Sunday 30 October 2011

From idea to master. Case study: 'PILOT' - Journey to Red Star (TV Version)

Time for a progress report. Let's talk about a track that I have completed most recently - it's a very good example of what I described in my last post.

I created the very first mockup of "Red Star" in December 2006 (actually, most of the mockups originate from 2006) and the last one in August 2007. Back then it was ca. 3 minutes in length - definitely too short. Months later I came up with the idea to incorporate the music that kicks in when you hear the "Dropped below the radar" line (being "Red Star" material and featuring Sly's trademark pulse wave arpeggiator) and also the "Kafir Palace Raid" music (being almost identical to the former). We then figured it would be around 4 minutes (and that's what the last version of the pre-production tracklist said).

And that was basically the plan agreed upon until the recording started. I just couldn't glue all the parts together, and after a while I decided that the extra segments mentioned above need a track of their own. So what happened to the Red Star track? That's the "decent overhaul" that I mentioned earlier - I decided to face my fears and try to incorporate two other musical segments to the track which I never thought I'd be able to recreate. I even explicitly rejected them when people asked for them over at Airwolf Themes forums! Guess what: they turned out great. Also the track came out longer than planned. Concluding, these are the newest amendments to CD1 tracklist:

08'PILOT' - Journey to Red Star (TV Version) Sly (4:26)
16Proper name TBC (Red Star II) Sly (TBC)

To be completely honest, Red Star was one of the tracks that I always thought I'd label a "remix" rather than a "replica". But so far it's one of my finest (if not THE finest) replicas to date. We will probably use it for CD1 opening.

No comments:

Post a Comment