Sciopticon
‘In de geest van Canto Ostinato’


Het idee voor Sciopticon (toverlantaarn of caleidoscoop) is ontstaan in december 2012, uit waardering voor de muzikale visie en technieken van de latere composities van de Nederlandse componist Simeon ten Holt. Zijn composities hebben inmiddels een unieke eigen plek verovert in het Nederlandse, zo niet wereldwijde, muzikale spectrum. Canto Ostinato is daarvan tot dusver nog steeds het bekendste voorbeeld. Na een brede zoektocht van enkele decennia lijkt Ten Holt met Canto Ostinato zijn eigen antwoord te hebben gevonden op de vraag in welke vorm muziek haar kracht het best kan manifesteren. Canto Ostinato is op die manier een combinatie van basale, verticale en horizontale gebeurtenissen welke resulteren in een idioom van repeterende harmonieën en melodieën die, door interpretatie en de ziel van de uitvoerende of uitvoerenden, een unieke indruk achter laat die enkel via een auditieve abstractie als muziek bereikt lijkt te kunnen worden. 

Ook Sciopticon is zo'n muzikaal proces van veelvuldig herhalende fragmenten. Deze fragmenten bestaan uit verschillende patronen. Een patroon bestaat hier in de basis uit een bepaalde gebroken akkoordenreeks, met een dissonante toevoeging (een muzikaal peperkorreltje).

Sciopticon beweegt zich rondom 4 melodische hoofdthema’s, die verspreid liggen door de compositie. Alle tussenliggende fragmenten bewegen zich schijnbaar statisch naar deze melodische thema’s toe of bewegen zich er vanaf. Bij het langer beluisteren van een steeds herhalend fragment is een bepaalde gelaagdheid waar te nemen. De focus zal in eerste instantie waarschijnlijk horizontaal zijn, oftewel melodisch.  Daarnaast is er een verticale focus, wisselend van aandacht voor tonen in het lage, het midden, of het hoge register. Zo trekt er in Sciopticon een steeds veranderend palet aan structuren en melodieën voorbij.
 
Sciopticon bestaat uit 3 delen, die achter elkaar door worden gespeeld. 
Deel 1 en 3 hebben een sterke verwantschap. Deel 3 blijft dicht bij het introverte d-mineur karakter van de Hang. Deel 2 is een contrasterend overgangsdeel, waarin mineur en majeur verstrengelen. Deel 1 vertoont, in verhouding tot de andere 2 delen, de meeste majeur akkoorden en heeft daardoor een meer extravert karakter dan de andere delen.

Rob Verheul & Jeff Hijlkema (2017)

Sciopticon (part 1, 2 & 3)_ Duo for d-minor Hang

What's the most beautiful instrument after the piano? Yes, the orchestra.  From the use of synthesizers in the beginning my interest shifts more and more to orchestral programming, with libraries from mainly Orchestral Tools and Spitfire Audio. And some Sonuscore here also. By the way the naming of 'Abbey' refers to Abbey Road One, a library from Spitfire Audio that I used (among others) in this piece. I hope you like it.

Orchestral Abbey Fantasy

A piece in a series of pieces with a short length, about 45 seconds.

45sec - Woezel

Relative long orchestral composition using a lot of libraries from Spitfire Audio and Orchestral Tools, and some others.
I finished it mostly with headphones, and that was satisfying in sound, but listening on the speakers, it is not yet what I aim for talking about the mastering, so this is not yet the final version I imagine in my head.

Dreamed Future

This is my entry for the Ryan Leach competition January 2024. They ask for a composition not longer than 90 seconds, based on an artwork. The artwork is created by Hardy Fowler. The shown image is cropped, the full image can be seen here:
https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/054/964/553/4k/hardy-fowler-7-cyberpunk.jpg?1665777108
In the music I tried to visualize the urban character of a world city conglomerate, the two persons in the center have some kind of intimate conversation, or is it a business conversation? The eastern elements are inspired by the chinese or japanese looking woman.
In the music orchestral settings are combined with eastern instruments, and also with a trance like middle part in which synth sounds play an important role.

Urban Intimacy

For some decades making a Barber's Adagio for Strings mockup was on my production bucket-list and for long string plugins just didn’t catch up was my experience, next to my lack of DAW skills. Times have changed and I finally went for it, combining Spitfire BBCSO Pro strings and Spitfire Appassionata Strings. These are in fact the only string libraries I have, chosen for their splendid human touch sample recordings. These libraries are pretty though to tweak I think, but I haven't come across a string library that has a better authentic, classical feel and human touch.

