Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Nighttime Reflections evokes the moody introspection of being stuck indoors, with miserable weather outside. Inspiration for this track was most definitely being locked in my house the last few days because Seattle has turned into an ice rink.
Although not part of the Synthesphere album, this generative ambient track also showcases a classic synth - the most excellent Yamaha DX7. I use it for the lead e-piano sound as well as the mallet and pad sounds.
Process Notes:
I started with the Rain Maker to generate a rain layer, then I created a generative layer of street noise from foley samples from around the world. I explored different chords with Scaler 2 and landed on G dorian 9 (i-v-III-IV) as that gave me plenty of variation with the arpeggios and ostinatos. I next arpeggiated the DV7 mallet as a supporting layer to the DX7 e-piano ostinato as the main lead element. Filling out the soundscape, I added a supporting pad layer but still felt like there was something missing, so I added in an intermittent slow attack strings layer to finish.
Thanks to Bitwig's easy modulation, I added in a lot of movement by modulating filter cutoffs, volume, panning, dry/wet and countless other parameters. Bitwig makes this so easy to do, it's now part of my workflow as I add tracks, and then a second pass for "what can I make more interesting by modulating it?" during the mixing stage - and it gives a much cleaner effect than adding another plugin to the chain!
I created the cover image on my iPad with Affinity Photo 2, and then used that as the basis for the video clip in DaVinci Resolve for iPad, where I animated the storm in the color page with fast noise. The export from DaVinci Resolve for iPad had some issues, so I finished the project in the desktop version - where I also added the layer of rain over the cityscape.
Music created in Bitwig Studio, using:
- Arturia's DX7 V, Efx Fragments
- Arturia's Delay TAPE-201, Delay ETERNITY, Rev INTENSITY, Comp TUBE-STA
- Arturia's Tape MELLO-FI, Comp VCA-65, Filter MINI
- Output's Exhale, Analog Strings
- Native Instruments' Komplete Kontrol, Solid Bus Comp
- Quiet Music's Rain Maker
- Plugin Boutique's Scaler 2
- TBProAudio's dpMeter 5
- Valhalla's Vintage Verb
- Soundtheory's Gulfoss
- iZotope's Ozone 10, Tonal Balance Control
- Fabfilter's Pro-L 2
Video created with:
- DaVinci Resolve 18.1 and DaVinci Resolve for iPad
- Affinity Photo 2 for the Artifonica device/logo and other photo touching up
- Magic Animate, by @MrAlexTech
Keywords:
Music for meditation, chill, chillout, relax, relaxing, relaxation, unwind, sleep, dreams, dreaming, space, soundscape, science fiction, sci-fi, RPG, background, mood, moody, peace, peaceful, ambience, Synthwave, 80s, cityscape, city, isolated, rain, winter
Nighttime Reflections evokes the moody introspection of being stuck indoors, with miserable weather outside. Inspiration for this track was most definitely being locked in my house the last few days because Seattle has turned into an ice rink.
Although not part of the Synthesphere album, this generative ambient track also showcases a classic synth - the most excellent Yamaha DX7. I use it for the lead e-piano sound as well as the mallet and pad sounds.
Process Notes:
I started with the Rain Maker to generate a rain layer, then I created a generative layer of street noise from foley samples from around the world. I explored different chords with Scaler 2 and landed on G dorian 9 (i-v-III-IV) as that gave me plenty of variation with the arpeggios and ostinatos. I next arpeggiated the DV7 mallet as a supporting layer to the DX7 e-piano ostinato as the main lead element. Filling out the soundscape, I added a supporting pad layer but still felt like there was something missing, so I added in an intermittent slow attack strings layer to finish.
Thanks to Bitwig's easy modulation, I added in a lot of movement by modulating filter cutoffs, volume, panning, dry/wet and countless other parameters. Bitwig makes this so easy to do, it's now part of my workflow as I add tracks, and then a second pass for "what can I make more interesting by modulating it?" during the mixing stage - and it gives a much cleaner effect than adding another plugin to the chain!
I created the cover image on my iPad with Affinity Photo 2, and then used that as the basis for the video clip in DaVinci Resolve for iPad, where I animated the storm in the color page with fast noise. The export from DaVinci Resolve for iPad had some issues, so I finished the project in the desktop version - where I also added the layer of rain over the cityscape.
Music created in Bitwig Studio, using:
- Arturia's DX7 V, Efx Fragments
- Arturia's Delay TAPE-201, Delay ETERNITY, Rev INTENSITY, Comp TUBE-STA
- Arturia's Tape MELLO-FI, Comp VCA-65, Filter MINI
- Output's Exhale, Analog Strings
- Native Instruments' Komplete Kontrol, Solid Bus Comp
- Quiet Music's Rain Maker
- Plugin Boutique's Scaler 2
- TBProAudio's dpMeter 5
- Valhalla's Vintage Verb
- Soundtheory's Gulfoss
- iZotope's Ozone 10, Tonal Balance Control
- Fabfilter's Pro-L 2
Video created with:
- DaVinci Resolve 18.1 and DaVinci Resolve for iPad
- Affinity Photo 2 for the Artifonica device/logo and other photo touching up
- Magic Animate, by @MrAlexTech
Keywords:
Music for meditation, chill, chillout, relax, relaxing, relaxation, unwind, sleep, dreams, dreaming, space, soundscape, science fiction, sci-fi, RPG, background, mood, moody, peace, peaceful, ambience, Synthwave, 80s, cityscape, city, isolated, rain, winter
