People Are Looking for a New Sound
(to contact me, scroll down for my email)
A note: I'm still transitioning.
I will still use my male voice for my music unless I can train my upper range to the same standard.
It's getting there, but it will be a while.
If this bothers you, well, you don't have to listen, I guess?
I will not use my voice for any collaborations or commissions.
I'm also not really gonna be using this site once Depth is finished. Now that the forums are dead I'll be moving over to bandcamp and soundcloud. If there's some old copyright stuff with my male name, or dumb peddling of a "game skeleton"... it's probably gonna stay there (because whatever at this point, not like anyone uses this site).
Original intro:
People are looking for a new sound.
I really don't know if I've succeeded at that yet, but definitely, I can try.
Everything you hear on this page came from my vocal chords and my fingers. I shy away from any loops I myself did not create.
Genres:
Electronica - Ambient, Industrial, Game
Instrumental - Film, Game, solo piano, classical
I compose, play, mix, and master everything under the name Artificial Wonders. I am a solo artist and have been making music since 2006.
Story behind the song
Please contact me if you would like to license or remix this track, and please give credit. I do not charge for it but I like to keep track of who's doing it.
UPDATE 4: FINALLY added a de-esser to the vocal.
UPDATE 3: Decided to keep the vocals as is, and have the voice acting for Leviathan happen at the same time as the song's vocals in-game, (excluding the second go-around, which is just part of the song and nothing else.)
UPDATE 2: Cleaned up the additions - the breakbeat bit is a lot crisper now.
UPDATE: Uploaded a longer version.
Leviathan is Ingram Fallish's rival, and for all intents and purposes, is positively insane. Not evil, mind you - he used to be a great inventor, and still is! He's just lost it, and has become obsessed with "getting back" at Fallish for "stealing his design." He learns of Keith, who has become Fallish'es star pupil, and decides to exact revenge, by starting where Fallish intends to continue his legacy - after all, to paraphrase an old saying, "Without our children, we are no longer immortal."
This first fight is meant to be one of the most memorable bits of the earlier parts of the game, but I felt like the original version of RISE plays it off as any other boss fight. So, I gave Leviathan a different genre altogether - Industrial.
The purely industrial beats like this, signify that Leviathan is nearby. On the flip side, songs that are a hybrid of Industrial and Classical, are most likely boss fights that are core to the story, but do not involve Leviathan.
There are rare exceptions to this, such as Gier Part 5, where you ARE indeed fighting leviathan, but for the sake of keeping with the musical themes of Gier, is a hybrid of classical and industrial.
Some notes about the track:
The vox:
The voice is supposed to be Leviathan, but that IS NOT the voice actor that will be used - I did the vocal clips for now, and though I'm proud of it, it's still awkward, and I'll probably update it with the right voice actor sooner or later.
Though samples are "technically" used in this track - i.e., the vox is a clip I made for the intro of AURA, and it's used twice in this track, but other than that, it's entirely made by hand and from the ground up.
Soundfonts:
The opening synth is pulled from the BloodWarPlus soundfont bank (Techno Synth_18) with light distortion and Vocodex.
The drums are all from one soundfont kit, separated into three channels, each going into a different mixing chain but all winding up at a heavy distortion effect. (industrial_drums - bank 0 patch 129)
The breakbeat(I think?! I do know that the last 5 seconds of that loop-around is definitely breakbeat, but I don't know what the other part supporting the second vox counts as.) ending doesn't actually use true "sliced" drums - I made a very simple drum track to go along with the rhythm then duplicated all the notes and moved it over about 3 half steps; ran it through a very top-heavy EQ; then started shifting/adding some more notes around in about 8-10 spots till I was happy with it, then I went crazy with the loop-around point, lol.
That unearthly tribal Hmm is a choir soundfont called real choir mmm's (creative name, huh?) by a guy named Grubby on sf2midi. He was kind enough to make about 12 different vowel variations, and 6 of these are ones I frequently use - real choir mmms, real choir homs, real choir zoms, real choir eees, real choir oohs, and real choir hooaehs. (sp).
The throat singing-esque synth at the very end is actually not a synth at all, just really heavily filtered. I took the Melted Choir patch from SGMV2B and just ran a phaser and flanger through it.
And of course, that choir you're probably sick of by now, CGM3 choir for the section just before the breakbeat loop-around.
Production:
There are two vocal clip channels, three "industrial_drums" channels, two "CGM3Choir" channels, one "real choir mmms" channel, one &
There is no genius in life like the genius of energy. The real engine is human - though it may not be like this in about a million years or so... Until then - keep up the good work ! Peace - Johannes.