♫ illustrationism's studio

[illustrationism]

What's up guys and girls.

As some of you may know, I've been working with a new synthesizer keyboard I got. In the last 2 months, I've written a couple of songs to sort of test out what I can and can't do with this new keyboard. I'm pretty impressed with the sounds and the abilities of the keyboard. Good ol' Yamaha. Too bad I can't quite get the MIDI to work...

In any case, here are some songs I've made recently. They're either done because they were a test, or they're "probably" done.


Story  (5,354 KB)
This one was an earlier test with the guitar. I don't like how it turned out... way too much delay... It's just noisy. I tested some bass as well in this piece. The flute is too bland, as is the oboe, and the percussion isn't all that great. However, I like the sax sound, and I'm sure someone could find some use for this as a little romantic piece. This was my transitional piece; I was working with all new sounds and all new software.


Forest  (3,660 KB)
A theme meant to be used in a forest. This was my major experiment with guitar. I used the guitar sound from my Yamaha and combined it with Guitar Rig. I like guitar rig, but I'm not very apt with it yet... There's some light strings from the keyboard to add some presence.


Given Despair  (3,633 KB)
This piece would be good for a sad or meaningful scene. I was basically experimenting with all the string sounds on my keyboard (not literally all of theme because there are about 40).


Inner Space  (4,449 KB)
Anyone who is familiar with my work will know that this is very different. This is a very ambient / electronic atmospheric piece. I was mostly seeing how the electronic sounds sounded. I also got to test out the violin sound. What this most reminds me of is like, a strange, fantastical realm. Though I typically don't write music in this genre, I could see perhaps wanting to do more with something like this piece.


Latte  (2,644 KB)
Here is something a little more my style. You've got some jazzy drums, a sexy sax, and some lounge piano. I wanted to test 3 things in this song: Sonar's Session Drummer, Yamaha's "Sweet Sax", and the sound of the grand piano. I really like the result...


(Non-profit, non-commercial use only. Please credit.)

 

[BigPurplecow]

Wow!  These are so cool!  My favorite are Latte and Inner Space.  I might use these and if I do I'll ask you and give you credit.

 

[Bgander2]

Wow... Forest is pure beauty

 

[Danton Lavergne]

What do you use for your samples? They're very gamish.

 

[illustrationism]

Thanks guys!

The percussion is Sonar's Session Drummer, but all other samples are my Yamaha E403 Keyboard.

 

[Brewmeister]

Hey, I just listened to "Story". I love the composition & arrangement, and the Sax sounds SaaaWeeeet!

It sounds like there is some clipping in the intro. And that percussion sounds like a basketball bouncing,
just ain't gettin' it.  A little overboard on the effects. And the drums in the Sax solo part are too much (too busy).
Overall the mix is pretty decent. I'd love to hear it remastered.

Is the guitar sound your yamaha?

Be Well

 

[illustrationism]

Hey Brew. All the sounds are from my Yamaha, except the percussion.

I may eventually go back and redo some of these, but most likely they'll stay as they are. After all, they are just compositions to test out different sounds and effects. :P

 

[Venetia]

Whee, I love Latte! Reminds me of those nights I'd hit up the swanky coffee clubs down in San Diego to listen to jazz and pretend I know stuff about culture  :smoke:

I also like Forest ... In an RPG sense  :grin:

 

[Arcanum]

Very nice stuff here Illu. To tell the truth, I really really like Inner Space, probably the most out of all of these. It's really very pretty, and it makes me want to add a bit of light atmospheric guitar to it... hehe. Forest is also quite pretty. The guitar sound is really nice for a synth (though I can still tell it's a synth).

EDIT: I know there's the whole issue of your original intent for the piece not involving guitar at all, etc etc, but I just had to do this. Hope you don't mind. :smile::
Inner Space + Guitar

 

[illustrationism]

Thanks Arcanum! To be honest, I'm surprised people like these so much since they are just test pieces, so to speak. lol

I think that your edit could have been pretty cool except you couldn't adjust the mixing of the tracks, so it gets cluttered. I probably would have removed the violin entirely. Heh. Thanks for the comments and the song mix, I always like when people do mixes of each other's pieces.