Building upon our knowledge in MIDI creations, the following week we set out to experiment on virtual modular synthesisers such as VCV and Modular Grid. The methodology of synthesis is something that I find particularly difficult, and I think that this is mainly because it will take a while for me to wrap myself around the signal flow of a virtual synth, which makes producing patches somewhat confusing and time consuming.
I did however manage to create a very simple and basic patch, which you can listen to below.
After putting a few inserts here and there until sound came out, I began to learn a little bit more about the signal flow of the synth and began to be able to create slightly more complicated patches, which included two oscillators, a filter, an amplifier, a low frequency oscillator filter (LFO), and an envelope.
(an image of my virtual synth setup)
I like how creating music with a modular synthesiser is reminiscent of the music of the 1980's, especially of TV and film and the soundtracks that were created around this time because of their frequent use of synths. I am reminded also of the Netflix hit Stranger Things (2016), and its use of synthesisers in its theme song and sound design, in order to illicit an element of spookiness in the 80's-inspired science fiction thriller.
At the end of this week we also booked in some time to go into a Neve studio, so that we can record the majority of our acoustic sounds for our project.
The team and I feel that we may be lacking behind slightly in terms of time management - ideally we would have liked to have two weeks of recording but we have now condensed it into one week due to poor planning.
This week we also had a 'tuning' session, whereby we presented our project work so far to some peers and listen to their thoughts and feedback. The work that we presented was the reference track and scratch track (which you can find here and here). The group generally noted that in relation to our reference track we had succeeded on creating the right 'vibe' with our scratch track, that is to say we had been able to create an emotional atmosphere with our music and drive the listener through different levels of fear. Areas to improve on however included filling in the 'spaces' within our scratch track, for example occupy the time between flute notes with something relevant to the environment such as bird calls or winds in the trees or footsteps. I think this will be a valued asset of our music sequence and will make our project more immerse to a listener.
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