Chronophobia Remastered

Remember that orchestra piece I wrote back in 2018 for Halloween? Here it is again, but with much more polish. Instead of using Sibelius' built in instrument sounds (better than some, but not great...) I have utilized East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra and Choirs for a dramatic re-rendering of this exciting piece. Prepare yourself for 15 minutes of orchestral awesomeness. (without any of the midi cheese) Youtube video below.

I thought that re-rendering CHRONOPHOBIA using East West's fantastic sample libraries would be an extraordinary undertaking. And it would have been without the help of Jonathan Loving's Sibelius Sound Sets. (Check them out here.) With these sound sets, I was able to do most of the mixing and balancing of sounds within Sibelius rather than spending hours fighting with midi in a DAW. The amount of time saved is incalculable and worth every penny. If you use sample libraries in your musical renderings, go get yourself some sound sets now. It makes interfacing with Sibelius via your sample library programs very streamlined, and all your set up options are greatly customizable. 10 out of 10. That's not to say I ignored my DAW completely. I got everything as close as I could to being finished through Sibelius first, then exported each individual track as a .wav file for fine tuning in the DAW. I was quite happy to not be dealing with the midi player for once. What are some of the stand-out features of this remastered version of CHRONOPHOBIA? Well, for starters, we have samples recorded from actual instruments making up every sound that you hear. This allows for much more musical detail, specifically in the form of articulations. For example, sounds like ponticello, artificial harmonics, and glissandi are now possible to emulate in my recording, making for a much more realistic sounding string section. Secondly, bowed percussion is a thing now! Sibelius had no samples or easy way to imitate these distinctive sounds. East West's libraries had a plethora of bowed crotales and gongs. No bowed suspended cymbal though, so I had to work around that. I simply took a couple bowed gong sounds that I enjoyed and pitch shifted them up by a perfect 5th, giving them a lighter, higher sound. Lastly, the vocalists aren't just saying "ah" now. Utilizing the Word Builder function within Symphonic Choirs I was able to make my sopranos and altos use other vocalizations and even some actual words now and then, adding that much more realism to the sound.

The artwork for the original CHRONOPHOBIA ended up not being high enough resolution to distribute via Distrokid, so I started from scratch. With a bit of photo editing and some cool filters, I was able to come up with this disturbing, skeletal clock that appears to be eating some other clocks. It seems quite appropriate, given that the definition of CHRONOPHOBIA is the fear of running out of time. I'm very pleased with how this turned out. Photofilters.com is the editor I used in case you would like to experiment with it. It seems quite nice. I will definitely try it again on my next piece of art. Just for fun, here is the OG CHRONOPHOBIA artwork my brother Josh helped me create. Still pretty cool!

Thanks again for reading this and listening to my music! CHRONOPHOBIA is available on most major music platforms. The sheet music is also available on Sheet Music Plus. Here is a link to my sheet music shop if you are interested in supporting me by purchasing sheet music. All the links there will redirect you to Sheet Music Plus. There is quite a variety of different styles and instrumentations there, so you're bound to find something cool. Thanks again!