i liked mpe already after the album unborn, but man... after you joined, the band has been on a whole new level. thanks for these videos and keeping mpe alive!
Yes, that intro/orch. Is worth being proud_of. Sounds Epic. Agree, that tapping melody from episode666 always stayed with me too, very cool. Your comment on the MPE motif-piano line, right on!!
I never actually seen a person with chromesthesia, like seeing/imagining certain colours when hearing notes. That's a pretty cool ability to have really.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I am now able to appreciate your music and dedication to perfection. You desperately need to come to Kansas City, we are loving that Septicflesh comes here to the Riot Room, Amon Amarth tours and goes to the Granada in Lawrence, KS. We are FILLED with metal heads, you'd be surprised. Maybe, when this whole Covid19 shit finally ends, you might consider coming down. Peace out brother.
I learn so much through watching your videos and seeing how you approach and refine your compositions, that it makes the finished product sound EVEN better! I really enjoyed the song (THAT SOLO!!) when I first heard it, but NOW.... I LOVE IT!!
Wow, Andy. We need more musical composers like you. I like how you got some of your inspiration from In Flames. They are my other all time favorite band next to MPE.
Awesome breakdown of the song composition. I found your description and analysis of quad tracking rythm guitars versus just doing one on each side really compelling. Thanks!
My most anticipated album right now by far! Thank you so much for this video, it is really interesting to see you explain the creative process of the songs in depth... I really hope this will turn into a series just like you said at the end! By the way that blue/purple part right before the solo is amazing, pure headbang moment \m/ Cheers and much love...
oh man oh man .. . I've been obsessed with this song in specific and the masterpiece of the composition beyond words ... and here I am at 2am sitting with my guitar playing along to the original song when I desperately kept looking for the solo's tabs so i stop playing what i made up by ear haha or possibly run into some guitar backing track as a dream come true and I accidently came across this video ... this is literally like when you spent years worshipping nutella then you accidently come across the "behind the scenes" and get to see the bits and pieces of its making, taste the hazelnut alone, the chocolate part alone hahaha ... I swear getting to hear these different elements and orchestras and choirs and guitars and parts separately for this song went straight to the heart man! i'm in love with this song and i now got to hear a bit more close-up of it! really a big fan of your style and your songs and if you ever ever ever release tabs to the solo or a guitar backing track to this song ... by Thor and Odin please let us know! hahahaha keep it up man and sorry i expressed myself too much with this long comment, but the song just deserves it all!!!
Your intros are among the best , what kind of fool would skip them ? I always wish they could last longer. Very cool video, it is always nice to get a flavour of what is going on behind the creation of an album. Thanks a lot! 🤘
+1 on the intros, they always feel like epic movie soundtracks and they blend soo good into the metal riffs afterwards. This one here is really catchy and I love that it comes back in the last section of the song 🤘🏼
The explanation of the orchestration is brilliant, I love this stuff. It's inspiring, making me want to write better and practice more. Please keep doing these videos, they're awesome and I can't wait to buy the new album.
The first time listening the song, I was like, damn, why are they releasing an intro as a single? Then when the riff starts, I was like jumping with joy! This song is in my spotify playlist during work and on repeat. Can’t wait for the album release...you sure theres only one single atm? Hahahahah
You can learn more about production on these than in some online courses out there. It's great watching how easy you build your song structures. Thanks and keep uploading these! :)
Thank you, Mors Principium Est is allways an inspiration to me. Great music and this is a great video to show us how you work. Maybe i will make a song hehe. When i see ho much work you put into it alone its a big inspiration,,,,and the way you put it all together....great. I allways loock forward for an new album from you.....and i allways love it.....This new 2020 songs are great....waiting for the rest :-). You are my favoritt nr one band ....keep up the good work, and all the great thing you show us. Bigg thumbs up for you Andy and the band.
As a guitar player and huge fan of you as a player, I've always enjoyed your playthrough videos immensely, but this is even better! Looking forward to hearing what other crazy things you came up with in other songs on the album!
