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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / Plantrain's music / Prometheus Revisited

Prometheus Revisited

By Plantrain on September 2, 2018 11:03 pm

This week I listened to a BBC radio documentary about Yevgeny Murzin, the inventor of the ANS synthesizer. In this doc it's mentioned that one of the inspirations to create this instrument was a performance of Scriabin's piece Prometheus. Back in 2016 I did two WB tracks based on Scriabin's Prometheus Chord, so I decided that I should try to do another version using the Virtual ANS.
The virtual ANS is a very cool instrument, but I still wasn't able to do something that really sounded good using only that.
So I "cheated", processing the virtual ANS sounds in Absynth, adding tremolo to create rhythms and adding Pianoteq piano (and a little vibraphone).

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Very interesting inspo! Scriabin is great, one of my favourite weirdos. This has a vibe of comfortable eeriness. I like how the sparsity allows the spiciness of each note to shine. I would listen to this late at night on a Monday.

It really sounds like the ghost is loose in the machine.  There's a spooky vibe and I get the sense of machinery or technology breaking down.

Haunting! Excellent use of space here smile

Scriabin would die in jealousy if he could hear this. Superb!

the low rumbles are so good

The vibrations of ANS are really cool with the piano.  Damn this has such a spooky but huge space feel to it. 

I don't know who a Scribian or what a Virtual ANS is... but I likes what my ears be hearing... cOoL stuff

I had to read up on the ANS because I was not familiar. Really cool.  I never understood how optics were used in early electronic music so the documentary sounds interesting. I love the tremolo effects and stereo panning. It is the defining characteristic in the composition giving it a tempo and evoking the sound of energy. Piano is definitely a nice touch of percussion and high register that brings it to life. Great work on the composition!

Avarine wrote:

Very interesting inspo! Scriabin is great, one of my favourite weirdos. This has a vibe of comfortable eeriness. I like how the sparsity allows the spiciness of each note to shine. I would listen to this late at night on a Monday.

CosmicCairns wrote:

It really sounds like the ghost is loose in the machine.  There's a spooky vibe and I get the sense of machinery or technology breaking down.

Mission Crossing wrote:

Haunting! Excellent use of space here smile

Jim Wood wrote:

Scriabin would die in jealousy if he could hear this. Superb!

orangedrink wrote:

the low rumbles are so good

Tone Matrix wrote:

The vibrations of ANS are really cool with the piano.  Damn this has such a spooky but huge space feel to it.

Podling wrote:

I don't know who a Scribian or what a Virtual ANS is... but I likes what my ears be hearing... cOoL stuff

NWSPR wrote:

I had to read up on the ANS because I was not familiar. Really cool.  I never understood how optics were used in early electronic music so the documentary sounds interesting. I love the tremolo effects and stereo panning. It is the defining characteristic in the composition giving it a tempo and evoking the sound of energy. Piano is definitely a nice touch of percussion and high register that brings it to life. Great work on the composition!

Thank you all!
I realize that I probably should have included some more information about the Prometheus Chord and the ANS (both virtual and physical). For those who are still curious:
The mystic chord: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_chord
A nice piece about ANS, old and new: http://cdm.link/2013/10/ans-amazing-eer … inks-vids/
Virtual ANS for Windows/Mac/Linux:http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/ans/

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