To make my next track for the game, I started off with a 3 note sequence using the ‘Lap Steel: Resonance Chaos’ preset made by Spitfire Audio. When I’m stuck for ideas, I often like to use a lot of the LABS sounds by Spitfire Audio, as they’re good at generating soundscapes to built ideas off.
I then added a counter-atmosphere made with the Hackney Angels preset, which I tweaked somewhat.
After the 40-second mark in the piece, I decided to bring in a melody on the electric guitar. Instead of just playing all of the notes in one take, I decided to record each note at a time and fade them in and out, as if they are kind of cascading like a sonic waterfall. This adds a lot more depth to the melody in my opinion, even if it was a pain to automate!
I think the heavily distorted sound blends well with the lap steel preset, as they both have some similar sonic qualities. When I brought the guitar melody in, I also decided to change up the notes on the LABS tracks, to make them more varied, instead of just having the same repeating loop. You can hear this most clearly at the end of the track above.
As opposed to the guitar sound I used in the previous track I made for the game, this time I didn’t really use any guitar-specific pedal or amp simulations. The sound is just the guitar plugged straight into Logic, just run through a couple of Logic’s stock distortion plugins which aren’t really designed for guitar, and the Space Designer convolution reverb plugin. I prefer this more dry sound when working on atmospheric pieces – I’m not sure why but when I’ve used it in the past it’s just seemed to blend into mixes better.
The rest of the track is quite simple. I kept all of the sonic elements the same, but added in more melodic ideas on the guitar, whilst occasionally returning to the original motif I started with. I think I am more happy with this track than the other one I made, as I feel like I put more time and effort into it. I also prefer the more chilled out, ambient aura of this piece to the anxious mood of the last one.