[Techno-Arabic]The Diamond Scimitar (.mp3)

[Harbinger]

The Diamond Scimitar

What started as UT99 background music became its own experiment in non-western scales. I wanted to use Gothic-rock chord progression and voice-leading (Metallica and NIN use goth alot), but the more i composed it, the more i got an Arabic feel from the music (altho it's not perfect Arabic because it doesn't employ real quarter-tones). A heavy emphasis on form (A-B-A verses), broad tonal spectrum, and stereoscopic movement demanded that the engineering of the song be perfect, so what you're hearing here is the fifth generation of reproduction. And after all that, i like what i've produced here...

I was reticent to put this song out because i can hear this as background music for a jihadist propoganda film. But, it is what it is, and hopefully they won't find it in this little corner of the internet.

BTW, the female voice is not anyone i know; it's just stock vocals. However, i had to loop part of her voice to carry it thru long phrases (which were bent with Gxx and refiltered with Zxx if the pitch took it out of its proper resonance). And if any of you have ever had to find just the right points in a complex sample for looping, you know how time-consuming it can be. This  waveform was especially difficult, but was made a little easier by one of MPT's hidden features -- when pressing the up or down arrow in the loop point start or end field, it jumps to the next X point that closely matches the Y value of the opposite field. Just set up a sample loop, then press the arrow keys of either the start or end values of the loop, and observe its behavior; instead of moving one sample at a time, it moves to the next or previous Y value that most closely equals the Y value of the opposite (start or end) loop point. That makes finding the wave cycle MUCH easier.

Now fielding criticisms and praise. I already know about the voice loop (it sucks) but i did the best i could with that sample. It may sound okay if you're not listening with hi-end equipment...

UPDATE: Track now available at TraxinSpace.com for registered users....