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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / Devieus's music / Doppelganger Duet

Doppelganger Duet

By Devieus on September 2, 2018 10:24 am

This week in Devieus' melodica adventures, bass. Now my melodica doesn't actually go this deep so I did some trickery with it to make it a bass.

As for the more obvious things going on, this is the first time ever I've serious used Plogue's Alter/ego VST to make lyrics. It's also the first time ever I wrote lyrics, and it turns out lyrics don't really matter all that much, it can just be random nonsense (see also KPop in the western world). But I went the distance on this one and made it a duet. More on that in a bit.

I also wanted to experiment with a diaphonic scale after stumbling upon an interesting Wikipedia article concerning the Istrian scale. The Istrian scale itself is honestly kind of garbage, but the notion of a diaphonic scale is interesting. A scale doesn't consist of 7 notes on their own, but of 7 pairs of notes, and every melody you play has every note paired with another note.

This works best with a parallel scale, where every step by one note is mirrored by the other. But that would just be too easy, so instead I took the C Mixolydian (C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb) and E Dorian (E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D) and used that instead since it's mostly made of major thirds except on E and is surprisingly dissonant. Try it out for yourself, it's fascinating.

Back to the vocal section, this inherent dissonance isn't going anywhere so I decided to capitalize on that by making it about one of the creepiest myths: doppelgangers. The kind that's a demon and imitates you near perfectly and with sinister intent, except in this case the doppelganger sings in a different mode and key to bring home the extra creep (just imagine that everything you ever said sounded dissonant harmonized because of a hellspawn assassin).

Though the name of the voice is Marie Ork, the dramatis personae is Doria and Myxia. The final single note (totally off-key considering it's a diaphonic scale) is a C. Go figure that one out with a comment.


One more thing, starting 3 September I begin work as a test engineer full-time, so I probably won't have as much time for music. Due to the nature of the project, the results won't necessarily be worse, but they'll likely be less involved.

Audio works licensed by author under:
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AlterEgo rules! Nice doubling with the melodica.

Doppelganger is most appropriate indeed, familiar but discomforting all at once.

This is like Jeff Lynne on two bottles of cough syrup. Love the robot duet vocals, especially the last sinister ha ha ha. Very twisted. Good luck with the new gig.

Jim Wood wrote:

AlterEgo rules! Nice doubling with the melodica.

Thanks. I don't know what to think of Alter/ego for sure; it sorta works, that's as good as it's going to get at that price.

Gab Manette wrote:

Doppelganger is most appropriate indeed, familiar but discomforting all at once.

That's just how it ended up. If the scale were any nicer, it wouldn't be all that discomforting.

NWSPR wrote:

This is like Jeff Lynne on two bottles of cough syrup. Love the robot duet vocals, especially the last sinister ha ha ha. Very twisted. Good luck with the new gig.

Never heard of the guy, but I guess if you can see that then that's enough for me. I added the sinister laugh because it felt right to the theme, glad to see it landed. And thanks, I'm having a rough time adjusting so far, two days in. Let's see where it goes.

Vocals are creeping me out in a really fun way.  I'm on a haunted house ride and one of the mannequins comes to life and starts following me.

Combining melodica and AlterEgo vox makes for a weird and wonderful musical ride. Very nice!

orangedrink wrote:

Vocals are creeping me out in a really fun way.  I'm on a haunted house ride and one of the mannequins comes to life and starts following me.

I thought the first line implied it was just kinda in the streets.

Plantrain wrote:

Combining melodica and AlterEgo vox makes for a weird and wonderful musical ride. Very nice!

It probably didn't help I pitched shifted the melodica.

super creepy vox yikes especially the laugh at the end. The melodica sounds great and reminded me a lil of Sufjan Stevens.

Tone Matrix wrote:

super creepy vox yikes especially the laugh at the end. The melodica sounds great and reminded me a lil of Sufjan Stevens.

Doppelgangers are no joke, depending on who writes them.
I've never heard of him, he makes nice stuff, but if he's using a bass melodica I'm not hearing it.

Really deranged piece, I love it... the chords/bass line keep it toghether, but the general feeling is a bit  like Boards of Canada seen thru a distorted mirror! Fine work again...

Ashen Simian wrote:

Really deranged piece, I love it... the chords/bass line keep it toghether, but the general feeling is a bit  like Boards of Canada seen thru a distorted mirror! Fine work again...

Never heard of them, but you're on to something.

Haha that sounds like Jim!

??? wrote:

Haha that sounds like Jim!

I don't know Jim, but if he does, then best of luck to him.

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