For fellow TR-AR fans, I would love your opinion on a piece I made in the style of Social Network: https://soundcloud.com/functionform/after-all-the-cake-and-w.... It was made for a for-fun contest where you use one plugin to produce all the sounds. This concludes my self-promotion!
Not a musician, so I don't really have the proper vocabulary, but- as a fan of industrial specifically (and electronic music in general) and as a writer, this has a really nice balance of texture and atmosphere. I could see it being incorporated with visuals and other elements of design/sensory experience for a cerebrally lush creative project. It was nice to listen to, thanks for sharing.
Just to add another data point, I really like it! I'm an enormous fan of the Social Network's soundtrack and I feel you really captured the feel and sound that some of its pieces give (obviously particularly the main theme).
Would love to add it to some of my Spotify playlists if you're on there (but I very much understand if you're only on Soundcloud).
Really nice work. Some really good sounds in there, I especially like the opening which makes me think of a heavily processed chorused piano, and then some of the sounds after that bordering right on the edge of distortion. Very atmospheric.
Also cool to see someone bring up the KVR one synth challenge on here. I participated a few times just for fun and found it an unparalleled learning experience. I highly recommend at least giving it a shot to anyone musically inclined who is interested in learning how synthesizers are used in practice. I guess some months are better than others because they use different plugins each time but the wavetable one on there right now looks pretty interesting.
Really excellent sound design! At first I was a little skeptical of the heavy muddy sound mix-wise but then when it broke up around 1 minute in it paid off more than well. Great track!
Listening to it again, and I really like it. I do agree that after about 1:30 or so when it "opens up" it really hits its stride, and I go from like, yeah this is good, to wow yeah this is great after about 1:30. It leaves a great after-taste and makes you want to listen to it again.
Fun fact, Trent and Atticus are still scoring films, most recently Pixar's Soul! It's a great soundtrack[0] that has a number of jazz tracks contributed by Jon Batiste as well as Reznor and Ross's synth pieces. Fair warning, it's a very different vibe compared to Social Network, much more relaxed and atmospheric. I particularly recommend the track Falling, which plays during the opening credits sequence after the main character dies (if you haven't watched Soul, this isn't the spoiler you think it is lol. You should watch Soul, it's great)
I really loved the soundtrack when watching this film. I was thinking this is some of the best New Age music I’ve ever heard. And, to my complete surprise, it was scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. NIN has been my all time favourite band since I was a kid. That made me chuckle.
Of their works: the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a few choice coding songs. Some of it is little too dark or a little too airy. Before the Flood is also pretty good a little sad at some points. The Juno single they put out as part of the 2016 Jupiter probe collaboration with a few artist is pretty nice. The Vietnam War soundtrack never quite vibed right for work. And finally, Watchmen Vol 1 is dope, especially NUN WITH A MOTHERF&ING GUN but good luck getting work done to that.
Gosh, this is so not at all my world. I'm not very good with these tools. But as a fan of the original work, wow, this is just wonderful. I really enjoyed spending time with this post.
I hope I don’t sound jaded but am I the only one who finds this a bit boring and lacking what music should not? I’m in my 40s and dabbled myself with music making and jamming electronic instruments with others and when I see a clean instruction led process that has no room for human touch, may it be mistake that blends it naturally or unpredictibility it somehow appears dull. Im sure this will get downvoted in perpetuity but I got something off my chest.
> and when I see a clean instruction led process that has no room for human touch, may it be mistake that blends it naturally or unpredictibility it somehow appears dull.
I'll be honest I'm not 100% sure what you're criticizing here, do you mean the article giving a step-by-step guide on how to replicate the soundtrack? Or is something about the soundtrack itself a clean instruction led process with no room for human touch?
If you mean the steps of how to recreate the original songs, I half agree. Replication doesn't make for a super interesting piece to share. But it is a great way to learn how to make electronic music. A guitarist or pianist practices by learning existing music right? Much of electronic music is in the sound production and "covering" an existing track is just as good a practice as learning your favorite guitar solo.
If you mean the music itself is dull because it's software and sequencer driven well I'd say there's still plenty of human elements in the composition and I'd bet plenty of human knob-twiddling. But also consider it's a movie soundtrack so it's not really supposed to steal the foreground, and it's a movie that centers around programming and a main character with terrible social skills, so the robotic sequencing is probably very intentional. Check out the album "Ghosts I-IV" which includes these same 2 dudes and the rest of the NiN bandmates and was used as a placeholder score for the movie if you want to hear something with a similar vibe but far more "organic" sounding.
To respond I'm gonna quote an artist* I recently interviewed on my synths & artists newsletter >
"The fact that synthesizer music is a machine-human interaction allows you to think less about elements that you'd generally focus 100% on when you perform a "traditional" instrument.
