Will Helliwell
View this post on Instagram I think we've finally got the track sounding a bit less medieval and a bit more Red Dead 🤠 I swapped the flutes for some brass first of all. We've got a trumpet section, a horn section and a solo bass trombone. I felt like the drums were too "pop" and produced so I added quite a bit of reverb on them to open them up. The final key was adding the guitar. I played through my tele which is permanently tuned in open D now with its weird gauge strings. I ran it through BIAS FX 2 by @positivegrid with some overdrive, tremolo and a heavy spring reverb on to emulate that Red Dead sound. Do you hear Red Dead 2 or do you hear something else? -- #composer #vgm #videogamemusic #gameaudio #gamemusic #musicweeklies #musicweeklieschallenge #disasterpeace #disasterpeacechallenge #reaperdaw #composerlife #telecaster #biasfx2 #bbcsymphonyorchestra #vst #workinprogress A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Oct 26, 2020 at 2:13pm PDT
I think we've finally got the track sounding a bit less medieval and a bit more Red Dead 🤠 I swapped the flutes for some brass first of all. We've got a trumpet section, a horn section and a solo bass trombone. I felt like the drums were too "pop" and produced so I added quite a bit of reverb on them to open them up. The final key was adding the guitar. I played through my tele which is permanently tuned in open D now with its weird gauge strings. I ran it through BIAS FX 2 by @positivegrid with some overdrive, tremolo and a heavy spring reverb on to emulate that Red Dead sound. Do you hear Red Dead 2 or do you hear something else? -- #composer #vgm #videogamemusic #gameaudio #gamemusic #musicweeklies #musicweeklieschallenge #disasterpeace #disasterpeacechallenge #reaperdaw #composerlife #telecaster #biasfx2 #bbcsymphonyorchestra #vst #workinprogress
A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Oct 26, 2020 at 2:13pm PDT
View this post on Instagram Headphones recommended 🎧 Today I wrote some meditation music and experimented with adding binaural beats. Binaural beats are the result of playing slightly different tones to each ear. For this piece I used 161Hz in the left ear and 166 Hz in the right. I chose those tones because they relate very nicely to the E and A chords I was playing on the synth. Some people believe that your brain "syncs" to the difference in the frequencies. In this instance that would be a 5Hz difference. 5Hz is in the Theta zone of brainwaves which is associated with REM sleep, deep relaxation, meditation and creativity. While the Theta zone is a real thing, there's not much science to say binaural beats actually help you get there. Still, it's fun to experiment and make cool sounds. Would you listen to a longer version of this music for relaxation? - #composer #composerlife #vgm #gamemusic #musictheory #musicproduction #reaperdaw #newmusic #videogamemusic #rpgmusic #gameaudio #creativity #iris2 #izotope #music #meditation #meditationmusic #binaural #binauralbeats #synth A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 18, 2020 at 11:35am PDT
Headphones recommended 🎧 Today I wrote some meditation music and experimented with adding binaural beats. Binaural beats are the result of playing slightly different tones to each ear. For this piece I used 161Hz in the left ear and 166 Hz in the right. I chose those tones because they relate very nicely to the E and A chords I was playing on the synth. Some people believe that your brain "syncs" to the difference in the frequencies. In this instance that would be a 5Hz difference. 5Hz is in the Theta zone of brainwaves which is associated with REM sleep, deep relaxation, meditation and creativity. While the Theta zone is a real thing, there's not much science to say binaural beats actually help you get there. Still, it's fun to experiment and make cool sounds. Would you listen to a longer version of this music for relaxation? - #composer #composerlife #vgm #gamemusic #musictheory #musicproduction #reaperdaw #newmusic #videogamemusic #rpgmusic #gameaudio #creativity #iris2 #izotope #music #meditation #meditationmusic #binaural #binauralbeats #synth
A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 18, 2020 at 11:35am PDT
View this post on Instagram Day job done and jumping straight into Reason to play around with some drum beats 🥁 I’ve started using the Reason Drum Sequencer a lot more lately because it’s so good for coming up with quick beats. Not only that but it’s great for making sure your beats don’t get old. In this video you can see that for each drum sound, you can edit the velocity, repeats and probability of that sound playing. Not only that but you can make some sounds loop like normal, some loop in a pendulum motion and others be triggered randomly. All this put together can give you some really interesting sounds. Then the trick is to try to not get to crazy with it all. Anyone else out there been playing around with the Reason Drum Sequencer? - #reason10 #reasondaw #propellerhead #reasondrumsequencer #beatmaking #studio #composer #vgm #gamemusic #drumbeat #reasonstudios A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 4, 2020 at 11:27am PDT
