Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

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Tenaba
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Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Tenaba »

I hope you all enjoyed this year. It's been a while since I've released any new music, so here's another song featuring Eleanor Forte. I tried to make a lyric video for the first time, instead of just having a static image of the cover art, so hopefully that makes it a bit more interesting.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/XRZTC0HqQTg
Bandcamp: https://tenaba.bandcamp.com/album/buried-in-the-ice

Software Used
Ardour
Synthesizer V
Pianoteq Stage 6
Calf Studio Plugins
ZynFusion
TamGampGX
GxCabinet
AVLdrums Red Zeppelin (using the x42plugin)
x42 plugins (Limiter and 1/3 Octave Spectrum Analyzer)
LSP Parametric Equalizer
GIMP
Kdenlive

Thanks to @Rainmak3r for telling me about Pexels, which is what I used for the visuals for this project, and also about the "Loudness Assistant" feature in Ardour!

The loop I used for the lyric video is made by GamOl
https://twitter.com/_Gam_Ol
https://www.instagram.com/gam_ol/

And the photo used on the cover art is from Julia Volk:
https://instagram.com/volkroad/

This song had been in the making for a long, long while. I started writing this around the summertime, and it's already winter now, which I guess is thematically appropriate for this song. I found this song quite challenging to make, because I don't listen to much music like this, and thus had very few mix references. I don't even know what genre this is, so please let me know if you do.

There were a ton of changes I had to make. Either compositionally over the past few months, or regarding the mix. I've made so many "final" mixes for this song, but this is the real final mix. Probably.

Overall, this song took a lot more time and effort than I expected, but I'm glad I got to learn to use a lot of new software, and experiment with a composition and production style new to me.

In any case, I hope you enjoy it!

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by oscillator »

A very good pop-song! I like it a lot!

I also very much like how you end phrases and make a build up to what is happening next! I would like to be able to do that this nicely.

That electric guitar solo is great too!

Percussion: Maybe more stereo width?

SynthV:
Great and "convincing"! Although, knowing that it is synthetic, it doesn't really matter if it is digital or not, rather, is it good or not? And it is. Thumbs up!
I sometimes think that it is a bit heavy in the "middle spectrum", what would happen if you cut that away? And hightened the upper freqs a bit?

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for posting the tech details.

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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by jeanette_c »

I agree with Oscillator. A great song, compelling and flowing.
Yes, the drums could do with more stereo width and more punch, but a good part of that - in my ears - is the kit itself. There are good elements to it... At some point I thought some layering support with electronic drums might have given a bit more bite to it.
The clean guitar is great, as are all the little details, the swelled volume, reverse phrases or delays and that sweet unobtrusive Zyn bell-type sound.
And I am amazed at how good you get Eleanor to sound and how well you phrased her! Is it very difficult controlling the voice to that degree?
And on a personal note: thanks for adding to the none seasonal songs!
--
distro: ArchLinux, DAW: Nama, MIDI sequencer: Midish
All my latest music on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rf ... 7jhC1Jnv7g
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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Tenaba »

oscillator wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 5:27 pm A very good pop-song! I like it a lot!

I also very much like how you end phrases and make a build up to what is happening next! I would like to be able to do that this nicely.

That electric guitar solo is great too!

Percussion: Maybe more stereo width?

SynthV:
Great and "convincing"! Although, knowing that it is synthetic, it doesn't really matter if it is digital or not, rather, is it good or not? And it is. Thumbs up!
I sometimes think that it is a bit heavy in the "middle spectrum", what would happen if you cut that away? And hightened the upper freqs a bit?

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for posting the tech details.
Thanks for the feedback! For this song's transitions, I end phrases using drum fills and wind/noise synths (with a high attack value).

