First attempt at somewhat epic music, be it cliché or not...
Next time, it's most likely going to be something much calmer and hopefully a little more melodically interesting, sorry for that :P

In any case, I do want to invest more time into orchestral stuff, I'm itching to go into the Jeremy Soule / Skyrim direction and make something warm and welcoming for a bloody change. All this melancholic or dramatic stuff is getting a little depressing to be honest...

In any case,
Cheerio!

To The Core

TO THE CORE

Since I am now in the mood for it, here you go.
An old piece that is just a quick improvisation when I first explored the Spitfire LABS section, namely the scary strings and others that I have now forgotten.
No real mixing or mastering has gone into this.
Did not want to upload this, but liked it too much to let it rot in a folder.

I hope I don't drag you down :/

Art: 
https://www.deviantart.com/mirojohannes/art/Empty-342160487

I looked around a bit and this caught my eye, I think it fits like a glove. If you, esteemed artist and creator of this image, do not want this used here - do tell me.

Despair

The introduction to my new undertaking - VESTIGE : 

A Fallout, The Road, Metro etc. inspired post-apocalyptic soundtrack that is going to follow a loose "story" or travel through the described settings, with each track having some kind of situation, location or personality development of the main "character" in mind, which will be explained in more detail in each of these track's descriptions.
This piece functions as a kind of title theme, be that Ron Perlman speaking in monologue over slides of a desolate wasteland or a series opener for a show set in a nuclear aftermath.

I will try to keep this project as coherent and interwoven as I can, but still want to incorporate new elements here and there - it's going to be more versatile than this first track, I guarantee.

So. I'm finally back in the flow (I hope) and will release another project in the near future heavily inspired (and written for) by TES V : Skyrim on which I will work on at the same time to give myself two very different mindsets to work in.

Other than that,

Cheerio
Cedric

VESTIGE

Nothing But A Wasteland

VESTIGE - Nothing But A Wasteland

A Skyrim Soundtrack Expansion Project.

Taking both elements from Oblivion and Skyrim and trying to combine them into something that fits neatly into Skyrim's already existent soundscape and OST.
I always wanted to do this, and now I believe I have the tools necessary to pull it off - I hope...
This little introductory piece took me (calculating in the time I needed to find good enough melodies in my head without copying everything the existing soundtracks already do, arranging things so they work as intended, building up a new orchestral template I can work off of to create more cohesive pieces within this project, getting all the libraries I required etc.) half a year. 
Not constant work of course, for this iteration I took about 2 months - but there are so many prototypes waiting to be salvaged into something worthwhile that did not become *this*...
It took a lot of thinking and frustration.

And I am still not "perfectly" happy with the result. The mix but most importantly the arrangement and some harmonic structures are very lacking in some places, it isn't as thematically consistent as I wanted it and I feel like I still need a lot of practice with my new libraries to get the best out of them.

But aside from that, I am still very proud of it. I again learned more from this piece and everything it took to get it done than I have in a long time.
So I'd mark it down as a definite success, especially since it opens up the doors to an entire new project that I can sink my teeth into - especially especially because it is about Skyrim. And there are few things that I am as passionate about and emotionally connected to as I am with the fifth entry in the Elder Scrolls Series.

I will vastly improve in the fields of composition, arrangement and thematic consistency on the upcoming tracks, because now I actually have a structure I can build upon instead of no ideas and an empty DAW.
So expect better things to come and forgive me my shortcomings on this first entry in a hopefully long line of pieces to this puzzle.

Please enjoy and give me all the feedback you want, I need every bit of it to improve.

But for now -
a hearty Cheerio,
Cedric

HORIZON - A Skyrim Soundtrack Expansion Project

Mountains in the Sky

HORIZON - Mountains in the Sky

Finally done with this one. Took a good bit longer than I anticipated, but the time was necessary as I couldn't quite figure out how to end the piece. I think my solution is rather elegant and smooth, here's hoping it's not only me thinking that :P

All in all, I am much happier with this second entry to Horizon compared to the first. I really tried keeping this piece as consistent and thematically / melodically / sonically tight as I could without sacrificing variety.
For the most part I'd say that I succeeded, here and there maybe not so much. But I have to look at the big picture to not go utterly insane as is my nature.

That's also why I will stop trying to fix tiny issues that I am hearing now (but maybe imagining, would not be the first time...) and force myself to be content with what I have, cause the more I listen and the more I look out for mistakes, the more I'll hear (imaginary or real) - drives you nuts.

