Venus
Venus (on Guitars)
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 25
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and recording period: May 29 2023 - June 21 2023, Nov 8 - Nov 11
"Sure that guitars are suitable..."
(TM writes:)
Although I didn't write that in the notes on the original version of Venus, it took much time to try and error the tones -- or you can say instruments instead -- for the parts even during my composition on the notation software MuseScore.
I made several extra MS files for other sets of instruments and eventually I set what the original version uses as the final set, like the tentative title was named "Vibraphone and Piano Chillout." But out of those alternatives I was sure that a version on guitars would be perfectly suitable.
That's how I made the guitar version on the notation in August 2022, which is almost the same as the time of the original one being made.
Then, I started to re-arrange Venus for the guitar version but I gave up completing it on the way (after making about 50 bars) for some reason I just don't remember and sent it to TI. He structured and completed from it.
As I write on the original version, Venus was written for the "Placid Wanderings" album at first and mixed afterwards for "The Planet Series" and thus nearly no consideration about the planet Venus was made for this guitar re-arrangement.
Should it be added into the Placid Wanderings series, the work is about some situation when you are looking up at the night sky and trying to find differences between your home and the site where you're travelling. That would be nice.
One thing I'd like to add is that this version of Venus, in particular, has the essence of the electronic music in my view -- or the digital music, I should say. The tones of the guitars are all sampled ones and you might think therefore it doesn't sound very digital, which is very true. Yet, the thing is, the phrases, voicings, part combinations and mixing are nothing but those for digital music. It's similar to what we experimented in the "Newfangled Hotel Ambience" album.
(TI writes:)
For this track, I mixed the score written by TM directly in Studio One.
The number of tracks is 25, including sub-tracks created by dividing the guitar parts by technique, and the track itself is a track that is based on the image of a guitar performance, so the processing method is roughly fixed and I didn't think it would be that difficult, but I realised how difficult it was when I tried it.
When I thought about it, there are not so many tracks that have 25 tracks with just the guitar.
Moreover, the number of notes playing at the same time is quite large, with arpeggios playing in two parts at the same time and a lot of cutting phrases.
Even though each guitar type is different, they are originally the same instrument, so naturally the bandwidth tends to gather in the same place, and each part does not have a fixed specific role, so it was very difficult to localise and balance the sounds.
The solution was to determine the role of each part and its location (e.g. lead part) and set the bandwidth and volume to be emphasised accordingly.
This is possible because the guitar has many overtones.
If there was still overlap, I would create a delay or reverb or other delayed part, or create a time difference, so to speak, and emphasise the bandwidth of distortion and other effect components that emphasize overtones, and I separated the sound bandwidth in various ways.
In the end, I created a separate file for the master mix and made adjustments such as expanding the sound image in parts with a large number of notes and narrowing it in parts with a small number of notes.
If you listen to the sound with headphones, you can clearly hear the effect of the sound image being widened in the distance and narrowed up close.
(TI added:)
When I wrote this note, TM pointed out to me that "I only wrote 50 bars, so how did you extend them?" I thought that this was not true, and that TM had probably added the end of the song and sent it to me again because the song was too short.
Indeed, the original score is only 50 bars long.
Then, after examining the Studio One production files again, I discovered the process of breaking down the 50 bars and six part phrases he had created, rearranging them in various ways, splicing in the ends and reconstructing them.
And I think I told TM that" I had created it (the beyond) like this". And I think he gave me the OK. I am gradually remembering. I think it's probably in my Facebook message logs that I communicate with him.
So it was a long mixed version, so to speak. I had completely forgotten about it myself.
Notes on "Venus"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 46
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and recording period: Jun 12 2023 - Jun 16 2023, Oct 2 - Oct 23
Concept & Composition: Complex, ambiguous but clear harmonies
(TM writes:)
This is our 100th work. But we didn't intend to make something memorable as the 100th, but it was just like "Have we made 100 tracks?! Joking! Which is the 100th?? Venus? Not too bad!"
As usual for us, the title "Venus" was named just before released. Before that it was "Vibraphone & Piano Chillout", which I had intended to put into the "Placid Wanderings" album.
One day, TI suggested we put it into the Planet Series. I haven't thought about it. Great.
Thus, the concept of this work is relaxing minimal music despite FMT's complex and experimental features, quite similar to the Placid... tracks.
In particular, the harmonies are centred in it and those structure the rhythm. The general music has one chord or tonality at one timing that shifts or progresses. But in this work we can't identify the chord or tonality at a timing, which you could hear variously, and it doesn't shift or progress a lot.
But it's still calmly dramatic and beautiful to me. That's what I aimed then.