You're right, the mix is definitely heavy on the lower mids. In particular, the 200-300Hz region is quite hot in this song compared. This is mostly due to the focal instrument in the mix, which is the electro-acoustic piano, which already does cut the mids and boost the treble. Most of the fundamental and second harmonic lies in that frequency range, so cutting it further resulted in the mix sounding especially thin. However, I loved the sound of it, and also preferred the chord progression (didn't want to change the octave or arrangement), so I ended up just settling with too much mids.
jeanette_c wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:59 pm I agree with Oscillator. A great song, compelling and flowing.
Yes, the drums could do with more stereo width and more punch, but a good part of that - in my ears - is the kit itself. There are good elements to it... At some point I thought some layering support with electronic drums might have given a bit more bite to it.
The clean guitar is great, as are all the little details, the swelled volume, reverse phrases or delays and that sweet unobtrusive Zyn bell-type sound.
And I am amazed at how good you get Eleanor to sound and how well you phrased her! Is it very difficult controlling the voice to that degree?
And on a personal note: thanks for adding to the none seasonal songs!
I'm usually quite cautious in panning drums, and end up panning them a bit too narrow in an attempt to avoid a cymbal or something being panned too far. I suppose it'll be a matter of experience though to find the right balance.

I was also happy to add the guitar swells and reversed clean guitar to the mix. Felt really good when I figured out I could fill some of the space with that.

I'm glad you liked the tuning of Eleanor. I'd say it is quite difficult / time consuming to tune any vocal synth to sound realistic. As you have to account for the pronounciation, pitch between and during notes, aspiration, and timbre. I've found natural pronounciation to be one of the harder problems to tackle, as I keep doubting myself on how long / strong each phoneme should be.

Thank you for listening, and I'm glad you liked it!

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Basslint »

When I hear an electric piano, I am automatically happy. OK, now I get that it's a bot but I still like the voice.

How did you make the sound at 0:46-0:47? :D
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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Tenaba »

Thank you! The sound at 0:46 to 0:47 is the "Ghost Bells" preset from ZynAddSubFx. I may have reduced the "shape" parameter of the PADsynth to tame some of the higher harmonics.

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Rainmak3r »

I remember listening to this days ago, but then I forgot to comment, apologies for that!
Cool song, and I'm always amazed at how good that synthetic voice does sound: I still remember thinking it was a real singer, when you first share a song that used that library. Great solo too! I liked how you play with the vocal theme in it as well, which is something I find myself doing often too.
Tenaba wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:57 pm Thanks to @Rainmak3r for telling me about Pexels, which is what I used for the visuals for this project, and also about the "Loudness Assistant" feature in Ardour!
Glad I could be of some help! But do you mean Pexels or Videezy? I see looped animations in your video, and I usually grabbed those from the latter: Pexels is what I'm using a lot for high quality pictures (especially for covers), but I don't think I ever used it for videos instead.
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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Tenaba »

Rainmak3r wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:50 am I remember listening to this days ago, but then I forgot to comment, apologies for that!
Cool song, and I'm always amazed at how good that synthetic voice does sound: I still remember thinking it was a real singer, when you first share a song that used that library. Great solo too! I liked how you play with the vocal theme in it as well, which is something I find myself doing often too.

Glad I could be of some help! But do you mean Pexels or Videezy? I see looped animations in your video, and I usually grabbed those from the latter: Pexels is what I'm using a lot for high quality pictures (especially for covers), but I don't think I ever used it for videos instead.
Thanks! I'm glad the singing sounds realistic. I used a new library for this one (Eleanor Forte AI) which significantly eased the troubles of making the pronounciation natural. Adding the vocals melody to the solo was pretty fun too, as you can change it in ways that would sound weird with vocals.

I did use Pexels to find both the cover art, and the video loop. They have a ton of videos from VFX artists who share good renders. Although I suppose I'll have to check out Videezy as well.

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by milo »

This is a well-crafted song, and Eleanor is sounding a good as ever. I love that little drum fill with a moving high-pass filter at 1:59! That was brilliant, and it makes me want to use that trick sometime. Very solid tone and playing on the guitar solo, and I love the feedback at the transition back to the voice.

Genre matters nothing with songcraft this good.
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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by folderol »

Very smooth performance, and well sung.
The Yoshimi guy {apparently now an 'elderly'}
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Re: Tenaba - Buried in the Ice (feat. Eleanor Forte)

Post by Tenaba »

milo wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:31 pm This is a well-crafted song, and Eleanor is sounding a good as ever. I love that little drum fill with a moving high-pass filter at 1:59! That was brilliant, and it makes me want to use that trick sometime. Very solid tone and playing on the guitar solo, and I love the feedback at the transition back to the voice.

Genre matters nothing with songcraft this good.
Thank you. I used Calf Filter for the part at 1:59, it's really convenient. Glad you liked it!
folderol wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:48 pm Very smooth performance, and well sung.
Thank you for listening!

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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