Again - all in all, this is the best thing I have done to date, in my opinion at least. Maybe not the most bombastic, maybe not the most intricate, but certainly what I wanted to end up with from the get go.

This obviously does not mean that I think this is as close as I would like it to be to the standard that I am setting for myself - but closest out of all the things I've done so far. 
And that's an improvement I am happy with.

I hope you can find enjoyment and maybe some peace of mind in this piece of music (if you read this far that is, if not.. well, doesn't change anything).

Cheerio,
Cedric

Frozen Meadows

HORIZON - Frozen Meadows

This is the first entry to EXCURSIONS - Volume I, my new endeavour to produce as many pieces of music as fast as possible. 
I want to see how much I can do in a (at least for my standards) very short period of time, mainly to increase my overall efficiency when it comes to making music but also to get more experience in the process of actually finishing projects, which I lack.

This one is a simple progression that doesn't evolve much in terms of harmonic content but builds more upon the idea of: emotions first, complexity later. Since I tend to dislike things I make that are too "unoriginal" (as if that ship hasn't already sailed) and discard usable ideas that can easily be turned into something pretty good, I figured this would be the perfect way of trying to break this useless notion of reinventing the bloody wheel every time (not that I do that, but I hold myself to that stupidly impossible standard regardless).
I hope I succeed and I think with this piece I am on a good way towards getting better at that.

Hope you enjoy this little Richter-esque excursion. 
More (probably short) pieces will follow - they might be totally different to this one, they might be similar - I shall take what I can get :)

Cheerio,
Cedric

[ amazing photo by Vadim Sadovski that I used for this cover found here: https://unsplash.com/photos/rVk7NXidQFY ]

EXCURSIONS Vol. I

The End Is Never The End Is Never...

EXCURSIONS - The End Is Never The End Is Never...

I'm Not Really Here

EXCURSIONS - I'm Not Really Here

ORIGINAL TRACK THAT I TOOK ALL INSPIRATION FROM AND COPIED QUITE HARD FOUND HERE : https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/FaK4UMFsIi/

I was listening to a rather long compilation of atmospheric desert-y music coupled with some ambient sounds on YouTube to get myself more into a game I was playing at the time and came across "Indulgence" by Alex Slayne.
The piece instantly enchanted me and did not let me go for a good while, cause it's use of space and atmosphere + this laughably simple (<-- don't get me wrong, that's not a critique!) but so goddamn powerful melody / progression works SO bloody well.
But it didn't do all that I wanted - while it had this unbelievably good and dense atmosphere, it did lack drama. 
Now, that is in no way a bad thing because the intent behind that track was certainly not a build-up to a grand finale but rather the slow and meditative weaving of a certain feeling and setting that so happens to resonate with me heavily. 
But I still felt I could add to it, use it's core and build something more complex, ultimately shifting it into my neck of the woods. If that is good or bad, I don't know and after contemplating it for a long time - I don't care.
I went to work, switched up the movement of the chord prog and did what I do.
In the progress, I did loose this very specific feeling of the original, and while that's a bloody shame - well, the original still exists and does what it wants to do better than I ever could. So I tried to do what I wanted to do better than IT could.

And now I'm giving up.

Ok, it's actually not that drastic. Truth is, I can't think about it anymore. It drives me insane cause I can't find a convincing transition into the epic drama drama stuff that I wanted to do with it. That has to do with multiple things, but the main one is probably that I'm really struggling to get anything done creatively, as my energy levels regarding music creation have been close to nothing lately.
Yay.
But now, I am doing the only sensible thing - letting it go. For the moment at least.
Should I find it in me to finish my work on it, I will. But I cannot let my stubbornness stand in my way of creating more music, especially when I got a (at least in my mind) promising new entry into my Skyrim Soundtrack Project that I desperately want to do. I need my love for making music back, and that will hopefully do the trick.

I am happy enough with this result as-is, so I am releasing it as a WIP to cut myself loose from it - otherwise, it will keep nagging me until I quit making music for the foreseeable future, and that's not an option.

So. I don't think anybody but maybe two or three people will ever read this, but I am writing my thoughts on it down now so I can move on better. See it as a means of self-manipulation for the better of.. well, me :P

Ok, I'm done now. Enjoy this little excursion and do look forward to the next piece in Horizon, it'll be a good one I promise.

Cheerio,
Cedric

Are We Free?

