Breakdown of the sequencer part: • Equinoxe 4 - Half Spee...
VR 360 Stereoscopic 8k version: • EQUINOXE 4 - 2022 Danc...
A bit from my original unfinished cover version: www.thhe.dk/Equinoxe4_thhedk.mp3
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• Jean Michel Jarre
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• Piano
The story of this insane project:
For 4 years I have been working on and off, on a perfect cover version of Equinoxe 4.
Recreating all sounds and effect one to one. It was 98% finished but every time I got to the crazy EMS VCS 3 effects before the chorus, I realized I couldn't recreate them. I have a bad tinnitus and listening to these high pitch sounds left my ears bleeding (so it felt) so I stopped.
I started up again dozens of times with new ideas, only to realize again I couldn't.
Then two month ago, I was jamming in Reason Studio and tried an upbeat version of the song, I tried new modern sounds and drums, I tried 20 sounds for the sequencer but it didn't felt right.
Then I opened my unfinished Equinoxe 4 project and copied the "original" ARP2600 sequence I made into the dance version and changed the speed from 113.69 to 118 BMP - now THAT was cool!
Then I copied another sound, another effect and so on and ended up with 80% of the original cover in a new version :D
.....and then guess what, I got to the crazy effects and tried for two days again until my ears fell off!
But ended up doing my own version of the effects, but with some of the original timing.
Everything is made in ReasonStudios with the build in synths and some Arturia instruments.
- Sequencer is two ARP 2600, in left and right channel not always in sync, so I listened in slow motion for every pattern in each channel and changed it. They have strange cuts here and there but they are recreated too.
- All strings are Eminent 310U some with SmallStone phaser on.
- Bass is also ARP 2600 but with a deeper layered sound for more punch.
- The Organ sound in the middel is Eminent 310U and I layered it with my own SmallStone strings because I think it sounded good :)
- The strange robot sounds in the middel part is also made in ARP2600, I found out how it was done, but it's random sample and hold so I generated each section 10 times and used the one closest to the original.
- Most of the effect are made in Thor, a simple but powerful synth in Reason, some with SmallStone and flanger effect and the classic 347ms Left/Right delay.
- One effect is made in an RMI Harmonic Synthesizer clone
- The Opera voice in the end is also made in Thor. Fun fact: when it pitches up it goes slightly over one octave, I guess the old EMS Synthi was not so accurate - but I recreated that too of course :D
- Mellotron is used for the choir in the ending.
- Bass drum, HiHat's and tambourine are new sounds, Snare Drum and a strange bongo in the chorus are samples from EKO ComputeRhythm, I'm 100% sure now this was used!
- The new lead and chorus sounds I made with two Arturia Prophet 5's
The video, OMG! Maybe 8k 60 fps was a bit overkill, but in 15 years no one will laugh at the low resolution (...so we think today).
Years ago I made the Equinoxe Watcher in super high resolution in PhotoShop, then I tried putting them together like the original Michael Granger cover and it worked well.
The video is made with 10 PNG rows 8k wide so I could change them individually in Premiere Pro.
I have a really powerful computer and graphics card, but Premiere don't want to use it, so rendering took forever with CPU running at 15% and video card doing nothing. So I made it in blocks rendered at 8k60 ProRes (they are BIG).
The first block in the intro where the watchers are wiggling took 20 hours to render! So I dropped the wiggling on the other parts. The jumping was really hard for me to do but I think it went ok.
I made the "eyes" green so I could put different color underlayer effects on them via green screen, it worked perfect!
The keyboards are big PNG's from Arturia's great instruments and then I screen captured the keys playing, masking and layered them on top of the PNG.
The 3D text I made in Blender - I didn't know anything regarding 3D so I had to study that too, it went ok. It's just a single frame I slide and zoom in, because it took 1 hour to render in 8k! So a 2 second animation would take 5 days in 60 fps! :D
Well maybe nobody cares, but that's my story from this extremely time consuming project - I will never do it again! ..until next time :)
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0:00 - Intro
0:34 - Start
1:38 - Chorus
3:27 - Middel part
5:34 - Ending part
6:56 - Behind the scenes