Look Of Clouds
LOOK OF CLOUDS (Gary Rees and The FURICO Music Team)
This track was released in October 2020, packed in the extended play called "Landscape Paintings" together with "King Of Tokyo" and "King Of Tokyo (with Poetry Reading)."
Track Data
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 4 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 4 Professional
Number of tracks: 128(1st),8(2nd)
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: Sep 30 2020 - Oct 20 2020
(TI writes:)
[From the genesis to the composition]
The genesis of the track's composition came from a message from Gary Rees, who said he had written a phrase for FMT.
We're also very excited to expand on other people's ideas and create songs from them. We've experienced this a few times before, where other people's ideas mix with ours to create music that we've never heard before.
After that, Gary sent me a MIDI data of four motifs lumped together, which he thought were hand-played. At that stage, however, the MIDI data was "his performance data", and I rewrote them into a 6-part phrase of a single melody in order to make a new track.
I (TI) added a few phrases to this, which became the basis for the track.
The next step is usually to send the MuseScore to TM, but he was too busy to write at the time, so I decided to quote some MuseScore notes he had been working on. I found a tenor and baritone choral motif called "Barbershop" that fit it and mushed it up.
At this stage it was just a mashup of Gary's phrase with my phrase and some of TM's previous notes.
And since TM didn't seem to be able to participate in this project, I thought, "Let's take the parts from the existing motifs and put them together," so to speak, "Let's create a Frankenstein-like monster. This "Frankenstein", or "taking what was previously organic and turning it into inorganic and turning it back into organic again", is the meaning of this piece of music for me, and one of the concepts that led to the sound creation and mixing ideas.
As for the rhythm of this track, I was going to create it (in a situation where TM wouldn't be able to participate much). It's like playing the drums myself. I envisioned an even rhythm with no awkward grooving, like a musician who doesn't normally play the drums by imitating them.
Before porting the score to Studio One, I sent it to TM for review and he added a few phrases to it. For example, a phrase like the bass cutting that starts at 0:58.
At this stage, TM only added phrases like that.
I exported the eventual MuseScore data to Studio One.
[Sound creation]
As for the tone, I decided to break down Gary's phrases into a six-voice monophonic melody, which I thought would have a classical feel to it, as the strings fit in very well. However, if that were only the case, the song would sound like the "Ruins" (Cyber-Excavating The Ruins, Hyper Chase For The Ruins) we've completed so far.
So this time I decided to create a completely different sound based on sample tones from classical instruments. Ruins" is an "artificial orchestra", but this piece is about "taking what was originally organic (the sounds of live instruments), sampling them, turning them into inorganic, and transforming them back into organic material", which is conceptually and musically different from "Ruins".
In other words, in terms of this timbre, it is "a sound that should have originally existed in the air and in time" and is "completely detached from its context". Therefore, the concept and the way it sounds as a piece of music are different from that of contemporary music, which is modulating the sound of actual instruments played.
Initially, however, in order to make it clear that the instrument is classical in nature, I decided to use the sampled voices as they are, and then to change them little by little.
Therefore, the song is almost entirely free of synthesizers (sounds with electrical oscillations as the sound source), just the high-pitched sounds from 2:20 onwards, and the white noise and oscillator-sync sounds that come with the pipe organ. The rest of the music is all derived from the playback sampler's instrumental sound presets. The electronic noise in this song is also instrumental in nature. By running it through the sampler's filters and effectors, it is transformed into a variety of sounds.
I used the Gate function of the sampler to chop up and filter the raw instrumental samples, including drum sounds. This is like creating more rhythm in a white ball. In "Fractal", we created the whole thing from parts, but we took the opposite approach (creating parts of the same structure from the whole). I also added noise to these sounds through Bit Crusher and external filters.
Through this work, I realized that instrument sounds can be as complex and diverse as the complex waveforms that modern synthesizers are capable of producing electronically.