EXCURSIONS - Are We Free? [WIP]

My third entry into this project. With this one, I wanted to go more towards a calmer and consistent feel, tranquil but majestic. 
I think just sound and mixing-wise, this one is better than Frozen Meadows - the timing and tempo inconsistencies however drive me crazy in this one. 
I deliberately spent much less time in the tempo track, trying to fix all timing issues directly in the MIDI but obviously, that didn't turn out quite so well - a lesson I have hopefully learned by now...

The next piece is hopefully going to be my most consistent of all the music I have created thus far. Don't quite know what it's gonna be, but I wanna stray a bit from my formula and make something unlike the last two.
And maybe I'll get lucky and can say that in the end, it is as Elder Scrolls-y as ever, more timing consistent than all my other works before and has a mix that is something I won't be able to distinguish from a professional piece of music.

Kinda skeptical on that last one, but I'm gonna try my damn hardest anyway :P
But first, I want to turn my attention towards this new horror-apocalypse project I started and the new journey into TSFH-ish epic music. Fingers crossed...

Until then,

Cheerio,
Cedric

Kynareth's Grace

HORIZON - Kynareth's Grace

The world is dead. Humanity is dying. Time is running out. There is no escape.

A new project, like Vestige this will be a post-apocalyptic soundtrack project with a much heavier emphasis on horror and the inescapable death of everything around us.

Unlike Vestige though, I know where to take this and what I want to do within it.
Expect more like what you just heard, but there will also be tracks going for a more atmospheric, droning aesthetic and some will dwell on the emotional, tragic side of the story. Whatever I feel like really, and whatever fits the tone obviously.

Thanks for listening,

Cheerio,
Cedric

Fallen

A Better Place

FALLEN - A Better Place

I think I have seldom been so optimistic about something I created, so free of doubt and worry - which is coincidentally a feeling I want to convey with this new piece and project / album.

I dearly love the OST for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis and always wanted to do something in a similar fashion, but up until now lacked the means to do it. The means being a library (I'm not big on collaborations of such an interconnected nature and am quite the control freak, so outsourcing performances isn't yet my forte) that could portray solo strings in this very specifically rustic and imperfect, soft and brittle form that is so iconic to Warren Ellis' style of playing.

Well, along come Orchestral Tools and break my mind with the unbelievably authentic and brilliant "Peteris Vasks' Strings", forcing me to make this!
I gotta say, I've never been more happy about any kind of enslavement.

But jokes aside, this really is one of the best purchases I have ever made, and one of the best pieces of music I have ever made - maybe not because of some brilliant melodical structure or a perfect arrangement (which this obviously doesn't have :P), but because of this unbelievably authentic and iconic sound, and the atmosphere it creates.

I did have to do quite a bit of EQ adjustments and automation to iron out some of the more resonant moments (didn't quite achieve a perfect balance, but I'm gonna get better the more I use it), plus making my own mic-mix cause the library was recorded in a bloody huge church - but the close mics are, despite this, bone dry and together with some of the other options able to have this up-close, intimate feeling that I wouldn't have thought possible.
One or two samples are a little borked sometimes, but with a bit of imagination one can circumvent these small errors.
All in all, this product is nigh perfect - for me, obviously :)

But enough about this - what Revalescence is about, is a journey. As always. I need to wander, both in reality as in my fantasy so this kind of theme will never go away, most likely :P
Anyhow, the term describes the process or rather state of getting better, healing. And since that is such a loose concept, you could apply it to really anything : a struggle with mental health, a physical injury or other avenues of trouble that open themselves up to you. 
This time, I will not describe an actual story, but rather a more metaphoric path to betterment, whatever that might entail for you specifically.
I love placing things into the setting of an Arizona desert, cause it's just so relentlessly beautiful to me, but feel free to wander off to anywhere you would like to go with it. Sometimes, I'll be more setting-specific, other times it'll be more ambiguous - whatever I feel like at any given moment.
You can expect ups and downs, but at the end I will try to weave it all together into a calming, reassuring and hopeful outlook and reflection on things past, present and future.

All of this sounds terribly pretentious and usually I would refrain from writing bloated nonsense like that - but I think this time, I'll try being more conscious about creating music, with a broad, human theme in mind that one can read into if one chooses to. Don't know whether or not it's gonna work out, but what the hell - I'll try anyway :D

If you did, thank you very much for reading through all of this and I hope you'll find a connection to Revalescence, as have I.

Cheerio,
Cedric

Revalescence

Leaving Home

Revalescence - Leaving Home

ARCADIAN HOURS

Noesis

ARCADIAN HOURS - Noesis

A new path lies ahead. One of change and a better, hopeful future. 
Walk it, fight through it if you must - and prevail.

