Hi all,
Sorry for the delay in replying. yesterday was manic & today I watched Andy Murray self-destruct (again)!!
Thanks for all your positive comments. I feel encouraged.
Some answers then:
Kev - I’ll pm you - but will it be OK or get lost ?? 
Polgara - there are many sample libraries about with vocals. This particular one was Voice 3 from Industrial Strength Records, via Loopmasters.
This particular pack has 10 “construction kits”. The track had a few vocal audio files - wet & dry, verse & chorus.
There was also a couple of music audio files - a backing track, bassline and lead - none of which were used. There were also 2 midi files - the lead riff and the bass riff. I discounted the bass riff but admit to liking the lead riff enough to keep it in the track.
There was also a demo “full” track lasting 1 min 2 secs (just enough to play the verse and chorus with the backing).
So basically I kept the dry vocals and the lead midi and constructed the rest around it.
This included my own drum/perc tracks, strings, sidechained strings & white noise plus additional basslines and a synth line on the “buildback” section. And some other bits (not got it in front of me)
In terms of the vocal line, I extracted and looped bits of them within Kontakt 5 and used these in midi initially.
Off topic slightly, but one of my previous submissions (I Am Love) was based on a sample pack of vocal lines & phrases only (Black Octopus & Veela). No music in that pack, so that was fully self-constructed with the additiona of various phrases & lines to make the song up.
With the vocal lines in this track I also made use of variaudio to repitch some of the words.
Hope that answers your questions.
Bane - nice to hear from you. The vocals are basically walking alone along the shore and through crowded streets until “you caught me”. The pick me up again shows repeat “failings” by the vocalist. If I remember correctly, you’re a worship leader, and these lines reminded me so much of Peter. Walking along the shore etc. And the falling could so easily be “denying” and so pick me up again. Or it could also be any of us. Hence the title having Peter’s Story in it.
In a sense it’s MY type of gospel or worship song.
If I’m right about you being a worship leader (I’ll trawl through the forums) then it may not be so weird to have had an urge to come back for a visit today
Hopefully my little Christian explanation has not offended others.
a:MUSEd - The answer is “Yes”. I took a patch in Vanguard that I created - just white noise and a bit of midi CC to alter the cutoff from time to time. Hidden in the track was a straight 4-4 Kik audio, pre-fader so it can still pump without being heard, and if I remember correctly it was sent to “no bus”, so it wasn’t sent anyway
Used the same sidechain on a Nexus strings but I put slight autopan on the white noise.
The other main effect prior to verse 1, 2 and the final chorus could have been done in (at least) 2 ways:
Most common I believe is to have the eq on the stereo out sweep, using say eq 2 or 3 as a parametric, automated and sweeping the whole mix up and back. As I wanted to put a little bit of eq on the output anyway I chose to use PhiltaXL from Vengeance as the first insert & I automated a sweep with that.
I agree with you about the build into the final chorus but I chose not to use a bass & kik to build it. One of the string patches would’ve clashed with the lower strings and a Kik would’ve clashed with the side-chain strings.
In hindsight, a kik or snare roll may have done it but I chose to use an additional synth line running alongside the main synth riff to add the build and then sweep/filter the whole mix again with the stereo out…
Hope that answers all of your questions. I enjoyed writing it and learned a lot of new tricks with a few new toys as well, so thanks again for all the positive feedback.
Neil B
