ALIEN SOUND TRACKS
Aug 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By Randy Alberts
Think back to the first time you ever heard an electronic music tune that really moved you. Chances are it wasn't the melody that grabbed your gut as much as it was the sound of that record. Because Western music's 12-note chromatic scale is inherently limited to a certain number of note combinations that are pleasing to the ear, musicians have turned more and more to sound design as a means of creative expression. Although coming up with a killer bass line, cool chord progression, or stunning melody is still a crucial skill, it's also important to know how to create the sounds that can drive a floor full of dancers wild or make them weep, if that's your intention.
Willie Wilcox, senior music composer and sound designer for the Sci-Fi Channel and USA Network, personifies this approach. “Sound design is creating original content through sound manipulation,” says Wilcox. “One of the best ways to make a remix your own is to take someone else's sounds and material and reinvent it yourself. You can keep some recognizable elements as a reference, but when you build new sounds around those elements, you give that remix its own identity. The basic structure of composition has evolved from writing songs in a traditional, linear manner to creating music with loops, textures, and sound paintings.”
Wilcox may not be as familiar a name to Remix readers as, say, Paul Oakenfold or John Digweed, and even though his primary concern is creating sounds to accompany futuristic images, his advice is as relevant to trance or techno producers as it is to Foley and SFX specialists. Indeed, many dance tracks incorporate aural elements such as sweeping washes of static noise, laser blips, and thunderous drums that would sound right at home on a sci-fi soundtrack. A talented drummer, remixer, and producer of all things audio, Wilcox has worked as a staff writer for five major music publishers and played on, composed for, or produced 20 albums for the likes of Transvision Vamp, Stacey Q, Meatloaf, Hall and Oates, and Todd Rundgren. For 17 years, Wilcox was also Rundgren's visionary bandmate in Utopia one of the most technologically advanced and visually oriented rock fusion bands of the '70s and '80s.
“I'm doing a Sci-Fi remix right now that's heavy on sound design but also has to have a song structure to fit the picture,” says Wilcox, referring to a pilot he's retooling for the Sci-Fi Channel's series Exposure. “When I approach a remix, it's really more about having a great perspective than the process of actually recording an idea. It's about that P.O.V. persistence of vision,” he adds, alluding to Utopia's P.O.V. album. Called “E-Lectricity,” the original Exposure video highlights the work of independent film producers and directors. The show's producers loved the video but wanted a remixed version of the music a combination of tripped-out effects along with a song to complement the industrial cityscape depicted in the stark footage of the short pilot.
Wilcox's USA Network gig keeps him creatively stimulated and constantly on the go, as he splits his time among the USA studios in New York, the new Sci-Fi Labs in Los Angeles, and his own well-stocked home studio in the New Jersey countryside. Using the Sci-Fi pilot remix as a starting point for our conversation, I talked with Wilcox about his new P.O.V. and the audio tools he uses to manifest it.
WILCOX'S SOUND-DESIGN WORKSHOP
The centerpieces of Wilcox's studio are a pair of matching Apple G4s with Digidesign's Pro Tools 5.1 and NemeSys's GigaStudio, and a 500 MHz Pentium 4 machine running Sonic Foundry's Acid Pro 3.0. He uses an identical setup in the USA Network's L.A. and New York studios as well. His workspaces include just about every imaginable synth and piece of music software and hardware. Some of his favorite synths for sound design include the Access Virus B, Korg Triton, Korg MS2000R, Waldorf Q, and Propellerhead's Reason software. But don't worry if your studio isn't quite as impressive as Wilcox's the advice he's offering applies to just about any situation.
Wilcox shared five “sound paintings” with us to explain how he created the sounds he used in his remix of “E-Lectricity.” Each example includes detailed descriptions of how Wilcox selected and interacted with the tools on his sound workbench while creating the individual audio elements.
SOUND PAINTING NO. 1: MAXIMUM FLANGE ON INTRO
“I was given some basic sound design effects and computer-type sounds in a stereo file,” says Wilcox, simultaneously snapping the screen shots for this workshop. “The tracks had their own unique character that certainly fit the picture, but it all sounded flat and one-dimensional. By feeding the stereo track into Waves' MetaFlanger TDM plug-in, I started to add some movement, momentum, and life to this effects-intro part of the pilot. Using MetaFlanger made certain sounds within this stereo track start streaking or smearing across the stereo field, which added a lot more life to the part. I set the depth, rate, and delay time, and I started the modulation moving basically in time with the other tracks in the intro.”
