In the Beginning

The start of a project

Week 1 of the first project cycle that I will be undertaking at SAE Brisbane has left me with a feeling of excitement at the prospects of being free to plan and construct my own music production (Within certain parameters) to achieve the learning outcomes. It was a little bit of a rough start to the week for me being bombarded with a f@$# load of information about how this studio module will run all whilst being a bit under the weather (Man Flu), but I believe I managed to follow along well enough.

This whole Studio1 unit is based around Electronic Music Production (EMP), which I do find a little daunting as I have absolutely no experience whatsoever in this field of music. With that said I do relish the chance at being forced to expand my knowledge and skill set by learning/researching EMP which can only benefit my in my ongoing growth as an Audio Engineer.

The basic idea for the project I’m creating is an Electro/Metal soundtrack for movies. As I am a Heavy Metal guitarist I thought the best way for me to learn about EMP would be to compose a track that incorporates guitar and electronic elements.

But Ryan why did you decide to make a track for movies

From my own experience there isn't much original metal tracks made just for movies and I thought it would be an interesting idea to see what I could come up with. This led me on the path of researching just what movies have metal soundtracks and if any of them are composed for them specifically.

So where is the best place to go for all your movie knowledge, IMDB (Internet Movie Database) of course. I was surprised actually at how many movies used metal soundtracks but they all still used music that was made specifically for them.

That's when I across a movie that had everything I was looking for. The movie was called Dredd and had an original Electro/Metal soundtrack composed by Paul Leonard-Morgan, I had actually watched it a few weeks prior to doing this research which I think is a bit of nice serendipity.

On listening to the soundtrack again it had all the electronic elements I was wanting to create in my own production but I couldn’t help but feel the guitar elements were a bit lacking. I wanted something that used the electronic elements of the Dredd soundtrack but incorporated heavy guitars like the band Fear Factory.

So on to researching again

With discussing my idea of a Dredd, Fear Factory fusion with a fellow classmate he suggested I listen to the soundtrack for the 2016 Doom game, and let me tell you I was not disappointed. The music was composed by a guy called Mick Gordon and I thought it would be beneficial to check out some of his other work, were I discovered another game were he did a multitude of soundtracks for and one of them was exactly what I was looking.

This is going to be the main track I will teardown and analyse as a reference of what my final product will be.