Skaven's section is full of almost impossibly subtle effect usage. Ever notice that slight pulsing in the opening bass note? That's caused by Skaven ever so slightly lowering the volume, then just as slightly raising it a few notes later.
C-4 01 D10
... .. D10
... .. D10
... .. D10
... .. D10
... .. ...
... .. ...
... .. ...
... .. D01
... .. D01
... .. ...
... .. ...
... .. ...
... .. ...
... .. D10
... .. D10
and so on. Here D10 is the smallest possible volume slide up and D01 is the smallest possible volume slide down (there's a finer volume slide, but this is still almost impossibly small). I don't think this would have ever occured to me, and I probably would have simply let the note play unmolested...after all, first time listeners would never know that the note was supposed to pulse like this. But Skaven cared about this and it does make a difference. The entire introduction is packed full of this kind of tiny fine-tuning of the sound-scape and it's a large part of what makes it work as well as it does.
This is an example of one of the first notes in the entire piece, and it's already wowing me with the attention to detail. However, it was also already presenting me with some problems and my first set of compromises:
- Clinkster won't let me use effects
- Mid-note velocity settings don't work
- All this adds more data and eats into my budget
What was I going to do about this?
It turns out that Clinkster, in an effort to make the instruments sound less "flat" uses a multi-layered approach to sound construction. Each layer is slightly randomized along various parameters, but one of the side benefits is that notes often slightly "pulse". It wouldn't be the same, but it would be close enough.
So I decided to just play the note out. And it sounds okay.
There were other problems as well. Skaven relied very heavily on the samples he was using, and using them at low octaves, to help provide a kind of ominous mood to the score. The sampled instruments are fairly basic, a snare drum, some cymbals. But he uses them and stretches and bends the sound to build up a complex and moody soundscape.
No effects means I simply can't exactly replicate the sound that way. Just as important, there's no way to coax Crinkler into sounding exactly like those samples! So I turned to the Commodore 64 remix again to see how kb dealt with the situation. I found that instead of trying to perfectly parrot the original, he had decided to simply try to replicate the mood, the feeling, of the opening. Instead of cymbals and drums, he simply placed in a swooshing noise-alike sound.
So I went with a combination of the ideas. I had a reasonable sounding hi-hat instrument and a blippy woodblock. What if I abused them and played them far below their normal designed sound? It turns out they produce a weird moody percussive sound. So I used and repeated this sound at intervals similar to the original score and I feel like it did a reasonable job of replicating the mysterious, mechanical feeling of the original.
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