Velocity 128 Perspective on Odd Treks
This project was inspired by an episode of "Toys That Made Us" on Netflix about the Star Trek line of toys. They mentioned how "Star Trek the Motion Picture" was a dud for kids and grown-ups when it was released. So I imagined a more dynamic film score using arps, strings, and piano sounds from Native Instruments and Ableton VSTs. Eric (aka, Iterations) programmed the 808 and 707 dance beats using the TR8S drum machine and added a Roland D-05 pad. The pad sounds like a dance remix of a cinematic score from the 1980s to 90s if you happened to walk through Tysons Corner Galleria somewhere between Rainforest Cafe and Nordstrom's. Haha. I added the lounge piano solo on top of all that.
The pic and video are taken from my GoPro footage during my cross-country road trip. This stretch was from driving to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. It turned into an unplanned hiking trip around Devil's Tower in the snow.
For this one, I used quite a bit of Native Instruments synths and effects, Ableton devices, and mixing tools like iZotope Neutron to go along with Eric's TR8S drum machine and Roland D-05 Boutique synth module. A hybrid of hardware and software instruments tends to complement our sound. Neutron has saved a lot of time by automating a lot of EQ and compressor settings as a starting point for the mixing process.
We jammed on the initial synth loops and beats for a long time in practice and live onstage. For the studio recording, we had to focus on fewer elements for a final version. Streamlining individual parts made them more cohesive in the end. Otherwise, my galleria piano part could've gone on forever. Haha!
The YouTube synth community has been a regular part of our music production journey as Velocity 128. It's fun to geek out on different synths and other gear of the moment. It's great to see how others use the gear you already have or considering to buy. Sonic State, Andrew Huang, Bo Beats, Audio Pilz' Bad Gear series, and many others do a great job of demonstrating gear and being informative in personable ways.