This sound is difficult to reproduce on an electronically-oscillated synthesizer, but I think it's a sound that would be impossible to produce on a live instrument alone. Once again, I was reminded of the complexity and uniqueness of the waveforms of live instruments. When I wanted to create a complex sound, I learned that it was possible to use a sampler and effector to create a sound source from a live instrument, rather than creating it with a synthesizer.
[Mix]
Our compositions don't stick to any existing compositional styles and are often chaotic at the time of composition in MuseScore, but in Studio One, the volume control of each part, the timing and release of each part, and the bandwidth equalization process are all calculated and handled logically, and then we can work on our own. For example, to avoid creating parts that sound in the same band at the same time.
For example, in order to avoid creating parts that sound in the same band at the same time, we have to strictly distinguish the bands in which each part sounds, and then we have to check the timing and release of each part to make sure they do not overlap.
[Gary's & TM's additional phrases]
I thought the resulting tentative mix turned out to be as interesting as I expected it to be, so I sent it to TM. Then he added the additional phrases to MuseScore, which I merged again into Studio One.
(I merged it back into Studio One - the part that runs from 5:30 to 6:04 minutes.)
I then handed the file to Gary and asked him to create something if he wanted to add an extra phrase. He sent me three phrases: strings, vibraphone and piano. For this one, I used most of the sounds he sent me, but I didn't make them loud, but put them together in a way that made them sound like a sound effect in the background.
It's almost like a finished track at this stage, but at this point it was a completely different version of the song than it is now. The work stops here.
[The Producer came in!]
At this stage, both Gary and I were in the mood that it was almost finished, but TM's opinion was that it wasn't bad, but it lacked punch. I agreed with this opinion. It's an interesting song, but it's flat and lacks something.
So TM sent me MuseScore with some phrases replaced, and some notes with suggestions for tone and mix.
In my mind.
TM, wearing Ray-Ban teardrop sunglasses and a cigar, said, "I'm sorry I'm late." He sat down on the leather sofa behind the mixer and pulled out his notes and score.
But the idea and the pointing out was quite accurate, and the notes and the score changed the tune drastically.
The score included a change from my choppy hammer beat to a funkier driving rhythm in places, and the bass line was replaced with a 16th-note, 80s British hit-pops-like phrase to match.
There were also several other tonal changes in the suggestion notes, including the removal of some instrumental parts and the inclusion of breaks.
These added some ups and downs to a song that had been somewhat flat.
What's interesting about this is that even when the same tone is used to play the same phrase, the changes in the surrounding sounds can make it look different. For example, in the part I just mentioned, the bass and the drums come in to create a completely different atmosphere in what had been a classical choir up until that point.
Also, with this change, I added a single-note phrase that sounds like guitar cutting (Around the 2:44 - 4:15 minute mark).
This transition leads to the origin of the track's title.
[Finishing]
This time I modulated each tone to a more extreme level, so there were parts that peaked out in places. However, if you simply reduce the volume, the interest and oddity of the song is reduced.
Therefore, we carefully processed the peaks so as not to reduce their interest as much as possible.
At this point, we didn't apply a batch of limiters or compressors, but rather processed them manually, note by note. Specifically, we equalize the peaks that are causing the peaks to go out one by one, or re-balance them with the other sounds to make the ones that aren't as noticeable.
Likewise, even on the smallest notes, I tried to eliminate unnecessary attacks, reverberations, and bandwidths as finely as possible so that each note could be heard clearly.
I corrected the subtle shifts in MIDI data one by one. If you look at the audio data, there are some deviations from the expected pronunciation timing.
I'm working on rearranging these data to the expected timing. It was clear that the rhythm was sharper and the sound came to be heard clearly.
I spent roughly a week working on this process.
In this case, I used 128 tracks, which is a heavy load on the CPU, and it takes a lot of time to check the mix, so I divided the instrumental parts into three parts, according to bandwidth and role, mixed them separately, wrote them to a file, and created a master mix.
Then we export five different sound quality master mixes from these mixes, and we break them down and reconstruct them so that the sound and atmosphere changes from place to place. It's a kind of "Digital Dub".
There are also some jittery noises in some places, but these are considered part of the music.
