# Golden Lake (Jeremy Soule/Skyrim inspired track)



## Dan Drebing (Jan 28, 2019)

Hi all,

I just wrapped up a track heavily inspired by Jeremy Soule's Skyrim soundtrack, which has some of my favorite bits of writing and production. I particularly tried to nail the quiet, expansive feel of his work by experimenting with dense string harmony and endlessly tweaking reverbs. It's mostly Spitfire libraries with some Hollywood Brass/Percussion/Harp and Omnisphere. I hope you all like it!


----------



## SimonCharlesHanna (Jan 28, 2019)

very nice.

are you tell me a bit about the motifs and how they influenced each section?


----------



## Dan Drebing (Jan 29, 2019)

So an important part of the "blueprints" for this piece is that I wanted to move between at least three musical ideas, each with very different textures. This is because I think Jeremy Soule does this very successfully on the Skyrim soundtrack and I wanted to learn how. Here's a good example:  . The reason for this is that this is designed to be game music, where we _might_ not sit with a single musical idea and develop it for quite as long as we would when writing for listening. I wanted to practice/learn dense string harmonies, so I chose that for a portion, I wanted to try a little more "sound designy" section so that's where the bell like section comes from, and I wanted to write a solo horn line so I could try to write an evocative line and work on my solo horn reverb settings.

The string section at the start was the first thing I wrote, the writing of which was entirely motivated by trying to emulate the harmonies, melodies and production of similar parts on the Skyrim soundtrack ( like the beginning of the track I pasted). I love how the strings sound soft and peaceful and far off, so that's what I assumed for in the melody and harmony. A simple melody with some "rubbing"/dissonance in the harmonies.

The second bit needed to have a distinct idea and sound, so I went with a percussive instrument to contrast with the strings. This part came together really quickly, I don't really remember writing it aside from experimenting with different instruments. I wanted the melody to be relaxing and peaceful.

The horn solo needed to sound majestic/regal, and I spent a long time on it. It also needed to sound good/ polished so I spent a long time on reverb settings (true of the whole piece too). When the trumpet takes over, I decided to try to write the horn a counter line instead of just holding block chords because that's what I usually do and I wanted to push for some extra detail.

Then the ending comes and we end with a recapitulaton of the first string idea.

The reason I'm so fixated on the Skyrim soundtrack, and have been for years, is that a lot of my music comes from a place of wanting to capture the feeling being out in nature and I find that the soundtrack describes the feeling really wells. I've been constantly pushing to reverse engineer how it works.

Thanks for listening!!!


----------



## rlundv (Feb 20, 2019)

Dan Drebing said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I just wrapped up a track heavily inspired by Jeremy Soule's Skyrim soundtrack, which has some of my favorite bits of writing and production. I particularly tried to nail the quiet, expansive feel of his work by experimenting with dense string harmony and endlessly tweaking reverbs. It's mostly Spitfire libraries with some Hollywood Brass/Percussion/Harp and Omnisphere. I hope you all like it!



Simply wonderful! Really enjoyed your in-depth explanation of the themes and thoughts behind the composition. Care to tell more about how you worked the reverb also?


----------



## Illico (Feb 21, 2019)

OK, there were good stuff, good harmonies and good VI, but sorry, after listening it, I have no motif in my head nothing that catch me. With the Tundra, chorals create that motif I think. But I admit that for a long game track, the time line are more elongated so motif could be more subtil.


----------



## Dan Drebing (Mar 6, 2019)

beyd770 said:


> Simply wonderful! Really enjoyed your in-depth explanation of the themes and thoughts behind the composition. Care to tell more about how you worked the reverb also?



Sorry to take so long to respond, I didn't realize that anyone had responded. There's a couple instances of Pro-R and RC 48 (and probably some Spaces) on here for the main reverb sounds, but also Eventide Blackhole for only a couple sounds to create the really long tails. I probably had ~8 reverb returns, all with slightly different styles and treatments and I just slowly found a mix that seemed to work okay. I mixed and matched reverbs within instrument families, but instruments further back got more verb and solo instruments mostly got their own treatment.

French horn reverb still eludes me, I was thinking of demoing Spaces II to see if the additional instrument location specific IRs helped. I think there might just be some ER info baked into my samples that I doesn't work well with the perspective I want on the horns.




Illico said:


> OK, there were good stuff, good harmonies and good VI, but sorry, after listening it, I have no motif in my head nothing that catch me. With the Tundra, chorals create that motif I think. But I admit that for a long game track, the time line are more elongated so motif could be more subtil.



I agree that Tundra's motif is a lot stronger. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how he gets a motif to stick in your head while also having really different B and C sections, I guess it's just really good motif writing. He's somehow able to make each section really stand on its own and have a fully-formed musical idea and texture, but they always go together too. I don't really know how he does it.

I guess maybe it's easier to make your motif memorable when you start off with it playing 4 times ha.


----------



## rlundv (Mar 6, 2019)

Dan Drebing said:


> Sorry to take so long to respond, I didn't realize that anyone had responded. There's a couple instances of Pro-R and RC 48 (and probably some Spaces) on here for the main reverb sounds, but also Eventide Blackhole for only a couple sounds to create the really long tails. I probably had ~8 reverb returns, all with slightly different styles and treatments and I just slowly found a mix that seemed to work okay. I mixed and matched reverbs within instrument families, but instruments further back got more verb and solo instruments mostly got their own treatment.
> 
> French horn reverb still eludes me, I was thinking of demoing Spaces II to see if the additional instrument location specific IRs helped. I think there might just be some ER info baked into my samples that I doesn't work well with the perspective I want on the horns.



Thank you so much for taking your time to answer. Hope you will make more of these!


----------



## MartinH. (Mar 7, 2019)

I love it and I think you've nailed the vibe of the original pretty well. The ambient tracks from the Skyrim soundtrack are something that I've listened to quite frequently recently. 



Dan Drebing said:


> French horn reverb still eludes me, I was thinking of demoing Spaces II to see if the additional instrument location specific IRs helped. I think there might just be some ER info baked into my samples that I doesn't work well with the perspective I want on the horns.



When it's being sold again you could try this: 
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/majestic-horn.75632/




Dan Drebing said:


> There's a couple instances of Pro-R and RC 48 (and probably some Spaces) on here for the main reverb sounds, but also Eventide Blackhole for only a couple sounds to create the really long tails.



I mainly use rc 48, but mostly because I don't have many other reverbs. Comparing it to the others you've used, where do you think it's lacking the most?




beyd770 said:


> Hope you will make more of these!


+1

And if I ever try my hand on something like this I'll tag you guys and look forward to your feedback.


----------



## Dan Drebing (Mar 7, 2019)

beyd770 said:


> Thank you so much for taking your time to answer. Hope you will make more of these!


I will, I can't stop!



MartinH. said:


> I love it and I think you've nailed the vibe of the original pretty well. The ambient tracks from the Skyrim soundtrack are something that I've listened to quite frequently recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks Martin! That French horn looks interesting, I was also thinking of going the sample modeling route to have total control.

RC48 only lacks the control features of a more modern algo reverb like Pro R. People are still making and selling Lexicon plugins so obviously the sound isn't dated or anything, it's just different (the accuracy of specific plugins is up for debate, as always). In fact I've read in multiple places Jeremy Soule say that he uses Lex reverbs, that's why I decided to use RC 48 on this track


----------



## CT (Mar 7, 2019)

The Soule reverb sound is part Altiverb, part Lexicon, yep!


----------

