#music #electronic #electronicmusic #ambient #darkambient #spacesynth #horrorsynth #cinematic #soundtrack #retro #scifi #alien #atmosphere
Submission for Songwriting Competition 081 - "Audio Matrix".
The goal was to make a track using modular synthesis techniques.
I've been quite busy this month but I can't let myself miss the modular themed round, an opportunity to make music that isn't quite appreciated. I've remastered some of my older dark space ambient tracks recently and I wanted to make something new in that aesthetic. It seems that I'm perfectly on time.
At this moment I have a quite limited setup in terms of CPU resources, so this composition is constructed of rendered tracks of running sequences and soundscapes fading in and out similar to an old tape recording. This workflow feels kinda authentic for this style of music.
Instruments and techniques:
1. The sequences created with Voltage Modular. There are three ones: the bass sequence, the "upper" sequence and acid sequence. All of them are slight variations of the same patch with sequencer, dual VCO in the style of MS-20 processed with resonant filter, sub-octave oscillator, chorus and spring reverb (for acid sequence I used TB-303 oscillator and filter). Each sequence has different clock divisions (resulting in different note lengths).
2. The soundscapes are also created with Voltage Modular:
- Low drone - eight oscillators tuned to specific notes fed into a lowpass filter with noise layers. Processed with shimmer reverb. I call this patch "room warmer" because it uses 100% of my CPU;
- Main soundscape - created with an additive oscillator module. There are several LFOs modulating its "partials" amplitude and panning through the console mixer module. It's then passed through phaser and reverb effect modules;
- Noise cloud - created with a noise source fed into a formant filter, with three LFOs modulating the peak points.
- Alien speech - created with vocoder effect using several oscillators tuned to a specific chord and a bandpass filter as a modulator signal. It also fed into the frequency shifter. Different values of a frequency shift creates different timbres;
- FM Sweep - created with FM Station module (a four operator FM synth).
3. The pads are made with Full Bucket synths (they are also modular at some point):
- Oxid for strings with that classic JMJ style phasing sound;
- Tricent for synth-brass playing the low octaves.
4. The keys are Full Bucket's Tricent processed with chorus and ring modulator (FL Studio's stock effect).
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Additionally, you can find download links on my Patreon page / infravolt . The links for this track will be available for public till the end of June. After that, they will be available to purchase in the shop.