BREAK THE STARS
< BackThis is the ultimate toy for people like me
One dark morning, amidst the whispers of dawn, an electrifying message crackled into my inbox. It bore the seal of Neural DSP. They tasked me with composing music that would illuminate the Quad Cortex from a novel angle.
What is the Quad Cortex?
It’s the most powerful amp modeller on the planet. With its six cores pulsating with potential, it beckoned to composers like a siren's call, offering a playground of sonic exploration.
The brief was to write something that would show the Quad Cortex's versatility in a new way. This project would require a lot of thought and planning because I didn't want it to just be another guitar video on YouTube. First of all I thought about what instruments I wanted to experiment with that we could plug into a Quad Cortex. The first two that came to mind was electric cello and electric violin. At this point I knew who I wanted to form the band.
The Band:
Electric violin - Rusanda Panfili (Hans Zimmer)
Electric cello - Tina Guo (Hans Zimmer)
Electric bass - Anna Sentina (YouTuber and session musician)
Piano - Sabina Baugh (my very talented wife!)
Drums - Barry Wilson
Orchestrator - Andrea Possee
Mixing - Tim Johnson (Cinematic Mixing)
I handled both electric, fretless and acoustic guitar duties.
Meanwhile, Neural kindly sent us Quad Cortex units, and we eagerly anticipated crafting our custom sounds. But before we could do that, I needed to start writing so that we knew what sort of sounds we should craft.
I began this journey by first writing the cello part. I tried to imagine what sort of thing Tina would have fun playing. I sent her the demo, and she replied with some great ideas, and seemingly in no time at all, we had something that felt incredible and sounded amazing.
It's always important to write specifically for the musician(s) who are playing the parts, however, it is equally important to allow them to have a level of creative freedom as they know their instrument far more intimately than we as composers do. To inhibit this could be detrimental to the music!
As we were nearing release, an amazing artist called Mugi Prayitno sent me this incredible work of art!
Want to know more about this project? Check out these interviews:
Strings Magazine Feature with Tina Guo: Sci-Fi (delity): New AI Technology Vaults Music Into a New Frontier
Headliner Feature: How AI Tech is Changing the Future of Music Composition and Production