SOUND PAINTING NO. 2: A TRILLING SAX
Wilcox achieved the added momentum he had visualized by using MetaFlanger rhythmically on the computer sound-effects part of the “E-Lectricity” intro. However, he also wanted to give the intro a separate atmosphere and vibe that would work to set up the next song while complementing the onscreen images. After spending hours auditioning sounds, he came up with a jazz saxophone loop playing a manic trill an atonal sound that initially started out as a REX file Wilcox received with Gallery Software's Alkali. A REX loop engine that syncs to Pro Tools' beat clock, Alkali can play REX files locked to the tempo setting in Pro Tools. Alkali then instantly imports the sounds digitally into the Pro Tools Edit window at a designated bar and beat location.
“That sound set up the climax of the intro section,” Wilcox continues. “It's just a guy playing an up-and-down line that I stuck into Wave Mechanics' Pitch Blender plug-in. I chose a preset patch called Soft Melody Dream and changed the sample's 120 bpm to match the 118.8 bpm of my song and to align the saxophone line with the rest of the track.
“Typically I'll look at the bpm and triggering of the effects that I'm putting into Pitch Blender, and the feedback level controls how many repeats I want to have. I wanted the effect to last longer so I could control how much of a tail I wanted to have on that particular sound-design intro where it goes into the song section.”
Wilcox loves what MetaFlanger did to the sample: “It gave the whole thing this tearing sound, a smearing of everything with these trippy-sounding horns that completely changes the atmosphere of the piece. Then I came up with a descending synth melody line using the Virus B to take me in to the beginning of the song. I also used a lot of electric piano loops in this section, and I played the bass part with my Triton's Rave preset.”
SOUND PAINTING NO. 3: THAT'S-A ONE BEEFY SNARE
Using Alkali again to locate, audition, and choose a sound, Wilcox found another REX file from the same collection and named it Beefy Snare in his main Pro Tools session window. Using a tight mono drum track loop, he first ran the sound through a Waves Renaissance EQ plug-in, then into Bomb Factory's 1176 Peak Limiter plug-in, and finally (as an audio experiment) into Line 6's Amp Farm.
“I found this jungle-style loop that worked great for one part of the song,” says Wilcox. “For a special effect, I used Amp Farm after the 1176 Peak Limiter, which is a fairly atypical approach. I ended up using the Amp Farm preset called 1965 Marshall JPM45 Head with the 4×10 Bassman cabinet setting, and that sound alone was already cranking it up pretty good as is. Within that '65 Marshall, I dialed up a preset called Drive and added even more distorted gain. I was riding the automated level of the Drive gain while the intro was proceeding toward the climax and into the song section, making the drum part become progressively more distorted. Then I hit Amp Farm's bypass right at that moment, creating a transition where it goes from totally distorted drums into a Pitch Blender preset called Rez Rhythm for a moment. I placed this filter on it to sweep out the drum part where most of the other sounds drop off.
“In hip-hop there's often a part in the drums where you'll typically have two beats left over a hole. Instead of doing a typical mute-dropout kind of remix thing there, I filled the hole with Pitch Blender using the Rez Rhythm preset set to 118 bpm to create this interesting sound.”
SOUND PAINTING NO. 4: A BEAUTIFULLY TORTURED VOCAL
Of the thousands of new sounds Wilcox has come up with since be coming USA Network's senior composer and sound designer in 1999, one of his favorites is an excruciatingly beautiful recording he created for Exposure. To alter a woman's voice during a bridge in the “E-Lectricity” song section, Wilcox made extensive use of the Waves UltraPitch plug-in interface, a mouse-dragging, visual pleasure to work with.
Enhancing UltraPitch's capabilities even more by tapping into the automation features built in to most TDM plug-ins, Wilcox recorded a dynamic ride on the plug-in's pitch, formant, and mode settings to evolve the effect over time, rendering the spoken words mostly unintelligible.
“I used UltraPitch for the first time in this way, and I liked it a lot,” he says. “I adjusted the pitch, formant, and mode parameters by using the automation features built into Pro Tools and most TDM plug-ins that support automation. I started changing the pitch and formant as the woman spoke. There's a keyboard on the right-hand side of the plug-in's interface, and you can choose whether it's Voice Stressed, Voice Opera, Steady Clear Tones, or another mode. The pitch and formant curves are both displayed in the window, and you can change them with a mouse in real time. While the woman was talking, I moved those two curves in time to the song tempo and recorded those moves in automation. I selected a minor-second interval as an offset, and I used the Voice Stressed mode. It's very interesting because it allowed me to create a unique effect that's similar to a vocoder, yet at the same time totally different.”
SOUND PAINTING NO. 5: A GOOD VIRUS IN YOUR PAD
In one section of the “E-Lectricity” video, the central woman figure suffers a temporary nervous breakdown. Wilcox thought that an eerie voice would work well for this point in the intro, namely the Wow preset on his Access Virus B synth module.
