:clap: :clap: :clap:
Really enjoyed taking part in this - thanks to Dave B for organising, and all of the participants for some great tracks and good fun :thumbup:
I'd started thinking about doing an arrangement of the Mahler a couple of months ago, but didn't do much with it. I picked it up again a few weeks ago, following the death of a friend - I'd have shown him the part-finished work next time we met up, but sadly we never had that opportunity. That gave me the impetus to revisit it, so the piece is dedicated to the memory of the late Paul Rice.
The synth choice was partly motivated by the "try the stock DAW plugins, they're pretty good" advice that is often given in the forum. Given that it's a standard Cubase one I was sure I'd be busted straight away, so Elf's accusation that it might be Eddy on a Hydrasynth was incredibly flattering!
I felt the piece naturally suggested a pad-led arrangement, so Padshop seemed an obvious choice. Achieving the right texture without it turning into an indistinct mush was a bit of a challenge though :mrgreen:
In total there are 20 instances of Padshop used, with most of Mahler's original parts played by two separate instances. A few bits such as the 1st/2nd violins are three separate instances/pads.
There isn't a lot in the way of effects used, as again I was very wary of it becoming a bit too crowded. There is a bit of reverb, some EQ cuts to try to thin a few bits out in the mids, and some aggressive 48dB/oct HPF on some of the parts, as without that the low mids down into bass region had become horrifically cluttered.
The length of the piece meant that time was also a bit of a challenge - each pass through of each part took 12 minutes, and that really adds up. Tweak the EQ on one part, spend 12 minutes listening to it, repeat 20 times, go back and do it again...
I did get a bit carried away and bought a new polysynth that arrived on the Saturday before the deadline, and considered switching the entire thing over to that. I'm pretty glad I didn't, as I'm reasonably happy with how this turned out, and after a bit of tinkering it became apparent that I'd need to spend a good while doing some RTFM before I'd even got the basics of the new toy worked out, let alone enough depth to do justice to it.
IAA wrote:I think Logarythym’s interpretation of the Mahler was truly haunting, inspiring. Well done and on a stock plugin! Should be required listening for all those starting off with their DAWs and what you can do with what you’ve got!
Thank you, that really means a lot to me, particularly given that you recognised it! :blush:
I was worried I'd just end up defiling an astonishing piece of music, and there were a good number of occasions where I felt a bit like I was updating Monet's Water Lillies by using a felt tip pen to draw shopping trollies in the pond :crazy:
fruitcake wrote:6. I really like the long evolving textures. LFO?, ENV?
Most of the sounds themselves are relatively static - as mentioned above, keeping the enormous wall of pads in check was a bit of a challenge, so I wanted more direct control over what was happening when and how. The variations in texture are partly just different pads coming in/out and levels changing, largely based on Mahler's original orchestration although I did switch a couple of parts around in places, in pursuit of the right texture. The rest is parameters mapped to the mod wheel - after I'd set out the basic structure (notes, velocities etc tidied), I spent a bit of time working out what to map and adjusting the depth of modulation to get the right ballpark range, hit record, closed my eyes, and just wiggled the joystick around in a way that felt right.
