Professor Hildr Raystrom welcomes me to her pitch dark arena. My eyes trace the dimly lit outline of her outstretched hand, up brace-wrapped arm, and to the huge thundercoil looming behind her. With a sudden snap of her fingers, blue and fuchsia lightning bolts scream out from the coil and into electrogenerators, previously cloaked in shadowed boltwalls.
Arena awakens with floodlight and plasma-charged air, revealing us standing on an indoor bitumen court. Yellow stripes paint its border and LED signage flashes in roadworks ecstasy: “CAUTION: HERALD, REIGN OF LIGHTNING”.
Prof Raystrom sparks forth her Prime Character to launch us into duel. Lightningrod Unicorn gallops out from hologram cloudcover, descends into a kick-landing, scorching bitumen around it. Piercing out from equine head, a golden trident.
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First of all, big shout out to Zion Jaymes for helping me realize what the missing ingredient was in my own synthesized drums – the air.
This Pokemon-gym-leader-style track was always going to be a remix of the Thunderbolt Lab theme, but I didn’t originally plan to make it slower than the original. Once I had heavier sounding drums, it became clear that I should take the track in a more hip-hop direction. We wanted to sound of power, not just energy.
I was also surprised how many layers of instrumentation I managed to pack into this. I pushed past the point where I usually would stop, as I am always concerned about overcrowding a track. Possibly I am getting better at instrumentation, but this one seems to still express a good groove even amongst the many layers.
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_software-used: Vitalium, Cardinal, AmiSampler, Ardour
_samples-used: MechSounds
_download: VSThunderboltProfessor.wav
_project: VSThunderboltProfessor-SOURCE.zip
_license: CC0 / Public Domain dedicated