[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgRmKQ1iPRM[/youtube]

Nice melody Per, spacy production values, and the stick has a great tone. Keep going

Nice!

What effects are you using man?

Very nice indeed !

And yeah, you gotta tell us what effects you're using, the tone and effects sound very good.

Cheers,
Bas.

Ok. Well, I play through a Macbook laptop running Apple's Mainstage. Stick melody side and bass side are plugged into two separate inputs on an RME Fireface400.

Melody side effects:
- Noise Gate (Mainstage/Logic)
- Ring Modulator (Mainstage/Logic, "Roswell Ringer" part of the Pedalboard plugin)
- Enveloper (Mainstage/Logic. Kicked in only at the final outro as "swell pedal effect" to give softer attack)
- Decapitator (by SoundToys. Harmonic overtone distortion; simulates analog gear driven hard)
- Crystallizer (by SoundToys. Introducing stereo to the mono signal. Sort of "Eventide harmonizer in the box". This is soft-ducked to lower its effect level when I play a note and vice versa make more noise between my notes)
- Tape Delay (Mainstage/Logic. Set to bounce on 16th notes and with a lot of flutter that deteriorates the tone pretty quickly. Delay line only passes the narrow filter range 1000Hz-3300Hz which makes the delay loop bounces climb upwards until thinning out into noise and finally silence)
- Compressor SV315Mk2 (by Sonalksis. Logic/Mainstage's built-in compressors are just as good but this one colors the sound in a nice dirty way that I like better in this context)
- EQ (Mainstage/Logic. Taking out 3dB at 280Hz and 630Hz and boosting 6dB above 7000Hz)

Bass side effects:
- Noise Gate (Mainstage/Logic)
- EQ (Mainstage/Logic. Cutting everything under 30Hz. Cutting 1 to 2 dB up to 500Hz. Boosting a little above 2000Hz and as much as 5 dB at 10 kHz)
- Crystallizer (by SoundToys. Introducing stereo to the mono signal. Here doing a one octave up harmonizer loop, you know that cheesy "string sound". It is gated by my source audio, meaning the "cheese-cloud" only appears when I play something. Between my notes the effect also shuts up)
- Compressor SV315Mk2 (by Sonalksis)

Global effects:
- Reverb (Aether by 2Caudio. Set to add reverb mostly to higher input frequencies and It is mostly the stick bass side that goes sends to this reverb)

Master output effects:
- Multiband Compressor (Mainstage/Logic. Set to four bands. Just a tiny bit of compression)
- Limiter (Mainstage/Logic. Affecting the sound very little. Mostly just watching out for peaks)


The above is my general setup but for other songs it may differ (as well as for playing another instrument). Effect chains for bass and melody side are saved as Channel Strips and these can be opened in both Logic and Mainstage. When playing live with Mainstage you also have the option of setting up "patches" that may combine different Channel Strips for bass and melody side. Then you swap on-the-fly between such patches when playing. But on this song I simply played with the same effect setup all the time (except for turning off the ring modulator after the intro by a MIDI pedal), having a camera filming and recording the audio into Logic.

Hi Per,

Not being familiar with the tune I was really surprised with how this developed. Great to set up the expectation of a completely abstract listening experience and then bring in such a tonal piece.

I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to more.

That was awesome! Have you ever heard of Yuzo Koshiro? He did a lot of spectacular video game music in the 1990's and this reminds me of some of his softer tunes in The Revenge of Shinobi. I love how your melody leaves space for the bass to shine and how the effects have a life of their own as a third part in the composition.

Thanks, Kenobi! I have not heard Yuzo Koshiro but will now check out The Revenge of Shinobi. Speaking gaming music I really love the work of Akira Yamaoka, also for his film music for Silent Hill. Otherwise I think Vangelis still is the king of this kind of melodic music (where the melodie's accents often fall outside the chord notes to create that "misfit feeling") and also for Vangelis superb way of playing "outside the beat" to create a lovely tension.

You are accurately nailing what attracts me to the Stick! The option to play two instruments at once and to work with two unique effect chains as a third and fourth part.

Per, Revenge of Shinobi's music is often only available on the web as midi files or YouTube re-recordings (neither of which are bad at all, but just not what audiophiles may be used to). Depending on your fondness for 1990's side-scrollers it was labeled as Super Shinobi for its European Mega Drive release if you wanted to track the game down. I'm starting to wonder if there were ever a Japanese CD release at some point - that would be wonderful.

Fans of current video games have soundtrack releases all the time now so they're very lucky. I haven't heard Vangelis yet so I'll want to check some of his music out now. Thanks for the tip!

I thought this was very cool. The noise-scapes in the background coupled with a very pretty and direct melody really combined for a stunning result. The Stick tone was strong and pure, rising above the effects in a nice way. Per, you may be a beginner on Stick, but I hear a very experienced musician in your music. I think we can all expect great things from you!