Even If I Could Tell You -- (Amberwolf meets Depeche Mode?)

[Amberwolf]

My brother says it's Depeche Mode meets Amberwolf meets some other band he doesn't remember the name of....

I started out just messing around with sounds, as usual, and ended up with this.   I'ts now undergone  extensive editing, recomoposition, mix, added vocal tracks, accents, environmental fx and transitions added, reworked percussion, mix, etc.   and is definitely ready for public listening and feedback is desired.  

https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/even-if-i-could-tell-you

 

I'd guess I have about 24-26 hours total into editing this one, over the last three days.  Not as much as I've spent on some good tracks, but this one has turned out pretty good.   Might still be some changes coming here and there, but probably only tweaks to timing of certain bits of percussion and adjsutments to some note volumes here and there. 

For those interested in the process:

 

There's almost none of hte orignal clips I started with left intact in there.  Most of them have been seriously chopped up, stretched, squeezed, pitch shifted, processed, etc.   The "weird" bassline sound at the beginning was from some Neurofunk collection at BlackOctopus that came free with something else.  I can't stand the NF stuff in there, but the sound was interesteing, so I cut out all the glitches and wierd stuff, and reassembled the pieces into my own bassline starter.  Some of the wierder short bits ended up as tiny "distortion guitar" hits, though it isn't a guitar, you can hear them quietly in the background of the slower part of the intro a couple of times.  They also underlay a couple of points in the early vocals to help with the character.

The early vocals, especially the middle-deeper phrases just over a minute and a quarter in, are not male vocals, they're some operatic-style stuff from I tImage Sounds - Cinematic Choir, chopped up and pitch shifted down almost two octaves, with other pieces less shifted in parallel with them on a different more reverbed track.   The super shifted stuff sounds AWFUL and completely unvocal like on it's own, but it sounds exactly like I wanted it to in the mix...wierd.   The rest of the parts were only shifted down a few notes after being chopped/stretched/squished. 

The later vocals are from antoehr Ghosthack bundle, Origin - Arabic - Kit 06 - Ghosts Of The Past, again hacked and chopped and shfited etc.  

The end vocals are from a different set, I think some of them are from a Ghosthack bundle "Alley" in the adlibs part.

Some of the really deep almsot growly throat hums that start it all off were also from  Ghosthack bundle, Origin - Arabic  but were from the "male vocals low throats" section.  

 

I prefer using Ghosthack stuff because they provide wet and dry for most things, so I can use the dry ones to chop up cleanly for pitch/etc changes.  The ones with fx already in them are really hard to do this convincingly, so there are a lot of especially vocal bits in other companies' libraries that I eitehr have to use as-is, or hide the transitions in changes with a lot of other stuff going on, etc.  Some I can't use at all unless I use them whole.  

 

I think most fo the orchestral percussion started out as a loop in one of the Shymer packs from Ghosthack, but it didnt' fit any of the bassline I ended up creating, so it's completely chopped up and rebuilt to fit the various parts of the song, so it changes a lot throughout.  

Some other parts I used for pieces of the bassline were from Ghosthack's Cinematic Essentials.  The main pulse bassline that begins maybe halfway thru startted from there, then was run thru Bifilter2 with various automation to help it fit around the other parts I'd already made.  Same with some of hte other background "synth" parts chopped up into bits to stick behind things to give me the sound and notes I wanted. 

 

The main "arp lead" is actually an ostinato string part from Ghosthack's Cinematic Essentials,  that was made for a lower tempo, so when I stretched it to fit this project's 140bpm it ended up grainy and wierd, but it fit the style.  To get rid of the worst of the high end harshness from that process, I fed it to the bass2 buss that isn't filtered as heavly as the main bass buss, which results in the sound you hear in the first half.   In the second half I copied it to another track that feeds a "normal" bus but has all the bass filtered out with Sonitus Multiband compressor by turning off the bottom two bands.  (becuase these are the bands left audible in the other track).   Then I crossfade between the two, neither going completely in or out, to change the sound for various parts of the last half of the song without having to recreate the part in a different instrument. 

 

The secondary intertwining bits that sometimes sound like pizzicato strings, sometimes like banjos or whatever, are celli pizz string bits from the same bundle as the above.  

 

There's quite a few little sounds and transition FX that came from various parts of the SampleTraxx bundles, though none of them were used as the original clip; they were either mangled or thye were overlaid with others from other places, or other sounds I had or made.  

