prophetik music ⚖️ Posted July 18 Posted July 18 (edited) This song was originally created as a way for me to learn how to use LFOs, as I've been comfortable in DAWs for years, but never really produced anything meaningful--and if you can believe it, never knowingly used LFOs. Serum 2 had dropped a few weeks prior to me starting on this, and everyone lost their minds over the plugin, going as far as crashing the download servers. I wanted to not only familiarize myself with Serum 2, a tool that the entire amateur music industry seemed to collectively soil its pants over, but also to learn how to use LFOs in a way that is both textbook and also wide-breadth application, so that I can use them more in future projects. I also really, really like Half-Life, for all its janky glory in 2025. It's a formative game for me. The core, lead synthesizer to the remix, audible from beginning to end with very little breakage, is based on something not even the original composer created: it was a stock sample from a trance music sample disc from the mid 90s. I decided to recreate it from scratch so that I could manipulate it as I saw fit. Given the game's propensity to use samples for a large part of its soundtrack, I feel it necessary to clarify that there are no samples whatsoever from the original game song in this remix. The lead synthesizer alone utilizes six LFO channels, each on a different programming (retrigger, duration/how many bars, etc.) to automate its various textures and filters. This was the point of the exercise. Nearly every other track in the song uses 2 to 4 of their own LFO channels, and the rest is either sampled (sourced from my Splice back-catalog, 909 kits, or whatever else I had onhand) or oscillators tweaked to imitate the timbre of real instruments (the electric guitars, for example, are not sampled guitars--they're distorted and shaped sawtooth oscillators). The original song is a lot simpler, and has a more obvious A-B-C sequence of structure, like verses to a lyrical song, but not really. I decided to try and unify some of these sections together so the song sounds less like four separate ideas concatenated together, and more like a song that evolves and riffs on the same cool sequencer lick. Thus, the song is more of a buildup, reaching a bridge section which drops most of the percussion except for a Daft Punk-esque tambourine, and a crescendo climax which integrates faux electric guitar and the heavily chorused/flanged synthesizers typical of Half-Life music. Vocals are a mixture of scatting/improv vocal samples and a gospel choir thrown in there, because it's the closest in feel that I could think of to match the as-yet-unknown vocal sample of the original song. For mixing, I tried to ensure each instrument channel had an EQ register of its own, but there was always bound to be some overlap as instruments sound pretty bland and unconvincing without their harmonics. The climax of the song had to be compressed to ensure all the loudness of the various lead instruments coalescing together didn't destroy anyone's speakers. This part is the weakest part of the mix by far, but Half-Life 1 music is very in-your-face and dare I say aggressively 90s, and I don't feel bad about it being loud--I just hope it doesn't lose too much of the plot. I'm not a music producer, I just like OCR and Half-Life. I'll accept any feedback and make changes as the review staff see fit. Games & Sources Game is based on the outro/credits theme to Half-Life 1 Original song here HL2 also sampled this song for its own credits theme, but it was fairly different in that version, different enough to be its own song (and very short, only around 30 seconds) Both songs are by Kelly Bailey The main synthesizer hook, audible from the very beginning, in the original game's soundtrack was a sample from the disc entitled Trance Formation: Creative Essentials Sampling CD - Volume 6, track 19, sample 3, "Trippy Seq. 3 F 120." This sample was recreated in my own style for the remix. A large quantity of samples are used in the HL1 soundtrack, none of which are used in this remix--I tried to source my own or create my own. A list of known samples from the original song can be found here. Edited 3 hours ago by Hemophiliac
Chimpazilla ⚖️ Posted July 23 Posted July 23 Making a full track just for LFO practice.... color me interested! I love the bouncy synth pattern right away, and the reese bass that follows at the drop. As the arrangement moves along though, I'm waiting for something new to be introduced, other than additional drum elements or tiny synth patterns. The energy basically stays static once established. This arrangement is so close to the source tune that it feels like a cover, at least up to the breakdown at 1:20. The synth and drum elements are all similar, and the drum groove is basically the same as in the source, even the vocal bits are so similar. At 1:20 there's a breakdown and finally some writing variation happens, with the bass going upward, I love that! Then the faux geetar comes in with some kind of original lead writing which I really like. It sounds prominent enough until 2:00 at which point the geetar is still there but now it is mixed so far into the soundscape that it's more of a texture than a feature. From 2:00 until the end, what is meant to be the lead, is it the bass? The source tune is leadless, which is fine in-game, but I feel like this remix would greatly benefit from having some original lead or motif writing over the top of it, especially from the beginning up until the breakdown. That would add interest and help mitigate the repetitive feel of that first 1:20 of the arrangement. The mixing isn't too bad, other than the low end of the bass being somewhat unfocused. I recommend using a monomaker for 125Hz and below, as that range is currently stereo-spread somewhat which makes your low-end lose impact. The upper buzzy end of the reese bass sounds great. I'm very curious though, what's up with this sharp, narrow extreme cut at 10kHz? Overall, I love this concept, but the arrangement feels too conservative for over half of the piece, as well as being static and repetitive. I think some additional lead or motif writing especially in the first half would really spice this up, personalize it and separate it further from the source song. I'd like to hear it again with more personalization added! NO (resubmit)
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted August 1 Author Posted August 1 the synth riff is immediately recognizable. i also like the big bass and the fun 90s synth guitar near the end. the arrangement itself is definitely nowhere near developed enough for us, unfortunately, although i like the changes you've added in the second half. an easy and quick way to expand the arrangement would be to have some chordal movement right away - going from the Fm to, say, a Db chord within the opening 30 seconds, then to a Bb or Eb would help move the progression along a lot and add a surprising amount of breadth to what you've got here. i actually don't think you need melodic material, although that's another easy way to add uniqueness to an arrangement - i think that just varying the chord progression (or, y'know, having one at all) earlier in the piece would be enough. that'd lead naturally into breaks and builds as well, and some level of added dynamics would also really help the track not feel same-y throughout. kick sounds a touch heavy next to the bass, and imo layering the bass with a less noisy version with more fundamental would help give it a bit of punch that it doesn't have. some window dressing and this is probably good enough for us. just needs more body to the arrangement and you'll be there. NO
Hemophiliac ⚖️ Posted 3 hours ago Posted 3 hours ago This feels and sounds like a more modernized version of the original source. The ability to recreate all of that from scratch is impressive. However, there is a lot of similarity to the original source making this very conservative. Well, that's not what we're looking for in arrangements. I'd like to see more development of the source into more of your own interpretation. Right now this is very close to a cover. Even stepping away for a contrasting section that changes up the texture for a bit would be a good way to vary it up some. Give us more things like the synth guitar at 1:43 and the final 15 seconds of the piece. This is where I see sigtau coming through and less of the original, give us more sigtau! The production is mostly fine as I didn't catch anything egregious standing out to me. On that front I felt like the synth bass was weak and could support the piece more, but this by itself was not a dealbreaker. The drop at 1:57 into the transition was cool! The main issue is the similarity of arrangement to the source and how conservative it is. I could see this developing into more, but as of right now it's not ready. NO
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