[Mastering]
I was mastering it in LANDR for listening purposes while it was being created, but I was going to ask Gary to master it for me. I was convinced that it would be a bit of a stretch to do it automatically, especially for a song with such inconsistent volume and texture, and that I'd get a better result if I left it all to Gary.
He sent me two different mastering files and I chose one of them. I think the master file was clearly more three-dimensional and spacey.
（In addition, only the volume is adjusted by the mastering function in Soundcloud.）
[I Listen again]
Our songs rarely proceed in the same tone from beginning to end, but the tonal changes themselves are especially noticeable in this one. If you listen closely, the sustained French horn notes will somehow become resonant synth reeds, or the string reeds will turn into noise, and so on. TM seems to have likened this to a cloud, hence the title. In fact, a white cloud floating in the sky turns into a thundercloud, which thunders and thunders and clears again, in various ways.
[Gary Rees: "Pauses in a Greek play"]
(Gary Rees writes:)
FMT's music defies description or categorization. To describe a single track is to set out on a Homerian epic. Or perhaps a better Greek metaphor: the Greek drama. In listening to Look of Clouds I heard a dialogue of phrases. The phrases weren't always from the same voice, but I heard an exchange, nevertheless. And also a chorus. Not an electronic chorus effect or a group of singers. A Greek chorus, filling in the narrative. Look of Clouds alternates between more prominent melodic sections and quieter interludes. The spaces between reminded me of pauses in a Greek play. The chorus opines, then the play goes on.
I sent FMT a set of four musical ideas, each around a minute or so. I wrote on the piano but I knew the ideas could be transformed and rearranged and revoiced. I expected this from FMT who seem to love the challenge of transformation and creating new from existing. I can hear the parts I wrote in the piece. But I hear them perhaps like a playwright would, sitting with the audience. Someone whose writing has been imbued with life by a director and by talented players. It's an honor really, to have these great musical minds take some raw material that I've offered and build a wonderful drama such as this.
[TM: "Seems to exist but essentially does not"]
(TM writes:)
No matter if I was a producer like that, there are mainly two things I did in the track. One is composing the "Barbershop" phrases and the other adding ups and downs into this whole track.
As for "Barbershop", my original intention was to apply a Barbershop quartet to atonal and scale music, which I have never heard before. ”Never heard before" is quite natural because almost nobody can sing it. One note goes down by over an octave, for instance.
But the phrase consists of just two parts, rather than four... meaning it was work in process but I didn't feel a need to add the the third and forth. That's why I left it as it was.
The other thing that I did is a sort of production work, as TI described above. When a creator is into a sea of details, he/she tends to lack the whole perspectives, which is quite natural. As the work at that time was a great drawing, it's just like I painted it in various colours from such a point of view.
Thus, each section seems to have particular meanings but actually none. There seem particular contexts throughout the track but none. Each section appears and disappears but never comes back. To me one of the most significant features in the track is a very Eastern philosophical notion that "something seems to exist but essentially does not."
That's what the title implies.
[TM: "mistakes are made accidentally and hated... should it be hated...?"]
(TM writes:)
In addition I so much like the sounds here and there in this track like, let me say, digital errors that TI intentionally made. As I aimed to make such an effect on the rhythms, I made intentional errors on percussion, which I hear interesting. For example, there is a place where the snare drum changes from off-the-beat to on-the-beat (for two bars from bar 57), where I "made a mistake" in the copy & paste of the drum pattern (on purpose).
In music in general, there is a big dilemma. Making a mistake in playing an instrument physically is thought as a must-not, but human beings are to make mistakes in their nature. Even though mistakes someone like the Beatles made are sometimes loved by the fans, that's exceptional. In principle mistakes are made accidentally and hated, unfortunately. But a question arises; should it be hated if what sounds like mistakes is intentionally designed? That's what "seems to exist but essentially does not", isn't it?
I thought that's one of the questions physical-free FMT are quite eligible or suitable to pose.
It might be a good idea for you to enjoy discovering such errors.
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