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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / Chrisfoo's music / Apogee (Vocoder Concerto)

Apogee (Vocoder Concerto)

By Chrisfoo on May 31, 2020 10:51 pm

Me placing Ozone on the master bus of a project with 30 tracks filled with CPU hogging plugins & instruments because I'm too lazy to bounce and master in a new project.

But hey, it worked!  Wanted to take the free BBC Orchestra that Tone Matrix told me about for a spin this week.  This is mostly unmixed minus a bit of EQing and compression on the tracks that were obviously creating problems.  I'd definitely love to hear some advice/best practices on mixing big projects with orchestral instruments from those who have experience.   

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Sounds cool.  Dig the mix of the strings and the vocoder.  It has a nice uplifting vibe to it.

great job on this.  the main synth melody sounds amazing and is very catchy....the vocoder work on this is really fuckin cool man, i've gotta watch you mess around with your collection, because this seems like a blast to make

Oh man, never heard of BBC Orchestra, it sounds fantastic! Orchestral instruments and synths, really cool idea and it's working. Super dope.

The vocoder is so cool. The BBC Orchestra sounds pretty good too, gotta try it out sometime

Yeah super cool vocoder.  The orchestral sounds  are great too.  I'll have to check it out.  Looks like you're giving them some nice exposure big_smile

Super cool mix of instruments and sounds.  Lots going on.  I like how I can kinda hear your style in this but not really.  Definitely a cool track.

coreytrev0r wrote:

Yeah super cool vocoder.  The orchestral sounds  are great too.  I'll have to check it out.  Looks like you're giving them some nice exposure big_smile

Super cool mix of instruments and sounds.  Lots going on.  I like how I can kinda hear your style in this but not really.  Definitely a cool track.

I agree. You hear his style kind of in there but very experimental tones. Solid track Foo.

That vocoder is tight. One thing I'd suggest with orchestral music is to pay attention to the position of a section in regards to panning and reverb.

Nice, vocoder is a tough thing to use properly, I love the way you mixed it with the orchestral stuff here. Solid track heart

Yay that's me! tongue  I was super pleased to see that you got it from Spitfire and used it when I heard it on IG.  It definitely takes some getting used to with getting the midi articulations down.  The mod wheel is good for that tho I tend to end up drawing them in anyways.  That's what I've been trying to nail more is understanding how each part of the orchestra needs to sound so it doesn't sound like I banged on a keyboard smile  Excellent use of the vocoder and synths with the orchestra.  The track gave me some M83 vibes too.

Wow! Really cool vocoder and orchestral blending. This is next level!!  Love that vibrato synth.  Adds a dreamy, vintage feel to the track. The mid section just takes off in such an epic manner!! Fucks YES!  Downloading smile

Hell yeah! The vocoder pairs so nicely with the orchestral stuff. +1 for M83 vibes. Love it.

CosmicCairns wrote:

Sounds cool.  Dig the mix of the strings and the vocoder.  It has a nice uplifting vibe to it.

Thanks! Yeah wasnt feeling doing real vocal takes, so hey, vocoder.


demonzor wrote:

great job on this.  the main synth melody sounds amazing and is very catchy....the vocoder work on this is really fuckin cool man, i've gotta watch you mess around with your collection, because this seems like a blast to make

Thanks man.  Yeah this one was super fun, I felt like a kid in a candy store playing with the new orchestra software.  Its like 15ish instruments in 1.

mikememo wrote:

Oh man, never heard of BBC Orchestra, it sounds fantastic! Orchestral instruments and synths, really cool idea and it's working. Super dope.

Dude, yeah not sure if they're still doing it but if you go to Spitfires website they had a thing where if you do a pretty extensive survey they gave you a free access code for it.

danju wrote:

The vocoder is so cool. The BBC Orchestra sounds pretty good too, gotta try it out sometime

Thanks man, yeah I was surprised how good the orchestra software sounds.


coreytrev0r wrote:

Yeah super cool vocoder.  The orchestral sounds  are great too.  I'll have to check it out.  Looks like you're giving them some nice exposure big_smile

Super cool mix of instruments and sounds.  Lots going on.  I like how I can kinda hear your style in this but not really.  Definitely a cool track.

For sure man, they deserve the exposure.  Glad you could still hear a bit of my style in there.


Saucey-dough wrote:
coreytrev0r wrote:

Yeah super cool vocoder.  The orchestral sounds  are great too.  I'll have to check it out.  Looks like you're giving them some nice exposure big_smile

Super cool mix of instruments and sounds.  Lots going on.  I like how I can kinda hear your style in this but not really.  Definitely a cool track.

I agree. You hear his style kind of in there but very experimental tones. Solid track Foo.

Thanks dude!  Yeah had to get a little weird with it to get back to writing songs again.


Devieus wrote:

That vocoder is tight. One thing I'd suggest with orchestral music is to pay attention to the position of a section in regards to panning and reverb.

Awesome, thanks man.  Thats a good call on the positioning too, I appreciate it.   

hieme wrote:

Nice, vocoder is a tough thing to use properly, I love the way you mixed it with the orchestral stuff here. Solid track <3

Thanks!  Yeah I'm still trying to get the hang of vocoder, good to hear it sounded okay in this.


Tone Matrix wrote:

Yay that's me! tongue  I was super pleased to see that you got it from Spitfire and used it when I heard it on IG.  It definitely takes some getting used to with getting the midi articulations down.  The mod wheel is good for that tho I tend to end up drawing them in anyways.  That's what I've been trying to nail more is understanding how each part of the orchestra needs to sound so it doesn't sound like I banged on a keyboard smile  Excellent use of the vocoder and synths with the orchestra.  The track gave me some M83 vibes too.

I know thanks again for the heads up about this!  Yeah, I feel like if you want it to sound really realistic it would take some serious time and attention to detail.  Thanks for the M83 comparison, I'll take that.

NWSPR wrote:

Wow! Really cool vocoder and orchestral blending. This is next level!!  Love that vibrato synth.  Adds a dreamy, vintage feel to the track. The mid section just takes off in such an epic manner!! Fucks YES!  Downloading smile

Thanks man, glad you liked it!  Thanks for noticing that synth part too, thats what sprouted this whole song actually.  Thats the LFO on my Argon8 modulating the filter at a rate thats a fraction of whatever frequency is being played.  Not sure if that feature is available on other synths but I was totally blown away by it when I found out.

Simon Koehn wrote:

Hell yeah! The vocoder pairs so nicely with the orchestral stuff. +1 for M83 vibes. Love it.

Thanks man!  Yeah, I'm glad that the vocoder worked so well on this tune. 

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