At last, the Extended Mix of “Global Celebration” is essentially completed!

This is definitely the most fun I have ever had in composing and mixing.  Taking the “global” theme of the piece and lengthening the piece was essentially a no-brainer – the only questions were which instruments to use and how to combine them.  Ultimately, I added steel drums, a Koto, a Native American flute, chimes, conga and bongo drums, high and low toms, and a soul drum (think timpani with an extended and slightly-eerie pitched reverb).  I also added an alto sax (primarily in its higher octaves), and enhanced the trumpet line with a few high-pitched rips.

For weeks, I have been listening to this almost exclusively while driving to/from work and running errands, then tweaking the notation and later the mixing.  All the instruments in this piece meant that I very nearly hit the maximum number of staffs permitted in PrintMusic (24) and had far more tracks in Reaper (39) than I have ever previously used.  Part of me wanted to add even more instruments, but this Extended Mix is already incredibly busy, so additional instruments, even just a snare, would definitely have detracted from the overall piece; in fact, the current form may already cause sensory overload for some listeners.

Due to the 8MB upload limit for this Web site, the version posted below has a slightly-lower bit rate quality.  The full-quality version is on SoundCloud.

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And for comparison purposes, the original is here.

Sometimes, pure experimentation with the most simple of sounds/instruments can yield interesting results.  “Twisted Sheets” is the result of such experimentation while quite tired, and is (at least to me) simultaneously eerie and beautiful.  This is a combination of the “Gray World” pad from Cinematic Atmospheres (an Alchemy and Alchemy Player sound bank) and a celesta from Garritan Personal Orchestra 4. No effects used on the pad, and only a lengthy cathedralesque reverb and a compressor used on the celesta.

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After one week of composing and mixing, “Global Celebration” is being revealed to the Internet!

As the title suggests, this is a rather celebratory piece, one which was immensely fun to compose and mix.  It is also a very busy piece overall, which made it a little more challenging to mix than I had anticipated, but that was very much a good and fun challenge for me.  Because there is so much happening at once through much of the piece, very careful placement of the instruments in the stereo field was required to make all the sounds truly play nicely in the audio sandbox.  What most impressed me was that so few effects plug-ins were required: just a reverb on many instrument tracks, EQ to slightly raise the low end on the bass, and a limiter on the Master Track.

Sound sources were www.soundsforbeats.com, Garritan World Instruments, Garritan Personal Orchestra 4, and Angelicals. As usual, the project was composed in Finale PrintMusic and mixed in Reaper.

This may be part of a series.  I love this one a lot, and I can envision several other pieces with a similar theme.

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Update 5/15/11: An extended version of “Global Celebration” is currently in the works and at the moment is progressing quite nicely!

It only took four months, but finally, “3AM on the Mulsanne” has been accepted to SoundCloud’s Club Music Producers group. Somehow, probably because club music is certainly not my forte, it feels really, really good to have this piece accepted there

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Indeed, one of the best discoveries I have made for tools in making music is www.soundsforbeats.com, run by Genycis (@genycis).  When I first discovered this Web site about 13 months ago, I was a SoundFont virgin – I had heard of the format, but did not yet know how to make use of it.  I was actually performing a Google search for a Japanese VST instrument when I stumbled upon the site in the search results, and instinct told me to look around.

I was intrigued.  I believe Genycis only had about 200 SoundFonts available on his site at the time, but I instantly saw the potential versatility of them.  The big question, however, was how to use SoundFonts.  Fortunately, he offered a solution: a free membership to the site, which included the sfz+ VST plug-in, which would allow me to use SoundFonts within PrintMusic. A membership also included a selection of SoundFonts which were also free.

The membership was free, as were the dozen or so SoundFonts and the sfz+ plug-in, so there was nothing to lose.  I joined the site, downloaded the plug-in and the free SoundFonts, and started experimenting.

WOW!!!!! I was very impressed with the sound quality of the SoundFonts, and immediately began seriously looking through the offerings for sale on the site.  That same night, I made an initial order, and I believe it was less than an hour later when Genycis responded with the SoundFonts I had ordered.

Things escalated from there.  I now have 183 SoundFonts from www.soundsforbeats.com – Genycis has been continuing to make even more and now has 400+ on offer.  The site has also expanded to include drum kits (in .wav format), which have also been quite useful for me, as well as construction kits.

I very much consider Genycis’ SoundFonts as integral tools for my music.  Much of my music uses at least one SoundFont from www.soundsforbeats.com, and many pieces use mostly or exclusively sounds from his site – “Ascent” is a good example of this.  Perhaps what is most impressive is that even though the SoundFonts are clearly created with hip-hop and similar music in mind, these virtual instruments also work very, very well in ambient and other styles of music.

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For those who have been languishing with the free SoundFonts available all across the Internet, www.soundsforbeats.com is essentially a gold mine: extremely high quality, extremely low prices, and an ever-growing number of SoundFonts (Genycis must be approaching 500 by now!).  I honestly cannot rave enough about the great work Genycis has done!!!