The planet of Venus attracts me a lot, by the way. It's very brilliant compared to the other planet because it's covered with thick clouds and enables the sunlight to make a lot of reflection. Below the clouds the sunlight hardly reaches the ground but Venus brings the heat little by little inside to keep the temperature around 464°C (867°F).
In terms of the harmonies, at first the vibraphone plays B-flat, F, C and upper C, which sounds like B-flat add9 or F sus4 without the tonal note. Later when the minimal phrase on pianos and marimba joins, they play a dyad of D and G. D is the tonal note to B-flat but if you hear D as the key it's like Dm with the minor 6th. But if you prefer G as the key because D can be seen dominant to G, it's like Gm7 add4. This is just an example of how it's designed to sound ambiguously and clearly at the same time.
Asian interpretation of Venus
(TI writes:)
TM's reference to Venus reminded me that when the title and theme of this song was chosen as 'Venus', I imagined it not as a planet, but as the '金神(Kon-Jin)' belief in '天(Ten)' (space), which is the object of belief in various Asian religions.
In Asia, there are three main perceptions of the cosmos and celestial bodies: the Moon, the Big Dipper and Venus. These are the stars that shine in the celestial bodies at night and are positioned as a separate entity and concept from the daytime sun.
The god of Venus is, to put it simply, the god of misfortune, and is positioned as a symbolic presence of ruthlessness. However, it is also an object of faith, as it is able to give happiness to humans by borrowing its mighty power.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%91%E7%A5%9E
I tried to bring such a chilly image to this track when I created the sound.
Studio One Updated
(TI writes:)
The track was produced in June 2023 and finished in a relatively short time, but then in October, when Studio One was updated to support Dolby Atmos, allowing surround and immersive mixes, the mix was redone in 5.1ch binaural mixes.
However, as noted in the Moon Note, music is different from game and film soundtracks in that the music is usually listened to face to face with the performer and the sound source, and the listening points assumed are different from those of the game and film soundtracks. For example, there is no need for the sound (instruments) to sound behind you or for the sound image to be centred on you in a three-dimensional way, so it is almost the same as a conventional stereo mix in terms of auditory perception.
However, compared to a conventional stereo mix, the acoustic space is definitely wider and each part can be heard more clearly.
However, the way of thinking about the mix, especially in terms of localisation and depth, is completely different from conventional stereo mixes, so we are still in the trial-and-error stage.
Mixing
(TI continues:)
The arrangement and basic tone creation is based on the MuseScore score created by TM and is not very elaborate.
Most of the tones were created by selecting and applying relatively clear instrumental sounds from Studio One's sample library, and very little editing was done to the tones themselves.
However, after converting these tones to WAV files, pitch and external effects are applied in detail.
During this process, when I was applying various modulation effects to sample instrumental tones such as piano and marimba, I realised that I could create a 'pseudo-prepared piano' using Fairlight's 'PageR function', similar to what we had done before with our 'Mood Of Three'.
A 'prepared piano' is a contemporary musical technique in which various devices are used inside the piano to prevent the original pitch and timbre from being produced.
The specific technique is to separate the tracks for each key of the instrument's sample timbre and apply individual effects to each track or bass channel, or to tweak the sound source settings (pitch, filter, ENV, etc.).
For this piece, for each key, I changed the pitch, effects and localisation of the piano note by less than a fifth of its pitch. It's like a piano out of tune, so to speak.
For the vibraphone, an external effect filter and resonator are used to emphasise and modulate the pitch (+22hz), which is slightly off the harmonics of the original pitch.
Therefore, unlike the piano, the Vibraphone part is pitch-accurate and its pitch-accurate tones are sounding well. However, the overtones and reverberations are slightly off pitch.
For the effects in this case, I made extensive use of Kilohearts' free plug-in sets.
In particular, modulation effects such as ring modulators and resonators can be used to generate overtones, which can then be adjusted with filters to produce sounds with a texture similar to that of the Prophet 5 of yesteryear.
After adjusting the Marimba with a ring modulator or resonator as described above, the Haas effect is applied to slightly shift the timing between left and right (in essence, it is like a delay that can be applied independently to left and right, but it is used to adjust the phase of the raw sound and the timing is finer than a delay). （The timing can be adjusted more finely than a delay (level and length without sound separation).
The bass is replaced by a synth bass, which is also percussive with overtones generated by ring modulators and the like.
As for the overall sound, a room reverb is applied to the centre of the long tones and a little comp is applied to make it sound like it is behind.
For the rest of the sounds, no reverb effects are applied (if it sounds like there is reverb, it is probably reverb in the tone itself).
Everything else is set to mono and the localisation is narrowed down, and then the localisation is adjusted respectively.
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