Reader Steven Morris shared his latest video with us, a ‘video song’ style cover of Buried in Snow, from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack, by Nobuo Uematsu.

Morris had this to say about the performance:

I have been working on creating various patches and sounds with my Eurorack Modular Synthesizer and have used this most recent song as a vehicle to test some of them out.

In particular, I wanted to create an orchestra-like bowed string section. I recorded around 50 different takes of the various bowed string parts and layered them atop each other similar to how Isao Tomita’s method as he explained in his Sound Creature LP. Instead of recording one oscillator at a time, however, I opted to record three at a time in unison going through a couple of filters and a Deopfer 2048 stage BBD set to various times to create a hollow bodied string instrument-like resonance.

Technical Details:

Instruments/Sounds:

Eurorack Modular Synthesizer
DSI MoPho
Korg MS2000B
Rhodes Electric Piano
Fender Stratocaster
DIY Fretless Jazz Bass
Aulos Alto Recorder
Sleigh Bells
Tamborine (Inspired by Banjo Guy Ollie’s RATM cover)
Weight & Hammer
Triangle
Breath (inspired by Ace Waters’s FFVI Narshe cover)
Roland JV-880 (Pizzicato sounds)

Modular Synthesizer Patches of Interest:

– Tomita’s Whistle
– Modular “Choir”
– “Shattering Ice”
– “Arctic Wind” (Not Pictured; various noise with automated, randomized filter sweeps)
– “Noise Sequence”
– Violins, Violas, Cellos, Double Basses (recorded 22 violin/viola parts, 14 Cello parts, and 10 Double Bass parts; violin/viola parts were duplicated via copy & paste for a total of 44). The parts were run through analog delay and spring reverb, which adds saturation to the sound creating natural sounding noise akin to bows/resin at the height of the envelopes.

Rack Effects:

Ibanez AD202 Analog Delay (used as chorus)
Vesta Kozo DIG-410 Digital Delay
Vesta Kozo RV-3 Spring Reverb
Lexicon MX400

Guitar Pedals:

Boss FV-50
MXR distortion+
Ken Multi MCH-SS Analog Chorus
Boss DD-6 Digital Delay