The "surprise" part is the distortion wah-wah guitar used in an otherwise New Age -style song!
Recorded and mixed in Reaper; portion recorded was the wah guitar, which is me flailing clumsily on a Fender Squire II Strat through a Korg AX1G

My process was to take each track and export as .wav (File> Export Song As Wav)
Load these wavs into Reaper, record the wah wah guitar, and mix.





****** Song Summary *************
Title: Slow New Age with Rain & Thunder Loop
File:THUNDER
Key=B minor (file says C, but this ain't right), Tempo 109, Length (m:s)=1:54

This style (=THUNDER.STY) uses the new Loops feature in Band-in-a-Box 2012. The style consists of our previously released "CALLING.STY" MIDI, along with the Thunder_Storm_2 loop, which plays the sound of rain with occasional thunder claps.





Here are the tracks I ended using in Reaper: Warm Pads, Choir Aahs, Orchestral String Hits, Pizzicato Strings, Storm Loop, Trombone, HiQ Bass Acoustic Upright N (SampleTank), Hi-Q Koto (Sample Tank), String Ensemble, Chamber Strings, RealDrums: SmoothJazzCoolSw16 , and 2 tracks of the wah guitar.

https://soundcloud.com/eric-ryser/thunder

Thundering New Age Surprise

I think PG Music artists did a great job putting this style together, and was captivated by the melody sufficiently to want to leave it alone and let it do the talking. When listening to the tune after I felt like I was done with it, it occurred to me that many times, unfortunately, the sounds of thunder storms are accompanied by sirens, so that's what I'm now thinking the wah guitar may represent, if you like, even though I did not do that on purpose. The sound of sirens and the events they represent are of course unsettling and surprising (unless it's perhaps coming from the Isle of Anthemusa), not to mention the surprise of being attacked by distortion wah-wah git as you are minding your own business enjoying a relaxing little New Age tune... and thus the title. Enjoy!

That is an interesting listen, Eric. You have described it well.

Brought to mind something that Phillip Glass might have done...

Good use of real tracks and I think your mix was excellent.

This was a fun listen.

Hi Eric,

interesting listen.
I wonder what your nickname means?

Guenter

Thanks for the feedback, all!


Thanks, Floyd! I wouldn't have thought of that. It's been a LONG time, but I have enjoyed Phillip Glass albums (and of course, probably it hasn't really been all that long, since his music is in so many music and shows) so maybe some of his sensibilities rubbed off? Of course, it all sort of rubs off...hard to say...


Thanks, Charlie. Fun is good. I appreciate the comment about the real tracks, because I learned something: even if the picker says there's no match, go ahead and try it if you have a mind to. The one Real Track used on the tune was the Real Drums, which wasn't "matched", but I think it works nicely!


Hi, Guenter, thanks! My nickname was a spur-of-the-moment choice. It's an acronym for deaf in one ear can't hear out of the other. I'm probably "allowed" the "humor" since I was fit with my first hearing aids when I was just 5. It seems like if one tries to pronounce the nickname, something evocative of Japanese (Nihongo) might emerge.

Hi Eric,
Wow what a nickname! I enjoyed your song and I hope to hear more from you.
Sonny

Hi Eric,

This is very special and interesting music.
Nice mix and choice of RTs.
By the way, if you want to export the separate tracks, you can do it simply by using "Save all tracks as WAV file - choose (folder) - click "One WAV per track" and "Normalize", then click "DXi-Direct Render" and BiaB will do the work for you. You'll get the total mix as well as all the tracks seperately

Rob and Anne-Marie

Hello,

I like your music.
Good real tracks used and great wah

Sergio

Hi, Eric !


Really nice tune this one 1

Liked it very much 1

Cheers
Dani

Intriguing, and just as I was getting into it, it stopped, the song deserves to be longer IMHO.

You wrote That is something I totally agree with no RealTrack or RealDrum is out of bounds 3/4 and swing sometimes go well together in a 4/4 even song.

Great nickname

Alyn

Hi, SRP


There's more. I noticed after I coined it that embedded are Dio (Old Italian/Latin for God, deity, godlike, divine, bright, resplendent) echo (A reflected sound that is heard again by its initial observer) , and oto (anatomy: ear). So, a tad loftier interpretation of my nickname is available, if desired. For example "with the echo of divine sounds in our ears, we make music"... hear's hoping no one minds the pretension...


Thanks, chances are good!

Hi, Rob and Anne-Marie



Thanks, that's a great tip, I didn't know that! On this project, I used several different voices for a couple-few of the midi tracks, but it still would have saved a couple steps.



Thank you kindly for saying so!

Hi Sergio


I appreciate the feedback, thanks!

Hi, Dani



Thank so much...cheers!

Hi, Alyn


I'm beginning to agree, and am currently putting some thought into how best to extend it. I'll probably leave it pretty much just as it is, and then add a second part that carries forward some aspect/motif, yet is very different, in order to lengthen it.



Thanks! I'm looking at it in a new light

Very enjoyable listen well done

Eric, This was an interesting listen and yes a lot of real tracks work well together regardless of the style. Keep writing and posting. Tom

Cool music!! Sounds like soundtrack stuff to me-be great in a film. The guitar is really cool!! Take care. Greg

There was at least one suggestion to make the song longer, and so I did. The first part of the new version is simply the old version, nothing at all changed...I basically just "tacked" on a second movement.

The basic details of the first hold true, but I did a lot more playing with getting tracks out of BIAB, taking into Reaper, and getting jiggy with effects; plus, obviously, I added more of me noodlin' on guitars...I think it sounds pretty nice, actually... within certain limitations. It took me just a handful of hours to accomplish this. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/eric-ryser/thundering-new-age-surprise-finished

P.S. thanks for the continued nice remarks, I suppose it might be prudent at some point to hope people read this and know I mean it when I say I appreciate them VERY much, rather than to answer every single post unless something specific in the post calls for it.

P.P.S. Yeah, posted that last night all bleary-eared. This morning, I realize that new mix (the second part) is far from finished...it's crap...but at least the ideas are flowing...and the first part is fine, I'm perfectly satisfied with that...

Here's the finished extended track that I'm happy with. The other tracks have been deleted, apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.


New title ThunderDone has a nice ring to it. An additional Real Drum track was used, Rock Even 16 (I think...pretty sure...the uncertainty stems from not taking notes and having renamed the tracks for simplicity during the process of bringing into Reaper)