of reverb, since that's what the heavier portion at the end really needed. I think it sounds nice enough, but I also know I thought that every single time, and I've regularly been proven wrong :lol:
That's all, apologies for long rambling and I hope you'll enjoy this!
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Re: Dreams

Post by alexson »

This is is really an outstanding.
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Re: Dreams

Post by Basslint »

Not only the song structure and guitar parts are awesome, this time the snare sounds just right! :wink:

As for the vocals...

...you did a great job :D your post prepared me for the worst performance ever but on the contrary, I think you sing quite well! Your singing style reminds me of some Swedish clean vocalists. Do sing more!
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

alexson wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 5:41 am This is is really an outstanding.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

Basslint wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:05 am Not only the song structure and guitar parts are awesome, this time the snare sounds just right! :wink:
Hey maybe that's all that was needed, a TON of reverb! :lol:
Basslint wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:05 am As for the vocals...

...you did a great job :D your post prepared me for the worst performance ever but on the contrary, I think you sing quite well! Your singing style reminds me of some Swedish clean vocalists. Do sing more!
Thanks! I do listen to a lot of Scandinavian gothic/doom bands, so there may be some subconscious influence there :) Not sure it can be considered intentional, though, since I really don't have that much control on my voice at all: I guess it kinda worked here because I didn't have to go too up or too low.
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Re: Dreams

Post by pdechery »

Hi @Rainmak3r

Once again, great track. This time with lots of doomy vibes indeed, just as you told. I liked your vocal style, it has fit nicely with the song.

Recording vocals is not easy, so congrats for showing up your voice this time. I hope you do more like this one.

I was wondering how you'd managed to work with those vst plugins (spitfire) in Ardour. And also how do you use this pedal (Pod X3) to record guitars in your computer.

Peace and best regards.
I make music and you can listen here: https://www.mundolunar.art.br/
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

pdechery wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:27 pm Hi @Rainmak3r

Once again, great track. This time with lots of doomy vibes indeed, just as you told. I liked your vocal style, it has fit nicely with the song.

Recording vocals is not easy, so congrats for showing up your voice this time. I hope you do more like this one.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Not sure if or when I'll sing on something again, it probably depends on the kind of song: in this case I didn't really have to sing out loud or scream, so it felt like something I could at least try! My heavier efforts, definitely not :mrgreen:
pdechery wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:27 pm I was wondering how you'd managed to work with those vst plugins (spitfire) in Ardour. And also how do you use this pedal (Pod X3) to record guitars in your computer.

Peace and best regards.
The POD X3 is basically an amp modeler, so all I need to do is take the line out (mono, in my case) and use it as the input in my FocusRite Scarlett Solo, rather than plugging my guitar directly instead. Then in Ardour I capture that as a raw input, which gives me already processed guitar sounds. I typically strip some effects from the presets I use in the POD (e.g., delay/reverb) as I add them in Ardour instead, but most of the heavy lifting is done by the POD, which means the work in the laptop is reduced (e.g., no live guitar processing to do in Guitarix to record the parts).

For VSTs, normally I would have used LinVST, which is a wrapper that exposes Windows DLL by providing a Linux shared object you can use in any DAW. When you add it to Ardour, the Windows UI appears where you can tweak things as you'd do with a native plugin, and automation for different properties is automatically available as well. Now, I said "normally" because this definitely worked (and still works for most of the Windows VSTs I have), but for some reason the Spitfire Audio LABS DLL is not appearing anymore in the list of plugins in Ardour: scanning works fine, apparently no errors, but it's not there. The weird thing is that another plugin from Spitfire (the BBC orchestra) does still work: my guess is that a recent update in the VST caused it to break with LinVST.

Luckily, though, it still works flawlessly with dssi-vst, so I went for a more "convoluted" approach: I created audio tracks in Ardour for the different strings parts (12 overall, since I needed violins/violas/cellos/basses for frozen/scary/swell strings), and then at turn I used the output from dssi-vst as the input for the track I needed to record, setting the right preset for the track. Then I used my Akai LPK 25 as input for dssi-vst, so that I could play my parts manually, have them rendered by the Spitfire VST, and then recorded in Ardour. This made for a longer and less flexible process (as I couldn't fine tune MIDI parts, for instance; I'd have to re-record the part if needed), but which worked fine for the job, and I think paid off in terms of end result. If you're not familiar with Spitfire Audio LABS, I definitely encourage you to have a look: there's many VSTs they give away for free to do what you want with, and most are experimental and quite unique sound effects (there's a recent one called "Arctic Swells" I'll have to use for something, sooner or later!)
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Re: Dreams

