I went a little out of my comfort zone with this one: it has ... a straight tempo with metronome (it's even quantized), drums and "electric guitar".
You can listen to it on my website.
My previous music was based on an improvisation of one recording that defined the melody, chords and structure from beginning to end. I followed a different approach here. Again, I started with a piano improvisation, but I didn't keep everything. I selected the good parts and played them again with a metronome. I've then cut it in pieces and moved them around, defining some initial structure.
The "guitar" is good old ZynAddSubFx with the Trash Guitar patch, taking the lowest notes from the piano. The level of distortion in this patch seems to be random and I have no clue how I could control it, so I've made four audio recordings and then automated the volume of each, so that at any time, you hear the track that has the most appropriate level of distortion.
The piano is Salamander Grand Piano with sfizz. I had some trouble with some notes being dropped by sfizz; I've solved this by increasing the maximum voice count to 128 (!). I think this extreme voice count is caused by the sustain pedal (which surprises me, but hey).
I've added some drums as well, which is new for me. I'm pleased that I've been able to add some diversity while not making it over complicated.
I liked how (in some versions), the guitar and the cymbal blend together, so I tried to blend more instruments. I've added some convolutional reverb (with IR.lv2) to the snare drum with a sample from the sustain pedal release sound from the Salamander Grand Piano (having "open source" instruments can be real fun for this type of stuff). I automated the wet level to be higher in the "bigger" parts. I've also done some experimentation with convolutional reverb on the "guitar" using the cymbal sound. Using EQ, compression and convolutional reverb, I was able to get the effect as if the guitar strings were rumbling against the cymbal. It turned out that this didn't improve the music, so I've left it out.
I believed that the last part (which was copy-pasted from a previous part) was too repetitive. I've tried adding another instrument to add more variation (the muted French horn that you may have heard in one of my previous pieces), but that sound didn't fit all the time. I think the timbre is too similar to the instruments that are already there. I've struggled a little trying to get this right. Then I stumbled upon a youtube channel called "Ear Opener", which taught me to think about the structure of my music. I think that's a valuable lesson, but that didn't exactly tell me how to solve my particular problem. In the end, I figured out that the last part was already repeating itself two times (once with low intensity and once with higher intensity). So I simply removed the first repetition. I like it much more now. I then continued making the previous part even softer by leaving out the bass drum and the guitar.
This time, I've done the mixing in Qtractor as well, which greatly simplified the workflow.
Tracks
- Piano: Salamander Grand Piano (I'm still a fan of this one) with sfizz 1.2 with some EQ from Calf Studio Gear
- Drums: AVL Drumkits (Red Zeppelin), on the snares there's convolutional reverb with IR.LV2, using the sustain pedal release sound from the Salamander Grand Piano as the "reverb file".
- "Electric Guitar": ZynAddSubFx with the "Trash Guitar" patch (bounced into multiple audio tracks and then used the best track for each piece)
- It's easier to have a workflow entirely in Qtractor: you can just export your tracks.
- Sfizz 1.2 works with sustain pedal (but you may need to increase the max voice count).
- Convolutional reverb is cool: you can chage the "colour" of the reverb if you choose a random sample. I was surprised it works on my CPU (at least with buffer size 1024 and triple buffering). This is definitely a tool that stays in my tool-belt
- Never underestimate good old ZynAddSubFx
- Yes, you can cut your music in pieces and re-assemble.
Thanks to @Rainmak3r for pointing me to sfizz (at least two times); the new version supports the sustain pedal as well and it improved my workflow. Thanks to my sister for coming up with a title.