Arcane Awakening: Behind The Scenes

My debut single, Arcane Awakening, is a dark and ominous song written in B minor with a focus on organic sounds and melodies. The genre subcategory it falls under is somewhere between brostep and psydub. It has a bit of a cinematic feel, which I think helps bring it to life. I thoroughly enjoy vocal elements, which is why there's a choir as well as a formant filter on one of the basses. The choir pairs well with the strings, brass, and keys that are the core of the melodic section and form the overall feel of the song. There are multiple wobble basses in the drops, some distorted, and a punchy psytrance bass. I particularly enjoy the swells and melodies during the second buildup.

This song was made using FL Studio which is the primary digital audio workstation (DAW) that I use. I wanted to make something intricate, and getting all the pieces to fit together was a challenge. I leaned heavily into the Kontakt, Serum, and Ozone plugins. This was my first time using Kontakt, and the orchestral libraries are truly something amazing. Having live recordings of keys, strings, brass, and choirs at my disposal truly feels like a gift. I get a lot of inspiration from Ganja White Night, so you may notice some style similarities.

Arcane Awakening is more than just a song, it's a story. Or at least it's part of a story. I made an animated music video for it in Blender which is a free and open source 3D computer graphics software tool set. There is a very steep learning curve, so I took a while building the lab and getting the hang of things. I made several of the assets myself, including the lab structure, but about half of the assets are from the blenderkit library. Basically all the textures were from the same library as well. Some of the assets, like the characters, were purchased. There are roughly 100 unique objects in the video, and it was rendered at 24 frames per second using EEVEE.

In the music video, a human wearing a plague mask enters a secret lab. This is Pandemica. He punches a code into a keypad on the wall, and a strange machine with two seats and an unconscious alien cyborg in one of them emerges from under the floor. This is Psidemica. Pandemica approaches the machine and sits down. When the machine activates, it scans and digitizes Pandemica's mind, killing him in the process. This digital mind is then duplicated, with one copy going to the cyborg body and the other copy integrating with the lab itself. Psidemica, now conscious, exits the lab via the elevator to begin his journey.

Listeners have said the following about this song:

• "The bass growl is so hard."
• "Yoo, this is really cool! Like your style!"
• "The beat and melody fit perfectly into this Dubstep track. An interesting development of the composition and a cool study of the author's ideas. It turned out unusual!"
• "Good intro, nice sound."
• "Nice sound, you have a great understanding in soundscaping."
• "Dope. Very dark, but very fun. Has a BTSM vibe to it."
• "Nice epic intro. Really nice growls!"
• "The orchestral and electro sounds were great."
• "Very original, I love the main bass sound and the panning is really well worked."
• "The beat is very good, I like its groove and the production quality of the track. A very good melody."
• "Brutal! I really love how you worked with the orchestra piece."
• "Loved the way you started the track with the piano and then switching it up to a dubstep drop. Good execution and definitely a style of dubstep I dont hear often. Keep doing your thing!"
• "That's a really good dubstep song bro, don't give up, you really have talent!"
• "Sweet idea and melody, love the dark tones."
• "The song sounds very old school. Mixdown is pretty good."
• "It has a very good intro. I must congratulate you on the break melodies, they sound amazing."

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