Sci-Fi track teardown

We wanted to practice our song writing skills in the sci-fi genre by creating a game trailer. The trailer we chose was Halo 4's short clip that showed the new spaceship Infinity.

(343 Industries, 2012)

The trailer gave a sense of foreboding and increased anticipation of what could come next from the larger spaceship reveal.

Using this trailer as our visual inspiration we then searched around YouTube and listened to a variety of sci-fi songs until we stumbled upon a track below.

(Revolt Production Music, 2016)

Revolt Production Music (Music, 2019) is a company that specializes in creating music for film and TV and is based in Los Angeles CA, USA.

A New Dimension by Revolt Production Music felt extremely compatible since it held much tension and gave a sense of foreboding. In order to understand why this track gave such a emotional response to our team we decided to perform a track tear down so that we can learn what elements went into the composition. After learning the key elements we can then use the same elements in future composition.

Key Features used in reference track

Track Wave form viewed in ProTools

Intro - A - B - A1 - B1- A2 - B2 - Outro

We can see in the wave form and also from listening to the track that it has a simple format and is increasingly getting more intense to a large build up near the end then a big tension release for the Outro. This type of structure fitted well with the video track since there is a slow reveal of the spaceship then for the final part of the video there is a huge spaceship reveal which coincides with the tension build up of the song.

Tempo

The tempo of the song was set at 120 BPM throughout and was in 4/4 time. The total length of the track is 1 min: 58 sec with the

Key Signature was found to be E Minor.

Production

The melody line is full of tension!

The interesting part of the production of this song is that the producers in Revolt Production Music composed a melody line for the piano using note intervals of 4th for instance the melody has the tonic note on E played simultaneously with a G to establish an minor sound then a D with a Gb which is an interval of a 4th, followed by a A and D also an interval of 4th followed by a B played with a E. All of these notes are perfect Fourths since there is no major 3rd or 5th to support the chords and is considered a dissonant ("Music Theory/Consonance and Dissonance", 2018)

Instruments

The following main instruments were identified in the track; Bright Acoustic Piano, Programmed Pad, Synth Trumpet, Synth Pluck, Synth Strings, Heart Beat, Synth Hi Hats, Synth large Drum, Synth Brass Section.

The below sonic analysis conducted below is based of the book by William Moylan "Understanding and Crafting the Mix: the art of Recording" (Moylan, 2015)

The Piano carried the theme of the song and was introduces the tension through out the piece, it does not resolve the piece until the last part of the song where the perfect triad of the E minor chord is played. A large reverb tail is placed onto the piano to give a larger than life sound.

The Pad is constant throughout the song and adds a subtle airiness to the piece and sits in the background. This is also placed on the large reverb to give a sense of depth.

The Trumpet is introduced in the last two verses where the music is reaching the climax and adds a sense of urgency as if sounding a warning. This adds great tension and foreboding to the piece.

The plucking sound is almost piano sounding and gives a subtle yet omni-present urgency to the piece. It sits in the background and moves the piece along.

The Synth strings that come an goes throughout the climax swells and dies down to reinforce the climax and the start and end of each verse. This adds great tension to the piece.

Nothing adds more tension and anxiety than to hear a beating heart at a semi fast pace. The beat is in time with the Tempo of 120 BPM and creates reinforces the anxiety of the whole piece.

The synth Hi Hat comes in only during the climax and this also adds to the heightened tension building around climax of the track.

The Large Synth Drum adds an extra dimension to the piece and gives the climax section an added sense of power.

The synth brass section is added into the climax of the song and is used to swell and reinforce the climax of the track, greatly adding to the power of the piece.

After analysis of the sonic qualities of the piece you can see that the stacking and additional layering of instruments adds to a tremendous buildup of the track then a sudden drop off at the end leaves the listener further wanting to continue to hear more.

Take away learning

This piece is prime example of tension building from the use of perfect fourths in the melody to the slow build up of additional instruments and ultimately using a beating heart sound in the climax creates a foreboding atmosphere in the piece. One can use the layering of instruments and steady progression as part of their composition and create a similar atmosphere. The use of non resolving notes that are not thirds or fifths of the key signature will create tension in the piece. A merging of mechanical synthesized sounds paired with natural acoustic instruments played gives a sense of human and machine integration which can work well with sci-fi themes, synths being the machine and the acoustic instruments the human aspects of the track.

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References:

343 Industries. (2012). HALO 4: Intro Infinity [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx-qlKb_Tvg

Revolt Production Music. (2016). A New Dimension [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LomA_hSee5o

Music, R. (2019). Revolt Production Music. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/revoltproductionmusic

Music Theory/Consonance and Dissonance. (2018). Retrieved from https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Music_Theory/Consonance_and_Dissonance

Moylan, W. (2015). Understanding and Crafting the Mix (3rd ed.). Taylor and Francis.