Shadows - Recording the drums, bass and keyboards parts - episode 9

Hello !

Those of who know all the details of the album know that there are 13 songs on it, and you may have noticed that I didn't show you all the recordings...
I keep some of them to make you discover the songs from time to time, like today !

Here's a sample of the recording of the song "The book of destiny", which will be a song with vocals, as soon as I find my singer, that means as soon as a singer replies me...You can see what I have to do to contact singers, without having replies, in the previous articles of my blog...

I hope you'll enjoy that !







See you next week !

Behind the musics from "The Visitor from the Future"

Hi everyone!

Now that the soundtrack is available on my bandcamp page, I found some videos I shot when I was recording the songs, for the fourth season.

Those of you who follow me on facebook already saw this video of the instruments used in the song "Bienvenue à Neo Versailles":

Now, here's a video of me recording the guitars and bass on the song "Octave", you can even see a part of the sheet music !

Now, here's a video about the sounds used in the song "Les cachots", you'll know which instrument I use to replace a tambourine...

At last, a lot of people love "Dancing Future", the music from the bal, but did you know that it is only a second version ? The first version is called "Dancing Queen", and it's online on bandcamp, you'll recognize some of the sounds used in "Dancing Future", and you'll hear me "singing" !



I hope you enjoyed it ! See you next week !

The Visitor from the Future - Musics from the seaons 3 and four are now online !

Hi everyone!

Today, the musics from the last two seasons of The Visitor from the Future are online !
You can listen to them, and buy them on my bandcamp page.



You can find a lot of informations about them in the article about the musics from the 1st and second second seasons, but here are some other informations:

- The 18 first songs are from the season 3, the others are from season 4.

Season 3:

- "Les Missionnaires - Crédits" is the song used for the end title of the season.

- "Un nouvel ordre" is the song used for the end title of the episode 7.

- In 2012, there was a concert of the musics from the Visitor from the Future, "Les Missionnaires" is the song we played. It was one of the first song I composed for the third season.

- "Le plan des missionnaires" is the song used in the episode 6, at 4:33

- "Le fonctionnement des missionnaires" is the song used in the episode 5 at 6:48

- "Le sacrifice de Judith" is the song used in the episode 8, at 10:55. It uses the theme of the song "Judith", the song I prefer in the third season.

Season 4:

- The end title of each episode is a sample of the end of the song "Tous au portail"

- I composed the song "Les dessins" for the sequence with the T-rex, it's a kind of tribute to the song in Jurassic Parc. We didn't use it in the sequence finally...

- "Requiem pour Judith" is my favourite song of all seasons.

- During the bal, there is 3 songs. I think that the one everyone wants to hear is "Dancing Future". The others are "Ce soir on danse" and "VDF Disco".

- "Démarche finale" is the song used in the episode 10 at 16:25

You now know everything, enjoy it !

"Shadows" is looking for its singer - again

Hi everyone !

You may remember that the last time, I covered a song from Hannah Trigwell in order to contact her and ask her if she was interested to sing on my album.
A few emails later, she finally won't sing on the album.

Almost two weeks ago, I sent an email to another singer, and as usual (I'd really like to know why), I don't have any reply.
So I attempt to do the same thing I did the last time, to have her attention.

This time I try to contact Sara Niemietz, an american singer. If she is interested, we would have to work "online", because for financial reasons, I can't go and record her in LA or pay her to come in France to record with me...it's an interesting challenge though !

This time, no loops, it's piano only. The song is Rooftops, by Sara Niemietz. Let's now hope and wait for any reactions...

See you next week !

About the mastering

Hi everyone!

Today, as I'm finishing the mastering for the soundtrack from the third and fourth seasons of The Visitor from the Future, I tell you the the mastering.

What is it ?

Mastering comes after the mix. I think that mastering only one song is useless. But the mastering is important on a full album. The goal is to give the whole album a unity, in terms of volume, frequency response and sound space.
There are a few steps to do that, and we usually use the same gears (real or virtual) than when we mix.

Mastering is a subtle process. I often heard that the bass guitar in a song is an instrument you only hear when it's muted...It's the same idea for the mastering.