Day job done and jumping straight into Reason to play around with some drum beats 🥁 I’ve started using the Reason Drum Sequencer a lot more lately because it’s so good for coming up with quick beats. Not only that but it’s great for making sure your beats don’t get old. In this video you can see that for each drum sound, you can edit the velocity, repeats and probability of that sound playing. Not only that but you can make some sounds loop like normal, some loop in a pendulum motion and others be triggered randomly. All this put together can give you some really interesting sounds. Then the trick is to try to not get to crazy with it all. Anyone else out there been playing around with the Reason Drum Sequencer? - #reason10 #reasondaw #propellerhead #reasondrumsequencer #beatmaking #studio #composer #vgm #gamemusic #drumbeat #reasonstudios
A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 4, 2020 at 11:27am PDT
View this post on Instagram This is how a lot of my tracks start, with a simple idea that is a complete rip-off of an already existing video game track 😅 This is the start of an idea for the Disasterpeace challenge run by Music Weeklies over on Twitter. The challenge this week is to "Extend your favorite game OST by writing at least 2 tracks that sound alike!" Internet points if you can guess what game I'm basing my track on. At the moment there's just a couple of guitars and some simple drums. The guitars are all running directly through BIAS FX 2 by @positivegrid. Found some lovely spring reverbs in there. I like to plan my tracks in writing before actually getting into the DAW so I have a list of instrumentation, sounds and ideas already written down in a document. Of course I've used @notionhq for that 😜 Looking forward to writing the rest of this track and seeing how well it blends in to the official OST when it's all done. Anyone else doing the Music Weeklies challenges? Let me know and I'll go follow your stuff on Twitter. -- #vgm #gamemusic #ost #videogamemusic #musicweeklies #musicweeklieschallenge #disasterpeacechallenge #guitar #biasfx2 #reaperdaw #composer #gamecomposer A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Oct 22, 2020 at 9:13am PDT
This is how a lot of my tracks start, with a simple idea that is a complete rip-off of an already existing video game track 😅 This is the start of an idea for the Disasterpeace challenge run by Music Weeklies over on Twitter. The challenge this week is to "Extend your favorite game OST by writing at least 2 tracks that sound alike!" Internet points if you can guess what game I'm basing my track on. At the moment there's just a couple of guitars and some simple drums. The guitars are all running directly through BIAS FX 2 by @positivegrid. Found some lovely spring reverbs in there. I like to plan my tracks in writing before actually getting into the DAW so I have a list of instrumentation, sounds and ideas already written down in a document. Of course I've used @notionhq for that 😜 Looking forward to writing the rest of this track and seeing how well it blends in to the official OST when it's all done. Anyone else doing the Music Weeklies challenges? Let me know and I'll go follow your stuff on Twitter. -- #vgm #gamemusic #ost #videogamemusic #musicweeklies #musicweeklieschallenge #disasterpeacechallenge #guitar #biasfx2 #reaperdaw #composer #gamecomposer
A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Oct 22, 2020 at 9:13am PDT
View this post on Instagram Working on some more weird music tonight. I’m trying a new thing where I just experiment and not focus on trying to write full tracks. That way I can try lots of different styles and instruments and it doesn’t matter if any of it sounds bad 🙂 That’s where the weird synth at the start came from. It’s a sample of my voice that I’ve called “hmm-nah”. I ran it through Iris 2 and added some distortion and reverb. The other synth that comes in later is from a vst called Stranger Synths (which I can’t find anywhere now btw so I should definitely back it up). Chords are just a simple Cm to G. More experimenting to come! - #reaperdaw #vgm #gamemusic #vgm #synth #iris2 #izotope #composer #strangersynths #vst #newmusic #reaper A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 11, 2020 at 1:07pm PDT
Working on some more weird music tonight. I’m trying a new thing where I just experiment and not focus on trying to write full tracks. That way I can try lots of different styles and instruments and it doesn’t matter if any of it sounds bad 🙂 That’s where the weird synth at the start came from. It’s a sample of my voice that I’ve called “hmm-nah”. I ran it through Iris 2 and added some distortion and reverb. The other synth that comes in later is from a vst called Stranger Synths (which I can’t find anywhere now btw so I should definitely back it up). Chords are just a simple Cm to G. More experimenting to come! - #reaperdaw #vgm #gamemusic #vgm #synth #iris2 #izotope #composer #strangersynths #vst #newmusic #reaper
A post shared by Will Helliwell (composer) (@willhelliwell) on Sep 11, 2020 at 1:07pm PDT