Jack Truong

This is my light tension cue for the Portfolio 2 course. I choose this cue because I felt like it was the strongest out of all the projects I did in the course. I wanted to aim for a noir feeling while a little bit of hopefulness. I liked the overall effects and synths that I had selected for this cue. I think that the sound selection and design is my strongest part about this project.

 

I mainly used Alchemy for my synths since it is a powerful plug in that would be used for cues like this. I was able to find many dark and spacey sounds and with the performance function of the plug in, I could automate these sounds to an amazing degree. All of the melodic elements like keys, pads, and sound effects were all from Alchemy. I also wanted drums with the sci-fi feeling so I used the IDM kit in Ultrabeat with Step FX in order to create this constantly moving drum pattern. 

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Even though the sound design was strong in my opinion, my weakest was the composition, where I could have put more use to those sounds. My chord progression was moving out of the terrain of production music and I could have done more with the effects to create more energy to the track when it builds up. I also could have created a second melody during the hook to add more layer to the cue. 

I have always struggled with composition when it comes to making music and I need to learn more on how to make use of good sounds from arrangements. Good sounds could help a song but if it wasn't composed in a way that was needed, you would not get any results.