The Adagio performance of Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic string players is my all time favorite cause of it’s intens expression and dynamics. Did my best to ‘conduct’ my digital orchestra with this kinda passion also. I created my mockup using the 1936 original score, with divisé parts, next to having midi files from te score, that lacked the divisé parts though. 
I started this project by creating a Cubase tempo track, lined up with this original recording, resulting in a tempo track with around 300 dots.

I used the following mic settings within Appassionata Strings:
Close Ribbon 35%
Tree 80%
Ambient 35%
Outriggers 80%

And these mic settings within BBCSO Pro strings:
Tree 85%
Outriggers 70%
Leaders 35%
Close Wide 45%
Sides 40%

These 9 mics  in total I rendered seperately per instrument track in Cubase. This way I have complete control over them in the mix. Leaving me up with 45 mic tracks. 
On violins 1, violins 2 and the violas I used EQ automation on all mics for low end roll-off, getting rid of the rumble specially in the high climax part in the Adagio.
As for the blending of the two string libraries I went for taste per individual instrument track, where sometimes Appasionata rules more then BBCSO or vice versa, and that could change per instrument group (violins 1, violins 2, etc.)

This mockup stringorchestra is counting 90 players in total:
Violins 1    - 16 by BBCSO Pro & 8 by Appassionata strings 
Violins 2    - 14 by BBCSO Pro & 6 by Appassionata strings 
Violas        - 12 by BBCSO Pro & 6 by Appassionata strings 
Cellos        - 10 by BBCSO Pro & 6 by Appassionata strings 
Basses        - 8 by BBCSO Pro & 4 by Appassionata strings 

Insert efx plugin chain for both Appassionata bus & BBCSO bus: 
1. FabFilter EQ2 for little low end roll-off, mid pull and high end boost, around 1.5db up
2. Manley Massive Passive EQ for character, warming the low end and little presence
3. Avalon VT-737 EQ for sophistication and charachter also. 
All just a little touch. Where I first dial the knobs up extreme and then dial back to find the right subtle amount.

Send Reverb chain for both Appassionata bus & BBCSO bus: 
1. Scoring Stage - Liquid Sonics - Seventh Heaven - 2.20sec (-7db)
2. Amsterdam Classic Hall, FabFilter Pro-R - 3.30sec (-6db)

Mastering Inserts:
1.Fabfilter EQ2 Low end roll off around 20Hz
2. Fabfilter EQ2 Mids pull
3. Manley Massive Passive EQ for little 47hz and 16k boost 
4. Avalon 747 EQ  for a velvety blanket.
5. FabFilter Compressor -1.5db
6. FabFilter Limiter  -11 LUFS

It took me around 50 hours from start to finish to create this mockup.
Where most of the time went into CC automation and tempo automation.


Be well,
Jeff Hijlkema

Samuel Barber - Adagio For Strings - Mockup with BBCSO Pro & Appassionata Strings

The Graveyard Suite is a collection of pieces with in mind a graveyard (or cemetery) where strange things happen. It is about 12 minutes long.

These are the 12 parts:

- Graveyard intro (0:00)

- Rumbling stones (0:42)

- Paranormal activity (1:23)

- Waltzing bones (2:22) (based on ukrainian carol)

- Dark forces roaring (3:20)

- Fearing eternal darkness (4:13)

- Glimpses of the light (4:54)

- Tombstone pingpong (6:05)

- Criminals remorse (6:37)

- Mercy (7:42) (based on Bach)

- Gregorian Hymn (8:38) (based on the gregorian Im Paradisum)

- Paradise at last (9:06) (with elements of Fauré Im Paradisum)

Graveyard Suite

Orchestral piece, using different libraries from Spitfire Audio and Orchestral Tools.

Giant Waves

This piece is made with softsynths, like Sylenth, Synthmaster, Massive, and some others. I have named it Simplicity because of a relative simple chord structure and simple melodies without too much hassle.

Simplicity

This track is made with various libraries, from Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Abbey Road One, but also libraries from Orchestral Tools. 

Energy-trail

Orchestral piece, using libraries and sounds from:

Spitfire Audio:
Abbey Road One
BBC Symphony Orchestra (core and pro)
Appassionata strings
LABS Christmas Glocken
Originals Media Toolkit (marimba)

Orchestral Tools:
Berklee Berlin Orchestra
Modus (Jeff Russo)
Flügelhorn (Time micro, or was it macro)

Logic Stock instruments:
Studio trumpet

Also, Panagement 2, Wider, Scheps Omni Channel