Song of the Week: March 25 – “Through a Glass Darkly”

I thought I’d try and continue in the spirit of an earlier entry and doing another ambient soundscape type of a thing this week.

This tune had it’s start over a year ago when I put together something on a rainy Christmas Day. I was going for something moody and ethereal, but it wasn’t working, though I’d found a few sounds that I liked. In particular was a church organ type of sound that I was getting out of the u-He Tyrell N6. It’s augmented here with the Martinic Combo V, and lots of reverb.

The driving force behind the piece is really the 16-note ostinato synth pattern, which is being layered by a number of synths: Chip32, Oki Computer in Reaktor (and a time stretched loop of the same sequence played as 32-notes), AAS Acoustic Strum, and Scarbee Mark I Rhodes. I was shooting for that cheesy 8-bit vibe with the Oki line. It reappears later in the piece on top a series of actual chord changes as well.

The secret weapon is the soundscape generated on NI Reaktor with Metaphysical Function. I layered two tracks of noise that came out of this thing.

Some other plugs:

• Reaktor Carbon 2 (pad)
• Reaktor Metaphysical Function (soundscape)
• Reaktor Oki Computer (synth ostinato)
• Chip32 (synth ostinato)
• AAS Strum Acoustic / Scarbee Mark (ostinato)
• Martinic Combo V (organ)
• Tyrell N6 (spacey organ pad)
• ZebraCM (bass)

• Ultrabeat (drums)
• Kontakt (drums)
• Rob Papen RG Muted (chunky rhythm guitar)
• Sampletron (mellotron choir)