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I thought I should do a write up about the challenge I did, so here it is. This may be a little chaotic, as I’ll be going through all of the inspirations as they came to me rather than how they appear in track. I’ll try and make this flow as best I can.
I had to write a song that was was in a style voted for by other members of COMUSO (Hard Rock/ Techno/Classical), that referenced other hit songs, that sounded like it could open an album, while sticking to the monthly theme as usual. Also, I had to send off two versions of the same track, the full version and a stripped back version to show it off in a more raw light.
Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this to someone unless they had the time and the energy. I ended up having to copy a lot of music from other sources. This was mostly due to the classical element of the track, as I didn’t have time to write a full classical piece as well as everything else. Having a starting point that I could build from really helped me with this song, although I still wanted to add a bit to the classical side of the music that was my own. Trying to keep everything fitted around the theme was also a bit tricky, as well as trying to balance all the different required elements. It was fun, but it was also extremely difficult, and I would make sure you knew you were going to have the time to do it before attempting the challenge.
The Title
Volo Omnis Ergo Sum Anomie - I Want Everything, Therefore I Am Without Morality Yeah, it’s a bit pretentious, but it isn’t without it’s reasoning! As the theme was about loneliness and solitude I was wondering how I could spin the theme in a bit more of a unique way and so decided to write about the old saying “It’s lonely at the top”, with my perspective of debating whether to make music I like or music I think will get me lots of attention. The idea of 8 years came from my time as a home educated student and my adult life so far, which has amounted to an 8 year long lockdown.
Yeah, it’s a bit pretentious, but it isn’t without it’s reasoning!
As the theme was about loneliness and solitude I was wondering how I could spin the theme in a bit more of a unique way and so decided to write about the old saying “It’s lonely at the top”, with my perspective of debating whether to make music I like or music I think will get me lots of attention.
The idea of 8 years came from my time as a home educated student and my adult life so far, which has amounted to an 8 year long lockdown.
Two more inspirations for the title came from a couple of animations, Pokémon and The Ink Black Heart.
Before you go looking for the latter I should state that it’s a book about an animation by JK Rowling, under the alias of Robert Galbraith.
In the Pokémon game Pokémon: Legends Arceus the main villain is named Volo, who debates with another character called Cogito. This is in reference to the latin phrase “Cogito, Ergo Sum”, or "I think, therefore I am”, which, if you replace Cogito with Volo, you get “Volo, Ergo Sum”; “I want, therefore I am”. I wanted to use this as Volo’s Theme is used in my music quite heavily, and it fit the idea of my track quite well.
The Ink Black Heart is a different matter, as the detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott are tasked with finding an online troll by the name of, you may have guessed, Anomie. Slight spoiler but I actually share quite a lot in common with the main villain, which wasn’t entirely reassuring. My mother was reading the book and struggling with a lot of the slang in the novel, as it’s based around a YouTube sensation with a lot of the action happening on the social media site formerly known as Twitter and an online game called Drek’s Game, which was based on the fictional animation.
So, I got the 1221 page behemoth, and read it in 13 days. First book in a while for me, I seriously couldn’t put it down. In the end Anomie isn’t exactly a sympathetic character, but his character is really interesting and it fit the theme quite well.
The Classical Element
All of the classical parts of my track were from video games. I’ve already mentioned Volo’s Theme, although I should also mention that the original track was called Approaching Cynthia and the two are virtually identical. The other piece I took was from the video game Detroit: Become Human, a game about a futuristic Earth that has developed androids to serve people with rather predictable results. The story of that game is phenomenal and the soundtrack backs it up beautifully. The piece that I used was from a track called Kara’s Theme, and you can hear the melody about a minute or so into the track. I liked the idea of transitioning between the two pieces, and having all of the “Classical” music coming from video games made an interesting juxtaposition, I felt.
As previously stated, I didn’t want to simply copy everything. Writing the classical element was part of the challenge, so I adapted some of the chords in order to fit a 4/4 beat and tried to convey a classical exposition -> development -> recapitulation -> coda type structure. In the recapitulation section I mixed the two different songs together to help build towards the end. I feared this section would get too cluttered, but I think I mixed it quite well in the end. For the instrumentation I used Spitfire Audio’s BBCSO Professional Edition for violins and a cello, Native Instruments Kontakt for piano, which was a mix of Maverick and Noire.
Another classical link, I guess, was the ticking clock and use of a Shepard-Risset Glissando, both of which are common techniques of Hans Zimmer. If you listen to the soundtracks of The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk or No Time To Die, you’ll hear these effects in play. I’ve always wanted to try a Shepard-Risset Glissando as they aren’t the easiest thing to pull off, and I had to use a bit of a cheat to get it to work, plus the ticking clock was a bit of a throwback to my track ’13’, which got displaced as the longest song I’ve uploaded to COMUSO.
