Freelance Work

Earlier this year a friend on a different Film course asked me to make hime some original music for an advert he was making for a local tapas bar/restaurant.

http://www.mojobarandtapas.co.uk/index.html

The song can be heard here:

https://soundcloud.com/skudsounds/sodson-super-salsa-snack

Though some of the drums are taken from a sample pack the rest is composed by me, I watched a tutorial to get an idea how to play salsa piano and went from there. I was only given a deadline of a day or two, and would have liked to have recorded a real guitar as the Logic one sounds rather artificial, but did not have the time. I also removed a trumpet as it did not sound authentic enough.

A friend recently started his own gaming company, with the intent on designing and selling flash based arcade style games. He asked me if I would be willing to make some sound effects and music for 20% of the games profits. I would happily do it for free as it has been great practice and taught me a lot about Logic.

You can play the full game here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/626135

You listen to the full song here:

https://soundcloud.com/skudsounds/density

I wanted the piece to reflect the floating nature of the gameplay and objects onscreen and have an ambient quality whilst also retaining the aesthetics of an arcade style game. Several of the instruments used have different kinds of delay and reverb on them.
The piano ostinato was one of the first ideas I came up with, and I used delay designer to repeat the note three times, with each echo become quieter.

The analog percussion synth already had a preset stereo delay, which i then altered by turning on the beat synth function, and increasing the level of panning in the echos. This synth plays the sustained bass note progression and is looped throughout the piece, whilst the delay gives it a percussive edge with the initial attack.

Another great delay preset was the one on the Ultrabeat's 'Ghost Town' kit, which leaves each beat ringing out atmospherically. The snare is also quite distorted and has the perfect 16-bit game quality I had hoped to emulate.

Also featured is a Sculpture Synth vibraphone, with an ostinato inspired by a melody from Tensnake's 'Coma Cat', which I had been enjoying at the time over the summer.

The main melody is also played on Sculpture, with some lines using a call and response form with the piano. I originally wrote the piece in three sections, the intro, breakdown and final section, which was then also incorporated into the first section before the breakdown, as it is more lively and the designer wanted the first minute of gameplay to get players hooked.

I spent a good while mastering the track, especially getting a good mix of the drums, which was a little unnecessary as I would only be exporting a low quality file at around 128 kbs, owing to the small overall filesize requirement of the game, however it was good practice to relearn the basic principles of EQing and the right place to pan instruments, and the use of compression and limiters.

AVOID/FLUXXIL

The game is still in development, but you can listen to the full song here:

https://soundcloud.com/skudsounds/avoid

Inspired by future disco songs such as

Similar to Density in terms of it's sections, with a gradual build up in the first section breaking down into a sparse middle before building up again for the final act. This piece however features a much greater range of instruments and sounds, with beats taken from 6 drumkits, and around 8 synthesisers used.

The melodies used are all derived from an earlier demo I made for the game, https://soundcloud.com/skudsounds/avoid-demo-1 , which was a lot more frantic and arcadey, and may still be used in the more hectic higher levels. Rob asked for something upbeat with two melodies that play at different speeds, so I came up with an arpeggio somewhat inspired by Cliff Martinez' 'Wanna Fight' from the score of Only God Forgives (2013).

The song didn't entirely fit with the slower early levels however and I had wanted to try my hand at a future disco track for a while, so I opted for something with a tempo of 110bpm with a more funky disco vibe.

I created the highpass filter effects using the ES P synth and an autofilter, with the cutoff set at 50% with a resonance of 32%, going at a rate of 3 bars.

I again used a delay designer on one ES2 synth which I had molded from scratch to get the glittery quality I was after.

The delay recurred eight times, with each one alternating between extreme panning and gradually decreasing in volume.

I also assigned an arpeggiator to a snare to create an automated drum roll, at 1/8 length with a resolution of 1/32. This was again applied to the sustained chords of the EXS24 blue carpet synth in the outro, creating a nice sweep of notes spanning three octaves, with a length of 1/64 and a resolution of 1/16.

This synth is also soft throughout until the final section when I used the modulation wheel to crank up the cut off.

Both of the Saw synths are set to the legato function, with one playing a variation of the main melody from the early demo.

I have learned a great deal about the Functions of Synthesis and various effects through the creation of these scores, and it is a good and convenient working relationship that benefits us both that I look forward to continuing into the future.