Post by pdechery »

Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm The POD X3 is basically an amp modeler, so all I need to do is take the line out (mono, in my case) and use it as the input in my FocusRite Scarlett Solo, rather than plugging my guitar directly instead
Great, so basically it's like an amplifier without a speaker. You have to put headphones to listen and it also serves as input for your soundcard. I was thinking about trying it, that's why I asked :wink:
Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Not sure if or when I'll sing on something again, it probably depends on the kind of song: in this case I didn't really have to sing out loud or scream, so it felt like something I could at least try! My heavier efforts, definitely not :mrgreen:
Not to talk about the embarrassment of screaming at home and disturbing the neighborhood :lol: When I'm recording vocals at home that always bugs me. I'd even thought about renting a studio just to do that, but... nevermind.
Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm For VSTs, normally I would have used LinVST, which is a wrapper that exposes Windows DLL by providing a Linux shared object you can use in any DAW.
Well, I'm encouraged to try but I must confess that this sounds a little too tech for me, even myself being a Linux enthusiast. But it sounds very tempting and I'm very curious, so...

Thanks a lot for your clarifications.
I make music and you can listen here: https://www.mundolunar.art.br/
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

pdechery wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:33 pm
Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm The POD X3 is basically an amp modeler, so all I need to do is take the line out (mono, in my case) and use it as the input in my FocusRite Scarlett Solo, rather than plugging my guitar directly instead
Great, so basically it's like an amplifier without a speaker. You have to put headphones to listen and it also serves as input for your soundcard. I was thinking about trying it, that's why I asked :wink:
Yep, that's basically it, even though it has multiple outputs that are useful for different things, like playing live. The only downside for me right now is that there's no way to upload presets from Linux: you control it via USB, but the Windows client installs a driver and it doesn't work with Wine, and I couldn't get it to work from a VM either. This means tinkering with its own UI, which is all but ideal... luckily I had a few presets loaded ages ago.

That said, the X3 is a bit old and there are far better options out there, so you may want to look around first. If you're just curious about modelling itself, you could try getting a Pocket POD: I have one of those as well, which you can find quite cheap (~100€), and even if they're not the best (not much more than a toy honestly), they're quite flexible anyway if you want to have some fun. Most importantly, there's Linux clients for uploading/downloading presets to/from a Pocket POD, and a ton of presets on the Line6 website.
pdechery wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:33 pm
Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Not sure if or when I'll sing on something again, it probably depends on the kind of song: in this case I didn't really have to sing out loud or scream, so it felt like something I could at least try! My heavier efforts, definitely not :mrgreen:
Not to talk about the embarrassment of screaming at home and disturbing the neighborhood :lol: When I'm recording vocals at home that always bugs me. I'd even thought about renting a studio just for do that, but... nevermind.
That may have been one of the reasons why I'm basically whispering :mrgreen:
pdechery wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:33 pm
Rainmak3r wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:48 pm For VSTs, normally I would have used LinVST, which is a wrapper that exposes Windows DLL by providing a Linux shared object you can use in any DAW.
Well, I'm encouraged to try but I must confess that this sounds a little too tech for me, even if I'm a Linux lover. But it sounds very tempting. And I'm very curious, so...
It's actually quite trivial, once you know the right steps:
  1. download LinVST (there's different options for the release)
  2. install the lin-vst-servertrack* files to /usr/bin (or Ardour won't find them)
  3. launch linvstconvert from the convert folder, which will ask you to select the folder where you have the VST DLL, and the folder containing linvst.so (where you extracted LinVST, basically)
  4. this will simply create a copy of linvst.so and rename it as the DLL
  5. configure Ardour to look for VSTs in your VSTs folder (where both the .dll and the .so are) and re-scan
  6. the VST should now appear in the list of plugins you have installed
It's really that easy, when it works! When it doesn't, it usually means there's a compatibiliy problem between the DLL and LinVST: make sure the DLL you're trying to wrap is a 32-bit one and not 64-bit. LinVST is known not to work with Wine 6.3 too.
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Re: Dreams

Post by spamatica »

Cool song!

First off, you don't need to be afraid of singing (well, disturbing neighbours can be a nuisance), the notes are pretty much on and the style fits the mood. It may lack some confidence but that comes mostly with practice. I would personally not have changed it much, sounds good. Maybe a delay but definitely not sure.

Back to the song. Cool riff and very atmosperic execution. The intro guitar with all the reverb works splendidly. The strings also work perfectly, but that is to be expected from modern strings (there seems to be intense competition in this niche which drives all creators to have free versions of their professional quality strings), just sad that there are no linux alternatives that can achieve this.