The Techno Element
This was mostly down to the 4 on the floor beat that I put down in the track, arriving at certain points. However, there was a bit of creative sound design that I’ll mention. Oh, I almost forgot, I also used my synthesiser in this for both the bass and the lead line that follows the piano early on in the track.
One night last month there was a thunderstorm. I sat on my windowsill with my H6 recorder and let it listen to the rain. Using the CR-8 sampler I was able to loop a quick waveform of the thunder and created the whirring instrument heard during the chorus section. In order to get the effect I used a reverb effect on the actual instrument.
The Rock Element
This I do feel a little guilty with, mostly because I have no images to share despite being inspired by a band. I recorded my guitar twice with two different patches, then manipulated the guitar using Guitar Rig 6. Afterwards I layered that with a sine wave playing the root note of the guitar chords. This was the same technique that Linkin Park used in their first three albums (at least), and they were the band that reawakened my love of music. I tried to mix in a bit of rock structure with the chorus and repeated verse elements, as well as the guitar. I thought that I would naturally bring a bit more rock to the track. Perhaps I’m mellowing in my old age!
The Lyrics
The lyrics, while mostly being mine, were inspired from a wide range of sources. As you can see I found the above image, a fan made collage of different quotes from the video game Undertale. One of the most famous is “You call out for help, but nobody came”. Again, the story arc lines up with my overall idea, particularly the “genocide” route. The main character ends up eradicating all monsters in the underworld in order to leave and go home. Ironically, this game is known for it’s mercy option, and the game was given by a YouTuber called Matthew Patrick (A.K.A The Game/ Film/Food/Style Theorists) as a gift to the Pope.
Another creative entity known for peace, I used the line Boom bang-a-bang from Boom Bang-ABang by Lulu, although this was more of a nod and I liked the scansion. A song that I took a few lyrics from was Smells Like Teen Spirit, the opening song from the album Nevermind by Nirvana. It wasn’t the only song from them that I stole from, though, as many of you noticed at the LP where this was showcased I used some lines from Heart Shaped Box. I found that it rhymed with some of the last lines from Smells Like Teen Spirit and wanted to use it.
Now, there may be some of you who have read The Ink Black Heart, thinking that I put a ghost like figure behind Hearty to reflect Paper white, but that actually isn’ t the case.
This figure was taken from The Few Not Fleeting, an album by the band Nothing More. I used the title of the last song on the album, It Seems, in my lyrics because the track discusses the feeling of loneliness and a lack of will to carry on, things I can sadly identify with. The opening line is “Alone in a room” and I felt it fit quite well. I also referenced their filler track “(Alone;Together)” from the album The Stories We Tell Ourselves.
The last song I referenced was Light Years by Pearl Jam, from the album Binaural. While I believe the band have denied it, the song seems to be about Kurt Cobain’s suicide and how the two warring bands had only just started talking on more friendlier terms before Kurt’s untimely death.
Text-To-Speech
Gave you all a little fright at the beginning, eh? I used an online TTS service and recorded some of your comments on the post I had made about the challenge. I thought it added a little personal element and hopefully might incentivise people to interact in the Writers Lounge a bit more. I also thought it helped with the Opener challenge, as it created a nice build up. I haven’t forgotten what you said, Henry…
MIDI
Writing in all the MIDI took almost a week to do, combined with life happening at a furious pace. I would’ve liked to have written the classical music myself, but I had neither the confidence nor the time to do so. Plus, it gave me a starting point and allowed me to reference three great video games!
Mixing
The mixing of the track was fairly hastily done. Using a variety of Waves Audio plugins I tried to get a decent mix, not sure how well I did though. Trying to mix all of the different styles proved difficult, particularly trying to get a sense of the techno without destroying peoples speakers. One of the key elements of the track was the use of delays to help build space around the vocal. I’ve found this is quite a common technique used in electronic music and felt it would work particularly as I didn’t double the vocal. I definitely could’ve done a better job if I’d left myself more time to mix it properly, particularly on the vocal.
Mastering
Pictured right is my Mastering chain, including multiple plugins from Waves Audio and a couple from Izotope. I wanted to get a tape feel, so I used the J37 first, then went onto my EQing. I didn’t have much time, so I boosted the highs and mids while trying to tame the bass frequencies. Afterwards, the C1 provided some gluing compression while the PuigChild offered some natural width to the master. Finally, a bit of rebalancing to give the vocals a boost and a limiter to bring up the overall level.
Conclusion
I hope I managed to complete the challenge. Please, tell me what you think of my track and how I implemented what inspired me this month. As I said at the start, I think I won’t be doing this again! Unless a new batch of interesting challenges crop up… I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Robbie has in store for us!
To listen to 'Volo Omnis Ergo Sum Anomie' in full, head on over to the COMUSO Player & check out Jake's 'Five or More Club' page (remember you need to be a member to gain access).
Nice one Jake , it's a really cool track. Listening to it is like embarking on a journey through an evolving landscape , it must have taken a tonne of work . I always enjoy reading your post and the comments... I hope you dont mind a bit of banter . Best wishes man !