Soundcloud: Forest
YouTube: Forest


I don't think I've posted an instrumental on the Forum before, but back in the early 2000's, writing instrumentals was about 80% of what I did - mainly because I struggled to come up with anything lyrically of note.

'Forest' is a piece evoking the wonder and majesty of the forest and the life within it - almost sacred. I wrote it back in February 2001 using Band-in-a-Box when we only had MIDI. I had an attempt to record it in 2013, but let’s just say I was a bit ‘pitchy’. Recently, I was reminded again of the phenomenal story of 10CC recording ‘I’m not in love’ using tape loops of the band recording many tracks for each chromatic note and then using the mixing desk faders as an instrument to control one note per fader, as seen in this documentary. I then watched a video of someone recording a cover of that using a DAW and I thought ‘Why not?’

RECORDING INFORMATION
BIAB MIDI Instrument: Acoustic String Bass (33) played by VST3 Sforzando Acoustic Bass T
BIAB MIDI Instrument: Choir Aahs (53) replaced by my vocal tracks
BIAB MIDI Instrument: Pizzicato Strings (46) played by VST3 Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Celli Pizzicato and Harp Plucks (separate tracks)
BIAB MIDI Instrument: Standard Drum Kit (1) playing a repeating 1 bar pattern played by MT PowerDrumKit2 in Reaper
Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Tubular Bells
'Forest ambience' by AudioPapkin accessed from Pixabay.com
Vocals - 216 four-bar vocal takes - 18 x 12 chromatic tones

For a video description of my process, including a portion of the original MGU, I have compiled this short 4 minute video.

LYRICS
Ooo ...
Aah ...