When we get to the metal part (cool riffs here too!) I think the drums are too loud, at least in the beginning. When the solo comes in it sounds like the drums are lower volume? Anyway, I would have liked the drums a bit lower in the mix and the rhythm guitars and bass a little bit higher. At least on my speakers I can hardly hear the rhythm guitars.
Did you apply any mastering compressors? It looks to me it could be a bit louder overall (which would also benefit the metal part and probably push the guitars forward).

Anyway, I've listened to this quite a few rounds now and I think it is great! :)
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

spamatica wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 7:22 pm Cool song!

First off, you don't need to be afraid of singing (well, disturbing neighbours can be a nuisance), the notes are pretty much on and the style fits the mood. It may lack some confidence but that comes mostly with practice. I would personally not have changed it much, sounds good. Maybe a delay but definitely not sure.
Thanks! I'll definitely try a delay next time (if there ever is a next time :lol: )
spamatica wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 7:22 pm Back to the song. Cool riff and very atmosperic execution. The intro guitar with all the reverb works splendidly. The strings also work perfectly, but that is to be expected from modern strings (there seems to be intense competition in this niche which drives all creators to have free versions of their professional quality strings), just sad that there are no linux alternatives that can achieve this.
There are some interesting strings available for Linux as well, like the KBH Ultima Strings soundfont I've used in a few other contexts, and Virtual Playing Orchestra has some interesting samples in there too. But for more "unique" sounds, yeah, that's something you can usually only find in some VSTs.
spamatica wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 7:22 pm When we get to the metal part (cool riffs here too!) I think the drums are too loud, at least in the beginning. When the solo comes in it sounds like the drums are lower volume? Anyway, I would have liked the drums a bit lower in the mix and the rhythm guitars and bass a little bit higher. At least on my speakers I can hardly hear the rhythm guitars.
Did you apply any mastering compressors? It looks to me it could be a bit louder overall (which would also benefit the metal part and probably push the guitars forward).
No, no compressors there: I really didn't process drums at all here, just the louder reverb. I didn't apply volume automation either, so I guess it could have been some normalization done by Ardour? I wonder if guitars sounding thin may be a phasing effect? Do you get that when listening via headphones as well, rather than speakers? Guitars seemed a bit weaker when playing the song through my phone, for instance, while they're mostly fine via the laptop speakers, and good in headphones.
spamatica wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 7:22 pm Anyway, I've listened to this quite a few rounds now and I think it is great! :)
Glad you liked it to the point you listened to it more than once, that's definitely appreciated!
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Re: Dreams

Post by folderol »

Seriously impressive work! Full of angst.
I particularly enjoyed the last section after the drop. Really heavy, with a great guitar lead over the top :D
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Re: Dreams

Post by Rainmak3r »

Rainmak3r wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:07 am There are some interesting strings available for Linux as well, like the KBH Ultima Strings soundfont I've used in a few other contexts, and Virtual Playing Orchestra has some interesting samples in there too. But for more "unique" sounds, yeah, that's something you can usually only find in some VSTs.
@spamatica I forgot to mention SCC Expressive Strings: I stumbled upon them the video presentation a few weeks ago and was quite impressed by it, but I haven't tested them myself as of yet. It's the same author of the Taiko Drums SFZ, which is phenomenal, so I expect very high quality and flexibility.
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Re: Dreams

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folderol wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:25 am Seriously impressive work! Full of angst.
I particularly enjoyed the last section after the drop. Really heavy, with a great guitar lead over the top :D
Thanks, this is really appreciated!
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Re: Dreams

Post by spamatica »

Rainmak3r wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 4:37 pm
Rainmak3r wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:07 am There are some interesting strings available for Linux as well, like the KBH Ultima Strings soundfont I've used in a few other contexts, and Virtual Playing Orchestra has some interesting samples in there too. But for more "unique" sounds, yeah, that's something you can usually only find in some VSTs.
@spamatica I forgot to mention SCC Expressive Strings: I stumbled upon them the video presentation a few weeks ago and was quite impressed by it, but I haven't tested them myself as of yet. It's the same author of the Taiko Drums SFZ, which is phenomenal, so I expect very high quality and flexibility.
That is good to hear! I should try a few... though I have tried the VPO once or twice with meh results...

And I really should correct the way I remarked on your song. Me not getting a good result could entirely be up to my inability to play with strings. I sounded a little bit like, since you used PRO-quality strings, magic comes out, but of course it takes skill too!
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