“I was hearing some really weird synth pads underneath the open beat of the Beefy Snare mono drum track I'd just created,” Wilcox recalls about this haunting section. “I sequenced the part and then went back afterward to ‘play’ the filter in rhythm with the whole song during playback to evolve things. I adjusted the filter in time with the song on the Virus B while recording the output as audio right into Pro Tools. I do this a lot when I'm playing a sound and the synth part sounds great but is too stagnant. I might use my ProControl console and just start riding the faders rhythmically to add life and movement to various parts of the mix by simply changing volumes around. That's always a nice thing to do in any mix, really. It's important to have not only interesting sounds and loops coming on and off but also more dynamics going on with the sound's timbres when you're trying to add movement and dimension to a remix.”
THE UTOPIAN REMIX P.O.V.
High technology and the idealism of a Huxley-like perfect world influenced Wilcox and his Utopia bandmates Rundgren, Roger Powell, and Kasim Sulton in their musical pursuits. Epic concerts with ahead-of-their-time computer visuals, exquisite album production, and custom-made instruments such as Wilcox's motorcycle-style electronic drum kit were just a few futuristic components of Utopia's unique mix of rock, visual elements, and synthesis back in the '70s and '80s and Wilcox's imagination has grown by leaps and bounds ever since.
“The hardest thing to come up with is a great idea,” says Wilcox, “to rise above simply playing the parts you come up with and recording and remixing within the framework of a song. The concept is the hardest, and the rest is easy because you're just filling in the blanks once the idea is in place. Anyone can do the latter, but not everyone can see a concept through to completion.”
Today Wilcox is far busier in the studio than ever. As the go-to music and audio expert for USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel, he has honed his chops in composition, recording, editing, sound designing, mixing, and remixing to a diamond-sharp edge.
“I have two challenges when it comes to sound design and remixing,” he says. “First, I have to make it sound good; then, I have to make it fit to the picture. I kept some of the guitar parts from the original song for ‘E-Lectricity,’ but some parts were so specific that they forced the remix into a certain genre, and I didn't want to do that. I used more of the ethereal guitar parts that could be more widely adapted than genre slotted. If you have a rhythmic part to remix with, by its nature it's going to be genre specific, so there's going to be a genre feel to it even when it's on its own and isolated from the rest of the mix. But pads can go across the board and not really precolor any new concept that I envision for a song's remix.”
Always eager to share tips on making tones and tunes, Wilcox added one last bit of advice: “In some cases you are dealing with artists who write great songs, and in others with artists who don't. I have to gather the elements that I think are the most memorable and for a moment put my songwriting hat on. That moment has nothing to do with remixing at all just with the content and the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the song. Once I discern those elements, I then start choosing and making decisions to figure out what is going to be the repeated chorus or which lines are the most melodically descriptive. For ‘E-Lectricity’ I ended up not using the lyrics in the verses at all because I'll probably be replacing those parts with a rapper over the tracks anyway. It's not a Madonna record or something that everyone's already heard, either, which actually gives me much more liberty to explore new ideas on the remix.”
Randy Alberts is a musician, engineer, and writer exploring music and recording technology in his Pacifica, California, studio. He extends extra gratitude and props to Wilcox, who at one point was creating screen shots for this story while battling the flu during a nonstop, 24-hour remix session.
Workbench Homework Assignment: Learning to Love Your Limiter
A limiter may not be the sexiest hunk of hardware or software on the planet when it comes to sound design, music, and remixing. But hang around Wilcox's home studio for a while, and your attitude about the lonely limiter may change. In addition to the Waves Renaissance EQ plug-in, Wilcox uses Bomb Factory's 1176 Peak Limiter on every drum track or sample he works with to make them not only bigger sounding but also easier to control in a final mix.
“The way you set things up with a limiter has everything to do with how much or little pumping you want the limiter to do,” says Wilcox. “The pumping effect that you get depends on where you set the attack and release times. You can make the drums have movement by using a limiter and setting up the attack and release times to complement the song's tempo. The amount of limiting can affect the motion of the drums, though very subtly. The action of the limiter itself, its sound, and what it's doing can be controlled rhythmically by adjusting the attack and release times. The attack and release times respond in direct relationship to what's getting limited at the plug-in's input and output, how it sounds, and how quickly it's responding. I essentially tune the pumping of the drums to the tempo of the song, which adds a certain subtle, breathing excitement to the drums.”
Wilcox also stresses the importance of where the limiter is placed in the signal chain: placing it in front of or behind an instrument produces drastically different results. He typically places Waves' Renaissance EQ first to get the drums' overall EQ set the way he likes it, and then he limits that result with the 1176 Peak Limiter plug-in.
“It's very important to use a limiter in your mixing,” he says, “or at the very least, in your mastering stage for the overall stereo mix. I like to use it more creatively on individual tracks as well as in the final mix, especially on individual drums and various other instruments.”
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