I really like this kind of content. Could you make more?? it would be interesting to talk about what kind of compressors, eq, reverb, etc you use. I'm learning a lot man, Thank you!!
Hey Andy, just discovered your band while ago and I am totally blown out - as expected. The thing I wasn´t expected is the thing I was able to find you on UA-cam with deconstruction vid like this! Amazing stuff, I am grateful I can see how you work with orchestration and VSTs- awesome inspiring work. Thank you, greetings from Czechia!
This is such an awesome video format. Very informative and inspirational for someone who tries to write songs himself. And really something you do not see too often on youtube. There is lots of mixing, composing not so much. It is very cool to get some insights into your methods and artistic choices.
The new song is absolutely killer! Love this series! Would love to see more about the sound Libs you´re using. Some tracks are named and some other you´re talking a bit, but some other not. Would love to hear more about that. P.S.: Nice to see that I´m not the only one in the world who prefers colorcoding per section. Haha!
I'm probably that one guy in a thousand never skipping intros. For me, an intro can make or break an album as it sets the tone and feel of what is to come. I have to shuffle most of my playlists "manually" because it is filled with "intro + song"-combinations. Some songs just don't sound as good without the intro and this is one of them! Can't wait for the full album release! Hope to see you in Belgium in April next year. Btw, that riff is a masterpiece!
That 40 sec intro is my favourite piece of music of the year. Reminds me so much of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. By all means, do release it as a bonus track or something...! Cheers for the insight and breakdown of the creative process!
Great job Andy, I wrote a couple of questions, regarding this composition to ask which sounded great, and i was courious for the technical solution. You answered all of it here. Great stuff, looking forward to see more of these!
Cool video. I watched this video first then I listened to the song. My brain was picking out all the parts you were discussing. It was like I was listening to the song through someone else's ears; don't know how else to describe it. Oh yeah and seeing music in colors. If I put on some headphones, lay back on a couch or recliner, relax and close my eyes I see music in colors too. I also see music in waves but I don't know how to describe that process in words............
Thanks for the tour master ... Just waiting to get the album... I understand perfectly how it is to get part by part together and get an entire song... And the entire band work as team that's great Take care dude. 🤘🤘🤘
That was awesome! You really should make more of these vids, it's super interesting to see behind the scenes stuff with regards to actual composition. It's not something you see often, sadly.
Hey Andy. Thanks for the details of your song making. It brings your creation to life! On the song Skyless, it seems as though Samus66 added some blast beats after the fact, but you did not seem enthused about it. In my opinion, it is there at the blast beat parts where the song really climaxes. What can we expect on drums on the next MPE CD? Perhaps blast beats and cool double bass patterns at faster tempos? My favorite song from the '17 Embers album is the Colours of The Cosmos.
Nah I loved everything Samus added to my solo record, I was only joking when I said he had been naughty for adding extras haha. The drummer who played on the Liberation album also played drums on the new MPE record, so you can expect lots of fast drumming from Marko!
I am wrapping up my band melodic death metal first album. Andy thank you for all of your hard work and influences. Love and respect from Saudi Arabia. Keep up the great work!!
great man, excelent, you are really talented and helped me a lot to learn things to apply in my DAW. Just one suggestiong, you should play the entire song at the end with the DAW image running to see the final result with no comments, Love the commenst in the video but will be great to listen to it like that
dude, thanks for making this! i seriously just learned so much from this video. and i also thought of episode 666 the first time i heard the new song at that one part. more of these kinds of videos please!
I just started to get into that overwhelming Cubase world. Really good video here. Like to hear your thoughts and ideas 🙂 keep it going! Btw. Epic intro.. 😉
Wait, no bags of McDonald's? No red thunder?! This is really cool man. MPE albums are probably the only album I wouldn't skip the intros. Can't wait for this masterpiece.
