Uboa - Tongues of Other Ears (WIP)

Another done-in-one sitting song based on complex LFO patches and royalty-free samples.

It sounds a little like Ben Frost, who I'd been listening to a lot recently, and reading interviews about how he gets his particular 'organic' synth sound. In one interview he mentions stacking many, many VSTs and synth patches - often default ones - to make very complex tones which evolve over time, especially with LFOs automating various parameters. These include: reverb wet/dry, EQs, phasing between two similar synths, panning, saturation and compression. Most of this song wrote itself with how many generative elements there were.

The tempo-syncing of the LFOs gives a sense of rhythm and constant evolution and make the synths/samples sound more like a breathing machine. I also added rhythmic "risers" into the synths by using sawtooth LFO shapes. Furthermore really brickwalled compression (using the new Colour Limiter in albeton) help give it that guttural sound Ben Frost uses quite often. I strongly advise this method to get interesting sounds (and doing your own spin on it). It is very CPU-heavy, like check out this LFO count on a single track.

Since I spent about 2 hours on this but am quite happy with it so far, I intend to finish it and probably add some more Uboa-y elements (vocals, noise etc) later to make it sound more like me and less me recreating somebody else, especially replace the downloaded-as-is splice samples (the cellos). But it goes to show, trying to recreate somebody else can really help with learning sound design, as often you fail to do it 1:1 and do your own thing in the process. The final version, because this is generative composition, will sound quite different even with the same MIDI notes and synths patches. Generally I expect to do many takes and bake the best ones down, then adding layers on top to give it more structure. Even the tom-like booms are generative, with an LFO randomly phasing between similar samples to make it "naturalised".

Anyway, try layering! Try LFOs too. I did all of this on my laptop without adding my own recorded elements minus tinkering. In this sense its derivative, which the next version will hopefully fix. Best way to do it in Ableton is pick a synth you like, drag onto a MIDI track, right-click the header and click "group", show chain list and then drag another synth (or three) onto the chain. Try different combos. They'll then play simultaneously. I might do a more detailed how-to but the trick is the fade them in and out (in the chain list using the volumes of each chain) by tethering it to an LFO or another modulator. The macros (since its an Ableton pack synth, with minimal modifications) each point to filters, ADSR, verb etc and each are tethered to a different tempo-sync (or not, up to you) LFO.

Keep in mind this has literally no mastering minus a basic limiter as of yet and clips at certain points. I dunno if this is a bad thing or not however.

P.S. I should get a cello, or at least bow my guitar.