Loved the melody on this piece. I also appreciated the buzz that was going through the whole song. I liked the chord progression so much! Although I felt it was a bit all over the place (just the buzz) in some parts. Other than that, I loved the feel to this piece. It kinda reminded me of Sleeping Dogs for some reason. Anyway, loved the effects and melody!
Author Comments
I have no idea what category to put this in since it's a bit of a hybrid between cinematic and synthwave. >.>
This track is a complete reimagination of the original theme "Oncoming Storm" for Jozarto's upcoming series. No fancy Patron preview because this one's long overdue!
Software:
Mixcraft 7
Kontakt 5.7
Zebra 2
Trilian (now that I can actually run it! lol)
FX:
Fabfilter and ReaEQ. That's it.
Samples:
Acoustica library
Sullivan King Metal Electronic (drums)
Kontakt stuff:
pocket blakus spic (3 instances, one detuned -12 semitones)
carpenter trombone
Gaia Francesca (lite)
some free choir library; not sure where from but it's out there.
Wonderharp
Marimba
The Metal Factory Drums (cymbals)
Egyptian Ney
Victorian Music Box
Woodblock percussion
Probably lots of other stuff I'm forgetting because the majority of the track is groups I manually set up and panned/EQ'ed.
Be sure to check the free Kontakt library thread in the Audio forum; plenty of freebies out there. Most of what I have is either from giveaways, gifts, and flash sales.
And of course, the obligatory Patreon plug. Check it if you dig.
Patreon.com/adr3_n
ADR3-N responds:
Yo, thanks for the review! Yeah, I probably should have done more with that bass synth, some kind of modulation. I've never used it before and am not at all knowledgeable with the interface, lol. It is a bit all over the place -- I wrote the middle half of the song last, which is basically where the genre shifted from cinematic to a synthwave/dnb type hybrid.
As to what inspired the chord progression -- you're a guitarist, right? You could really benefit from the stuff SignalsMusicStudio posts on YT, in particular song writing and chord progressions. I think the video I watched some months ago that introduced me to consciously choosing these chord progressions is titled "god chords" or something. Then too, there's Adam Neely's stuff on bass reharmonization, which is the technique used here.
I really, really....REALLY should've checked out your music earlier. I'm impressed. I liked the pensive mood and atmosphere at the beginning. The background distorted whoosh noises were a bit too in-your-face for my taste at the very beginning, but that's a tiny detail. The progression is also a little slow towards the beginning, but I'm loving the cinematic vibe by around the 1-minute mark. The grainy, static-y synth bass there doesn't add a lot to the texture. I guess I wanted it to be replaced with something that was a bit more polished, like a round sub-bass or something. I'd also like to see the bell-like melodies at around 1:45 come out a bit more. The production is probably my favorite part of the piece, but I think the sound design is quite pleasing overall (despite my issues with a couple of choices). The piece really comes together by the end with the quirky mood and staccato-y riffs in the upper-mids. Nice work! Atmosphere at the end was a great touch too. Keep up the good work, Adrean! ^_^
ADR3-N responds:
I want to be completely upfront about this piece and just say I had no idea what I was doing, haha. New PC, new SFX, had to redesign my FX library since I lost a lot of what I did have, and I've never done a piece quite like this... like ever.
I think you're probably right. I was thinking of taking those whooshes down about .5 dB -- although they're actually wind and rain samples, singing dunes in the key of the song.
1:00 I was considering taking that bass down and applying some silky flange-y FX but I thought the song needed some grit. Perhaps I could have given it more life with another sidechain input in fabfilter C2 or lowpass/LFO play there. I find that subby basses take up a lot of space in the mix -- like those kicks and bass drops -- the former is hard to manage alongside a fat bass.
Yeah, that synth bell thing probably could come up a bit -- it's actually the second to last melody I wrote; I appended it to the end as well as sort of a tie on. Like at 2:21 through 2:32, lots of Eric Whitacre influence there. Probably should have brought both up by about 1-2 dB.
Production wise, mixed at -6 dB with the volume on like 10% before I touched the master. I wish I had EQ'ed out a lot of the sub pre-compression. Each track has a multiband compressor on it in lieu of an EQ to keep a more natural frequency range.
Also, thank Quarl for pestering me to bother with atmos, haha.
Thanks for the review! Lemme know if you have a piece you want looked at. :)
Godly. Absolutely godly.
ADR3-N responds:
I was a bit nervous to go outside of metal with this theme for fear of clashing with the others, but it seemed more subtle, and this style just seemed to flow right out. I'm glad you like!
Also I've never really mixed thunder samples, bass drops, orchestral/cinematic, and... whatever this is. Whole track is a first for me despite having roots in classical and EDM.
Credits & Info
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ADR3-N 
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