For instance, with synthesizers you have the luxury of focusing solely on expression without worrying about note execution."
> when I see a clean instruction led process that has no room for human touch, may it be mistake that blends it naturally or unpredictibility it somehow appears dull.
My understanding of this article is that it’s a detailed study of a composition the author likes.
There's room for both in the process. I like these kinds of articles, videos etc. Love finding out how unique sounda and feelings are made.
I regularly have sessions where I attempt to recreate sounds or full songs too. Great learning tool!
But, you also need to jam and be creative.
Too much technical learning without creativity and you make boring stuff. Too much creativity without technical learning and you find it difficult to express yourself.
I can see where you're coming from if this is a piece of music made to stand in its own right, but you gotta remember it was composed to complement what you are seeing onscreen and the dialogue that is part of a larger story. It's not supposed to be the star of the experience, but support for it. If Broken was the soundtrack to the movie, it would suck, as much as I love that album.
No, that track sounds like random presets thrown together. If it were uploaded by a nobody to soundcloud nobody would care about it.
I think it's fair to compare this track to techno, because that what it tries to sound like. If you listen to some cutting edge techno/minimal music you will easily find more atmospheric, nuanced and better produced songs than this. Just my opinion.
Not true. I had no idea who produced it when I heard it in the movie, and I liked it so much I played the whole album on repeat for days while working (coding).
> you will easily find more atmospheric, nuanced and better produced songs than this.
C'mon, you can't leave us hanging. Throw a few recommendations here!
I listen to techno but I usually don't like minimal, I find it too boring (prefer old school psy trance and goa myself, that should tell you direction I lean to). I really liked the SN soundtrack tho.
Sure its an opinion, but just saying it's random presents without proof of that and that it's easier to find more atmospheric, nuanced and better produced songs without providing any is rather meaningless.
What is minimal about it? Clearly there are quite a number of layered tracks combining synth and tradition instruments intended for a soundtrack to a movie. The only thing techno about it is the beat.
I was just exaggerating with the presets but I think it's nothing special. Never seen the movie so maybe it fits the atmosphere but just on it's own its a bit bland.
Agreed. If you compare this stuff with, for example, John Foxx's "Metatmatic" or Bowie's "Low" the human touch makes all the difference. Great electronic musicians leave an impression but this stuff just leaves me empty. I don't think sound engineering can be classed as creative music.
I think there's room for both types in the ever expanding genre of electronic music. Perhaps its a little too open ended to call all types of noise music… but why should music be constrained to something appealing to listen to?
I've seen clips of them using the more esoteric electronic instruments like the Lyra 8 and the Resonant Garden, which may explain some of the interesting and uncommons-sounding FX you hear in their work.
And it also goes to show that while it’s possible to re-create similar sounds in a DAW, these hardware instruments were an integral part of the original creation process (mood, texture, composition, etc). The use of the Swarmatron defined some of the key aspects of the soundtrack.
I’m a HUGE fan of these two and I’ve been tinkering with DAWs a little in my spare time so this is absolute gold for me. Thanks so much for writing it up and sharing it.
My friends and I always said that Pretty Hate Machine is what happens when a girl really fucks up a guy.
At the same time, the guy that did Mad Max also did Happy Feet, so sometimes you just like a little grit, and sometimes you just like a little fluff. (and paychecks!!)
Dunno, NIN (which I love, btw) was always the Disney version of Midwest Industrial which itself was the Disney version of Throbbing Gristle and friends, so, you know, it’a not entirely unexpected ;-)
Friend of mine called PHM “Michael Jackson with dirty words” which isn’t an unfair characterization by any means.
2010 was truly a phenomenal year to be a film soundtrack enjoyer. It's hard to believe that we got Ross and Reznor on Social Network, John Powell on How To Train Your Dragon, Zimmer on Inception, and Daft Punk on Tron: Legacy. All 4 of those scores are amazing and it blows my mind that they all released in the same year.
Loved this soundtrack ever since the release of the movie!
Fun fact: a lot of tracks are reusing parts of a previous Nine Inch Nails album called "Ghosts I-IV" also featuring Atticus Ross.
I didn’t know this until I read it. Whenever I listened to Ghosts, I’ve hit a few tracks and thought “I’m sure this was on The Social Network”. And then some time later, I’ve done the same thing listening to TSN OST. Never clicked!
Am I the only one that thinks Reverb Machine getting posted for the Kate Bush breakdown was interesting, but this second time in not very long with it just being another breakdown seems super iffy?
All nice and dandy. I would even read it had it not been written with this thin light grey on white font. Somehow it makes my eyes feel strained even if I magnify it to a healthy size.
