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Carátula por Adrian "gravitygauntlet" Wahrer wahrer Bandcamp wahrer SoundCloud Spotify Spotify gravitygauntlet Twitter adrianwahrer.com Other.
Lanzado el 16/9/2023.
Duración: 4:24.

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Letra:

(.... . .... . / .... --- -- . ... - ..- -.-. -.-) (HEHE HOMESTUCK)

Comentario del artista:

Adrian "gravitygauntlet" Wahrer:

Based on a graphic from Act 6 Intermission 2. The project file is modular such that the Green Sun can get smaller and Skaia can get bigger as the meteor gets farther assuming there are "Year 2" / "Year 3" mixes on future releases.

Jebb:

Hoo boy, this one!

I had always had the idea of making some sort of "epic trailer music" kinda track, but every one of my attempts never passed the sketch phase. When I joined the LOFAM 5A2 team, I felt like it would be the perfect time to finally try and make that sort of thing, however when I actually tried to make it, nothing really stuck.

Around that time, I went to see a live Hans Zimmer concert that was touring. I already like movie soundtracks, however, seeing them performed live was an entirely different feeling. It was so grand, so important, so majestic. In short, I adored it. And moreso, it was the final push that I needed. During an intermission, I came up with something and quickly recorded myself humming it, and that recording was the thing that finally gave me the inspiration to make this track.

Flight of the Meteor is supposed to be a series of tracks about the 3-year journey of the Meteor crew and the events that happened during it. The image that came up in my mind every time I brainstormed about "The Epic LOFAM Track™" was always the trolls' meteor, and frankly, I am not even too sure why. Possibly because at the time I thought that it was one of the only major events in Homestuck that didn't really have music associated with it (But then I remembered Gold Pilot and the Cascade flash so yeah lol). Still, I really liked the idea, and the concept stuck.

Now, hold on, a series of tracks? What do you mean, Jebb? Well, if you are reading this commentary in the future, then you probably know. If you aren't, well, you probably already figured it out. But still, a bit of an explanation.

At first, this was supposed to be one single very long track. As I was making it, I very quickly reached 4 minutes in length, which was already a lot for my standards. However, the parts that I had finished were only supposed to be the middle, so that would mean that I would be going into the 7-8 minute territory. I wasn't really bothered by that, but by that point I was already getting pretty tired and the deadlines were creeping up, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it. On top of that, I had another WIP of an alternate version of this track which I had started earlier and slowly chipped away at in between the other LOFAM tracks since both others and I believed that it had potential. At that point I determined that all of this was a bit too much for me and decided to make the latter part of Flight of the Meteor its own track and save both it and the WIP for a later LOFAM.

It was at that moment that Makin said "thematically it needs to take three years to finish", which gave me a fantastic idea. Of course! I just make each track a different year of the journey! I mean, it was already like that, but I just somehow never thought to name them by their years.

Now, enough backstory, time to talk about the piece itself.

This track, Year 1, is focused on the beginning of the journey, mainly the actual launch of the asteroid. The beginning shows us the Meteor, serenely flying through the open space. Starting from approximately the middle, we flashback to the events of Cascade, and as the threats of a dying universe and Jack Noir loom, Sollux charges up (3:15) and, with the volume peaking, launches the Meteor with all of his power. The tension dies down and a melancholic yet triumphant piano plays to show that the danger has passed, and a new chapter of the trolls and kids' lives is beginning. Essentially, this could very well be an alternate track for Cascade's meteor launch part.

The morse code you hear after the peak is supposed to be Serenity, however I didn't really have anything deep or impactful for her to say, so I just had her beep out "hehe Homestuck"

On the more technical side of things, my computer absolutely HATED this track.

My pc was chugging HARD when I was working on this. (Funnily enough, I am pretty sure that the biggest issue was all the automation.) If not for Grace teaching me about the "switch smart disable for all plugins" option in FL I would have really struggled.

Speaking of struggle. God, I absolutely DESPISE BBC Studio Orchestra. Their instruments sound so good, but it just absolutely *refuses* to function. Every single time I reopened the project file, almost every single instance of it broke and I had to spend like 4 straight minutes relaunching every single one until they all worked properly again. I tried to google fixes for it, redownloading it, and all for nothing. I swear, after this I am switching to Kontakt, this was absolutely unbearable. Would not recommend.

(Update: I updated my FL copy to 21 and now it functions completely fine, so we're friends now! Still, the pain it wrought is scarred deeply into my heart.)

Overall, FoTM:Y1 is almost definitely the most ambitious track I have attempted to date. Personally, the mixing is a bit off in some parts and the middle part is kinda repetitive, however, it's all just nitpicks that I often like to give myself. I really am very proud of this track, and I hope that the future entries in this little trilogy can live up to the hype of this one.

See you in Year 2!

Jebb: (LOFAM5A2 Discord liveblog commentary)

...
What?
You want MORE commentary on this one?
WERE THE ONE THOUSAND WORDS WRITTEN NOT ENOUGH?

But yeah, my first track across this entire set of albums! Kinda wild liveblogging my own music
Orchestral epic Hans Zimmer interstellar yada yada track
Honestly, i feel like i handled this surprisingly well
I kinda lied in the og commentary (but that's because i forgot), my first foray into orchestral music was technically the trailer theme for Aleph Null
But this was handled LEAGUES better i feel
The bass works really well, not too much, not too little of it
Maybe sliiightly too much? Not sure
Also i feel like the sections between the horn hits sorta lack the urgency needed
I tried to resolve that via numerous solutions but i feel like the end result is still not quite perfect
But man, the initial koto melody from the beginning returning for the more actiony "charging" section... Very good choice
Overall still pretty proud of this
Well, "still", this was made a few months ago and not like 2 years or something lmao
Also the koto part at the beginning teasing the ending piano section was another nice decision

Btw, fun fact, i used 2 different piano vsts for the ending part
The lowest note wasn't the labs grand piano
I don't really remember why i did that? I think it was because the labs piano couldn't reach that low but surely not, that's not even that low of a note
That's also why the lowest note sounds more impactful and different from the rest, because it actually is

I enjoyed working on the sound design in this track
The charge and release section has like, 5 different explosion sfx layered i think?
Or maybe that was another thing i did. Or maybe it was both.
Post-explosion was supposed to be static and serenity like, trying to reach us through it, to give us some important message (which i couldn't really come up with so i just wrote "HEHE HOMESTUCK" lmao)

Also, i am kinda surprised that i didn't add any references here
I may have intended to but i just couldn't jam any in so it ended up not having any
Though don't worry, i'll make up for that with FotM:Y2

But yeah, overall? Nice track. I had a lot of trouble with this one but it definitely paid off
Surprised it was placed so early in the album too, feels like it would be something to be saved for a later point
At least after Eternal Pulse

Oh btw i wanna thank Adrian for making the track cover
Looks super good
Really fits the vibe