 

There are some muted-sounding sections, like under the intro...those came because when you solo a track, it also has to open up any busses that it feeds to the mains thru, and when I soloed one track to hear it, I found that sound,w hcih was perfect for those places.  I just left the track soloed, muted it's clips temporarly, and exported the whole project as just that mostly-muted and quiet to a wave file to keep as a "knocks and ticks" track to bring in for certian parts of the whole thing.   Then improted it into a new track that feeds the master bus as-is, though I also put an eq on it to filter some bits out in places, and automated volume eerywhere to turn it on and off and fade it as needed. 

 

 

 

Orignal version (just a sketch of the idea from a couple hours into the process) still over at: https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15064964

 

 

For the cover art, my trusty "AI" image creation tools failed me completely on this one, so I resorted to the ancient paintshop pro 6 to first make very dark one of the oldest of the orignal AI images I had made sometime last year, that didn't make the cut for anything else because it was totally wrong for whate I was doing then, especially since the "wolves" it made for the stage performers were weird versions of humans with sort of screwed up wolf like heads and extra limbs and whatnot.

It's still wrong now, but darkened more than 90%, then erasing all the stuff in the top third, and the sides, leaving just bare outlines so you can't see all the wierdness  then I used lots of dodging, burning, selections, hue-to-target, etc, to eventually get the image you see above. So this one has at least a couple of hours of actual art creation in it. If I'd had time I would have done a much better job, but it will be seen at the size above for most viewers looking at the bandcamp page, or even smaller, so the detail didn't really matter. The fullsize version can be seen by clickign on the alburm art whiel on the bandcamp page for the song itself.

When I figure out what to call the present track, :oops: I'll add a title in a similar style at the bottom across the audience, but instead of glowing fire it will be shadow just back-edge-lit by the blue stage lights and fiery Amberwolf sign over the stage. .

 

 

Edit:  now has a title, so updated artwork below

 

It also potentially has lyrics, if the rest of the story can be coaxed out of my brain. What I have so far (not much):

 I could tell you everything
 xxand it still wouldn't matterxx
 xxwouldn't matter at allxx
 i could tell you everything
  and it just wouldn't matter
 
 even if i could tell you
 I wouldn't know how
 even if i could tell you
 wouldn't believe me anyway
 even if i could tell you
 I would never get it right
 even if i could tell you
 tell you tell you tell you tell you tell you tell you
 even if i could tell you
 the difference would be slight
 in how you would see me 
 in whether you would care
 in how that you'd treat me
 in how that I would fare
 I could tell you everything
 and it still wouldn't matter
 even if i could tell you
 there still be nothing there
 If I could just keep you in the dark
 If you didn't know the things I do
 then maybe i could join you there
 and peace could come to me
 
 Even if i could tell you
I'd still just walk the line
between life and death
that lies between us
between me and the rest of you

even if i could tell you
how would i achieve
anything of value
because i know you see
you see you see you see you see
nothing in this face
nothing in these eyes
nothing that is me
reflects in your mind
your mind your mind your mind your mind

)

Edited Thursday at 03:09 AM by Amberwolf

[treesha]

Interesting and complex as usual. As you explained a lot of work went into all your adjustments, mutations and creativity. I like how your stuff has a pseudo-tribal vibe. The mix sounds good to me. Really enjoyed it.

[Amberwolf]

2 hours ago, treesha said:

Interesting and complex as usual. As you explained a lot of work went into all your adjustments, mutations and creativity. I like how your stuff has a pseudo-tribal vibe. The mix sounds good to me. Really enjoyed it.

Thanks!

I'm still adding touches here and there (like the servo sounds (from the servos for my wolfy-bot) as a subtle underlay for the weird neurofunk-bass sound I used in the beginning and here and there throughout the song).  

Still working on making the "orchestral" percussion pieces more realistically played.  Don't really know how to do it so am just experimenting until it sounds right--some of it's done, some still in progress.   Any bits you happen to hear "off" if you can post a time for them I can fix them.  

Still taking tiny pieces out, too, or turning parts down (or individual notes) to better smooth things out where needed. 

 

[Amberwolf]

Somebody told me that the AI likes it too 😆

[Amberwolf]

While making a milkshake in the kitchen, and using a vintage hand juicer as a strainer to get the strawberry powder out of an oatmeal packet into a bit of tupperware, the sound it was making begged to be percussion, so I took it into the quietest room and recorded it with my phone, transferred those to the computer, and edited bits of them into this project here and there.

Bonus points if you can find them.  

 

073025: 073425 000001 200148z -- added oatmeal tupperware shakers and vintage juicer percussion, other tweaks, etc. 
EDIT:  apparently it's not actually a juicer, it's a potato-ricer.... :lol: :oops:  

Edited Friday at 05:22 AM by Amberwolf