'Cloven Prints in the Sand' - New Original Music/Unfinished Demo! Electronic/Goth (- Metal?)/Instrumental + Walkthrough!

grapthar (74)in #music • 6 years ago

So I wanted to write a song that

was in the same vein as Rider in the Night and Ride the Darkhorse, kinda gothy/industrial electronic stuff. This wound up being a lot heavier, but I really like how it came out. This is definitely NOT finished, the levels are off, and the kick drum disappears into the cloudiness of the distorted synth bass parts, so I will be correcting these things over the next day and two and will definitely make a new post re: any changes that I make. Let's go through the song as it currently sits.

Listen to Cloven Prints in the Sand here.

Track 1 begins the song,

droning on an E for the entire track. However, I used the detune option and mapped a little pattern so this instrument bends back and forth slightly above and below E, which gives us a really awesome, creepy effect. Tracks 2 through 5 are all playing the same progression, E, F, E, and Eb. 2 and 3 provide saw synths, while 4 and 5 are bass tracks (one guitar with overdrive, and one a distorted synth bass). All of these tracks need to drop in volume a bit to allow the kick drum to come through more.

Tracks 2-5, described above.

Track 6 is a synth with a ton

of reverb, played in a much higher octave than the bass parts, which adds some high end and dissonance to the progression. When the basses are playing an E, this track does too, but it reverses the F and Eb, playing E, Eb, E and F. This sort of mirror image gives us some awesome dissonances between the Eb/F and F/Eb.

Listen to Cloven Prints in the Sand here.

Track 7 is just used to help

transition us between sections and build things up a bit. Track 8 is our drums, which begin with a simple beat, kicks and hi-hats, then for the rest of the track, we use the much heavier beat that incorporates 3 different crash cymbals and kick/snare parts. Again, the kick is a bit too quiet/overpowered in this mix, so I will definitely be fixing that.

Tracks 9 and 10, described below.

Finally, we have Tracks 9 and 10

which use a guitar emulator as I didn't have a guitar with me, and wanted to get the general idea across. Initially these begin playing a progression of ascending minor thirds, which gives us some cool dissonances with the tritone and sharp 6. After the first 2 times around, the progression changes to what is pictured above, incorporating some minor 2nd intervals to give that cool, harmonic buzz associated with modern metal. These 2 tracks are also a bit lost in the mix, so I'll be focusing on that as I edit this over the week.