Well, it's after 2am, so what am I doing still here?
Can't get the damn tune out of my head, that's what
I've spent more time developing this (originally an entry to the KVR contest) - a lot more time actually, probably more than is healthy for me - maybe that's why it won't let go
Anyway, seeing as I'm still totally wide awake, here's a breakdown on what I did (if anyone is interested).
The percussion intro (which, with variations pretty much runs on through the whole tune) is from the toy instruments we are supposed to use. I used the following soundfont samples:
Magical Music Box
Cathedral Toy Organ
Cimealong
Just as the tune proper starts I use the kick drum from the P51f soundfont, this is timed to coincide with what sounds like someone
hitting a saucepan - that's because it's exactly what it is
In the middle quiet passages I introduce more P51f - I'm quite pleased with the way this turned out. I usually struggle with percussion.
The synth sounds are all ZynAddSubFX - bet that surprised you
The background pad is 'Smooth'
First phrase is 'Beyond' + 'Soft Voyager'
Next comes 'Overdrive', then 'Steel Wire'
The rich, rolling bass is from 'Ethereal'
The very last sound to come in, on the last phrase is 'Super Square'
Qsynth channels carrying all the percussion were passed through an instance of jamin, and Zyn. was passed through a separate instance. The two were then simply passed on to timemachine to record in one sweep.
Rosegarden was the sequencer.
Due to the truly random nature of the sound of 'Overdrive' it actually took me 7-8 tries to get exactly the right effect over the whole piece.
The very last step was to pass the recorded whole through Audacity where I shaved 2dB off the spikes with the fast lookahead limiter,
restored to 0db, then trimmed the start and end.
So here is the final result.
P.S.
Please ensure you have a good bass response to get the best from that 'Ethereal'. Quite high volume wouldn't go amiss either
