Coordman: Silent Lucidity (Rock/Orchestral/Cover)

[Coordman]

So, I suppose I should dive in by posting a project I worked on a few years ago. I never actually finished this entirely. I got stuck on a string part and just never ended up returning to it, although neglecting it is something that bugs me from time to time and I'm sure I'll end up finishing it someday.

It is a complete (almost) re-creation of Silent Lucidity by Queensryche. There is no multi-tracking involved. It was all created the old fashioned way on MG1. Enjoy!

[DreadSpawn]

I love this mate, great job. the opening riff is beautiful haha, then when the strings ease in, bloody great stuff!! I want more!

[Қлөщłєşү[¤¤]]

Woah...ok the intro is really good ... like movie score good...
Fooking hell this is awesome man... it just sounds so pro...like midi file or somethin :|
10/10 from me mate. Loved it.

[Coordman]

Thanks guys! The orchestral parts for this song were originally written by none other than maestro Michael Kamen who worked on such film scores as Pink Floyd's The Wall, The Lethal Weapon and Die Hard movies, Mr Holland's Opus, Band of Brothers and more famously, Metallica's S&M. So it's no coincidence that it sounds like a movie score. Kamen also worked with Queensryche on the entirety of their CD, Operation Mindcrime. Recreating his work on a PS2, you can probably imagine, was a LOT of fun. (and no easy undertaking )

[.:DJ Droppin:.]

Wow..... Mind blowing. How long did it take you to create this? .... Simply a stunning recreation. I don't know what more can be said man. Exceptional panning and reverb. This is one of the finest pieces of music to ever grace this Forum.


I rate it this

10/10
5 stars

[Coordman]

How long did it take you to create this?

Honestly? Your guess is probably as good as mine. It started out as kind of a lark, just seeing if I could get six string acoustic guitar part correct. Over time, though, I kept revisiting it and piece by piece it started to take shape, a 12 string guit here, a horn part there. I would guess months at least. Hour-wise, I have no idea. There is still a string trill that would come right after the fade out that I'm having a terrible time nailing down because of the chord progression. Maybe someday I'll complete it.

I'm particularly pleased with the drums in this one (partly because I play drums myself). I'd like to hope it'd make Scott Rockenfield proud.

The orchestral panning and reverb took some thought. This is the first instance of a process I use quite often now. What I did was pick individual sounds for the lower, medium and high ranges of string instruments (lower being basses and cellos, mid being violins, high being violas and high range violins) and I split each sound into left and right channels by moving the sound ahead about 10 to 20 clicks on one side. What this does is make the same sound play on both the left and right speaker without making it discernably different in nature. It spreads out the sound without making you play different sounds or notes on each side. It's a cheap trick, but it's good for making a single sound sound much more full and robust. Add a little reverb and you have a concert hall filled with instruments instead of a big concert hall with a single-file line of instruments running down the middle.

Next, in order to achieve true sustain, I take a single note phrase and divide the notes between two or more channels. Anyone who's tried to create a piano piece on MTVMG knows the problem one has if they try to sustain one note into another. The first note chops off and ends up sounding very synthy and not very natural. To alleviate this problem, I take a single note phrase and divide it up.

For instance: a phrase that looks like this: C D A G B

Plays more like this:

Channel A: C  A  B
Channel B:   D  G

This allows the first note in the phrase to sustain all the way out the to the beginning of the third note, eliminating that chop off effect. You can make the sustain even longer and more complex by adding more channels. Try it!

Thanks for the rating! I'll be sure to post more soon!