REVALESCENCE

On the Trail

Revalescence - On The Trail

This year keeps being the worst of my life so far I think.
Wanted to make something angry but I'm too tired.
This is all I could do, cause I hate everything and don't wanna make music right now. Probably will try to anyway but I am completely emotionally exhausted and this piece just happened an hour ago, so out it goes.
I have no idea what this description is about, fuck it.

Hollow

EXCURSIONS - Hollow

A timeless traveler discovers a portal leading to another dimension, calling out to him. His motivation is to unravel, to seek wisdom and to find the entity that draws him into this great unknown. Upon arrival he is presented with a grand Exhibition full of wonderous worlds and realms, colourful and intriguing.



Artwork: https://darink.deviantart.com/art/Sunrise-In-Space-415069633

Tales Of A Traveler

The Grand Exposition

The Traveler arrives at a torn scenery. A raging ocean to the west, a sleeping desert to the east. The sand beneath his feet still, never to awake from its slumber. Every particle its own microcosm, worlds containing worlds in a hundred, a thousand, a billion variations, coexisting in an endless circle of conflict and peace.





Artwork: https://w-dog.net/wallpaper/namibia-kalahari-desert-dune-sand-wind-atlantic-ocean/id/304651/

In The Ocean Of Dunes

The best scene there ever was. Period. Of course I can't top this in any way, but I just wanted to do my own version of "No Time For Emotion" from the Kingsman 2 Soundtrack, for love's sake!

Rest well, Merlin. Rest well.

Artwork: https://maorenc.deviantart.com/art/Kingsman-Eggsy-and-Merlin-561637818

The Inspired Ones

Merlin's Farewell

A protagonist. A bottle of bourbon. A piano. That's all there's to it.

Neon Colors

Turquoise

Emerald

My newest and dearest. Blood, sweat and tears. And lots of invaluable advice. But here I am, arisen from the ashes of my broken spirit. I think, just as the title suggests, that this may be my own little renaissance - a milestone in (hopefully) many more to come. Not that I wish to always have to improve as significantly - that wouldn't reflect on me very well - but to be able to jump a few steps ahead once in a while and to celebrate the feeling of having overcome a seemingly huge obstacle. This track may not seem as impactive as I make it out to be, but to me personally it is one of the most important leaps I have taken thus far. 
So please enjoy. 
And to my fellow creators, whatever it is you create:

Good hunting!

Cheers,
Cedric

PS. In June it'll be on Spotify and all those other platforms, just a heads up for the one person that want's to know : |

Phoenix

Sat down a couple of days ago and this poured out of my head. I'm very glad to have those moments where things just work and fall into place intuitively. They are very few and far between, but when they come I feel that it was all worth the wait. I hope that it was far from the last time something like this happened and I can share lots more of these moments with you, yes you - the listener - right here, right now - you. 
If this speaks to you or moves you in any way, shape or form (well, apart from revulsion and disgust hopefully :D), I'm a very happy fecker. 
So I hope you enjoy and remember that a night always ends in a day.

How cheesy. 

But still true.

Cheers,
Cedric

Waiting For The Sun

The Chase

Spitfire Scoring Competition - Westworld, Season 3 - My Entry

Currently working on a project for my dIploma and for this I needed something to record. Couldn't come up with anything but then I realised that I love this song and The Man In Black, so I ended up with the intro that this is. Really happy with how it's turning out and I think I will upload a few more drafts (maybe) until I've got the finished version.
Tell me what you think about it and stay untuned.
So rebellious..

Cheerio.

Hurt

Hurt - Re-Imagination, 3. Draft (Intro & Buildup | Incomplete)

This took some time... 
My first attempt at recording acoustic instruments, my own vocals (I'm not trained in anyway, go easy on me... :D), a less than ideal arrangement and mixing something like this - all of that and numerous other problems boiled down into this!
One of my favourite songs of all time, two of my favourite artists of all time, and me. 
I hope I brought something worthwhile and unique to the already saturated landscape of covers, something you can travel to and loose yourself in.

It's been quite a journey (as always...), but I've learned a lot with this.
Have fun, enjoyment and distraction,

Cedric :)

HURT

I am me. Isn't that a surprise? I almost couldn't believe it myself when they first told me, but it is true. The Cyanist, Cyanisto or the Wurzelsepp Of The Ages, it doesn't matter. I am an ocean of fire and demonic rage, ready to be unleashed upon the surface of this very earth. Brace yourself - for I have arisen.

If you want me to make music for you, do let me know.

The Cyanist

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