Here's what I use:

- The Waves NLS plugin. It emulates a channel from an analog console, pushed in its limit in terms of volume. If you didn't know it, be known that there's a "spot" on every audio gear when the sound quality is optimized, it's often the point where the sound starts to distort. Your guitarist is right when he cranks his amp's volume up, because the "sweet spot" is usually located at about the 3/4 of the volume.

- The Izotope Ozone plugin. It changes everything, I use it a lot. EQ, multiband compression, stereo enhancer, multiband saturation...everything is great and subtle.

- The Kramer Master Tape by Waves. It emulates a tape recorder.

So what is the result when I use all that !

Here are some samples. It's subtle, so if you don't hear anything on your computer's speakers, it's normal.

On the first two samples, there is the mixed version first, and the mastered version.

The first sample, on the song called "Judith", shows the stereo enchancer, as well as a change in the overall volume.



On the second sample, you can hear multiband compression and EQ, so that on the master version, you can hear more strings and horns than on the mix version.



On the last sample, I activated the plugins one be one:
0:05 - NLS on
0:09 - Ozone: EQ on
0:14 - Ozone: Reverb on
0:18 - Ozone: Harmonic generator on
0:22 - Ozone: multiband compression on
0:27 - Ozone: stereo enhancer on
0:31 - Ozone: maximizer on
0:36 - Kramer Master Tape on
You may think that nothing has changed from the beginning, so...
0:43 - every plugins off



I hope you liked it !
There are some engineers specialized in mastering, and they would surely talk about it really better than I do, but as I do some mastering from time to time, here was what I'm able to say about it !

Bye !

The Visitor from the Future - Four seasons of music about to be released !

Hi everyone!

Maybe you saw on instagram or facebook some clues, no we can announce it: you are about to be able to listen and buy the soundtracks for the Visitor from the Future. 

I'm speaking about all the musics, from all seasons.

It starts today, with the release of the soundtrack for the first two seasons. You can find them on my bandcamp page.

Now, let me explain you a lot a things:

First, the first two seasons are separated from the seasons 3 and 4. I composed the soundtrack for the seasons 1&2 before Ankama (which produces the series) was interested. When they decided to make DVD and CDs, they bought me the rights for two years. Now, this contract has ended, I now have all the rights on these musics, and I don't owe anything to Ankama (I prefer to tell you that now, because it has an importance, specially for the price of the soundtracks for the seasons 3&4)...

The soundtrack for the seasons 3&4 will be released later in december, time for us to finish the mastering and create a nice album cover ! We'll keep you informed on the social networks.

For the last seasons, it's a bit different.

Ankama owns the rights to exploit the musics. Considering that nothing happened for a long time, I contacted and negociated with them. Now, I also have the rights on theses musics, that means that I am now able to sell these musics.

That also means that I have to pay everything if I want to exploit these musics.

As you know, I'm actually finishing my album "Shadows". I spend my money and time on that album. Until "Shadows" is released, there won't be physical copies of the seasons 3&4 soundtrack.

That's the same idea concerning a live show (but I can tell that we will play some songs from the Visitor from the Future in the concert of "Shadows").

Speaking about the soundtrack of the seasons 3&4:

It took me 2 weeks of mastering, to have a really better sound and dynamic than what you heard in the episodes !

There are 29 songs, for a total length of 56mn, and yes, there will be the music from the bal, "Dancing Future".

There also the song I prefer in the four seasons: "Requiem pour Judith", I hope you'll like them as much as I do.

The album will be available on my bandcamp page, and priced 15€ (this time, Ankama earns money on these sales).

For questions like: why bandcamp, not iTunes, Deezer?...Please read my article about my EP release.

Be aware that doing all that took me a lot of time. For those of you who listened to the podcast by Jul, I was already talking about it, we were at the end of july ! 

I had some replies and started to negociate only 2 weeks ago. That took me about 5 months, so even if everything isn't perfect, I'm really glad that you can listen and buy those songs !

I think you have all the replies you need, but feel free to ask others in the comments below if you need !