Epic Sci Fi Intro

Hey guys! Today Espen is doing a little Sci Fi intro.

How I paint a sci-fi landscape

The video above is Espen’s. Here’s how I go about the same thing in my own music.

When I write anything spacey or hybrid, I try to picture a landscape first and then paint it with sound. Three things do most of the work for me: synth washes, booms and risers.

Synth washes set the scene. What makes a good one is a slow attack, a slow decay and plenty of reverb. You don’t need much. A single held note, then the same note an octave away, can paint a whole soundscape. Pads with lots of movement and texture are great for this, because that movement is hard to get with automation alone. I often use synths more like samplers, choosing patches for their effects and space.

Booms give you scale. I think about what the sound looks like. A deep sub boom could be a giant walking in the distance, or a huge spaceship docking. Distance is mostly sub, around 20 to 50 Hz, with very little high end. As something gets closer you hear more detail higher up the spectrum. So if you layer from a distant rumble up to a closer, brighter hit, it feels like something enormous is coming towards you.

Risers build the tension into a hit or a new section. The simplest is a white noise sweep. Draw in a few bars of white noise, then automate the high cut on an EQ to open it up, with the low cut following behind so it doesn’t get too harsh at the end. Be careful with these, because they’ve been used so much they can sound cheesy. For something more tonal, put an octave pitch bend on a plain sine tone.

For more on this, Risers: The Easiest Way to Create Tension in Your Music has seven ways to make your own, Espen’s Stutter Risers video adds stutters to them, and Action Sound Design 2 Electric Boogaloo has more of Espen’s sound design tips. My Hybrid Trailer Music course covers synth washes, booms, rumbles and risers in full.

Happy composing!Rich