Remember

Arbeit macht frei. Work sets you free. This is what is written with all the unimaginable sarcasm possible at the entrance of the Auschwitz concentration camps that can be visited in Poland. This site makes us remember what Hitler was capable of. About at the same era, Stalin planned and exacerbated the Holodomor in Ukraine to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. Some people estimate that 5 million people died during the Holodomor while 6 million people died during the Holocaust. Do we remember it? About a century later Mr.P is trying to do the same Holodomor, again, in Ukraine. Don’t we get it?

“This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is not a coincident. Those are historic facts”

Music & Production: Syrel 
Photography: Syrel (Auschwitz as I visited on 2016)

Musical Note: This score was mostly made using a trio of Spitfire Audio (SA) LABS plugin “Cello Moods”, which is the Cello marvellously played by Alice Allen and to whom I should give all the credit for the cellos emotion in this music. I also used some instruments from SA TUNDRA library as well as 2 instances of SA BBCSO.

Very beautiful piece, but it needs some fixing in the bass tesitura, which sounds saturated.

,

On 8/1/2022 at 1:20 PM, Luis Hernández said:

Very beautiful piece, but it needs some fixing in the bass tesitura, which sounds saturated.

 

Thank you Luis for the kind words. Indeed, the low range tessiture may sound saturated but it is not. The tessitura is perfectly legit if you consider that the low notes are from 24 5 strings double basses with the lower string at C1 or even B0. I could have used an Octobass but 24 double bass using a flautando articulation playing triple piano (ppp) sounds much smoother. So you see, no tessitura fix needed 😃

The staff used is as follows:
Cello Trio for the main theme
24 5 strings double basses with the lower string at C1
60 cellos
and the remaining of a full modern British orchestra

Cheers,

I don't know, maybe it is a mixing issue. But it doesn't sound good. If you like it, OK.

1 hour ago, Luis Hernández said:

I don't know, maybe it is a mixing issue. But it doesn't sound good. If you like it, OK.

 

Dear Luis, Thank you for letting me know and having me check my mixing. We can never be too careful. Now I understand. It has nothing to do with the tessiture of the instrument but more about your perception of the low frequencies. It is funny because my hearing is fading in the treble range as I get older and I tend to make my mixes too bright. So I double checked each track with an analyser and specifically the cello, which is at least -10db below saturation.  I could not find any saturation issue. You also have to consider that the quality of an MP3 on SoundCloud has nothing to do with an original WAV file. When I made this music I was influenced by László Melis and his excellent score for the movie “The son of Saul”. That score is using super close microphone recording for the strings quartet instruments and it provides this haunting proximity that I was looking for the subject of my score. However, I can understand that super close microphone recording is not for everyone especially if you are use to a more classical far away microphone recording. It sounds so different than a microphone at 2 to 3 meters distance and the proximity effect of the microphone is greatly enhanced. I must admit that my approach to music is more for the pictures and the movies. Not for the concert. For someone having an extensive classical training and forced to follows the rules this approach may be in disagreement. I tend to follow Hans Zimmer advice (even though I greatly prefer John Williams as a composer) “If you want to innovate while there are rules in music, break it”. Nevertheless, I suggest that you listen to it at a lower volume, use more neutral headphone or simply turn OFF your sub-woofer.

Cheers,

Syrel