Andy hey, the video is beautiful. How about having a new one about your way of mixing the track? I am curious as hell what effect banks you use for choirs and strings, the way how you pack the guitars and so on. Just tell me where to put the money)
I'm planning on putting together some more in-depth masterclass videos where I'll touch on mixing. Though I mixed the synths here, I must say that the end result of the album's mix was in the hands of Plec from The Panic Room Studio. That man is the real genius!
I’ve never quad-tracked because I didn’t know it was a thing until recently. I’ve always considered myself something of a Jon Schaffer protege and didn’t think two more tracks would help with the tight attack “bite” that I was going for. I feel like if I’m going to add two more tracks then they might as well be harmonies, with identical picking perhaps but with different notes.
the extra two tracks in a quadtrack really just give it a sludgier feel. Which is amazing for more basic stuff, chords, anything that needs to sound huge, but often on intricate and fast notey riffs it doesn't actually add anything beneficial and can even end up sounding worse
Great content, Andy. Its really inspiring to see how other people work and write, thanks for sharing your way with us. Really appreciate that you do this kind of videos. Would you tell which plugins you use for writing? They sound really good, my cubase guitar tone is much more "numb" ^^
Super interesting stuff! Would definitely enjoy seeing more of this kind of content! Is there going to be any sort of "making of vlog" for this album like there was for the previous ones?
Sadly not, unfortunately not everyone in the band agreed with the comic nature of my videos so I had no choice but to stop making the studio/tour diaries. That's one reason I decided to do this instead
Holy Andy's cow!!! this is a masterpiece dude! that pink section, which you mentioned was kinda inflames influenced by, reminded me also of old Children of Bodom. Is the album out already? ma ears and ma pocket are ready!!!!!!!!
That was pretty interesting and educational in a way, thanks! I'm surprised to see the bass not being recorded live but rather just synthesized and freezetrack'ed Oo I know a lot of folks usually record the bass parts themselves - especially the guitarists. Now I'm kinda curious about why it's not the case here with MPE music? Or maybe it's only the part of the project, where you did everything yourself and let the rest of the gang record the other stuff?.. Looking forward for the new album and more stuff like that, cheers! ^_^/)
I tracked the bass (real bass) for the Dawn of the 5th Era album. On this album I decided to program it. Both yield great results in this day and age and as the band is only two official members there's a lot riding on my shoulders to fill in all the gaps, not to mention writing lyrics too
@@andygillion I see. Well, this makes sense to me, although still feels a little bit sad, but like you said, it's already some heavy weight on your back, plus the circumstances. Thanks! P.S. Yay, "Dawn of the 5th Era" means my cover was sort of "on spot" with the bass being real, tchie
@@SoulStrings I get it, but to be honest, sadly these days it's customary to totally autotune bass and hide it in metal mixes as a quantized underlayer. A lot of thought went into the basslines on this album and our mixing engineer liked it enough to turn it up to be pretty audible in the mix as we feel it adds a lot of character to the compositions, programmed or not. I appreciate some will be disappointed by that of course, but this was a mammoth production and I'm really happy with the way it came out. As far as the overall sound and mix goes I'm extremely happy with what we achieved!
@@andygillion Indeed if the final result is rewarding and awesome in general, the process of achieving that goal slips into the background a little bit. And yes, the audible basslines in mdm are kinda rare and definitely add a lot to the music ^_^
I don't seem to hear the color coordination like you're able to, although it makes sense the way you explain it. One thing I know I can hear that a lot of other people can't is texture. I've tried to explain it to some people and not everybody gets it.
Yep, I think the texture aspect is actually more prominent for me than colour. I definitely mix in my mind's eye. There's a very vivid image that comes along with audio
Good shit dude, can't wait on the rest of this album :D If only you gave guitar&piano lessons, I'd sign up immediately, given how insanely good you are with either... Love the kind of look behind the scenes, more please ^^ Greetings, -Merlin
This is a great video, thanks for breaking the composition down! I suppose the answer might be obvious, but do you find that your skill playing the piano helps the orchestration process move more quickly? I know plenty of music theory, but I don't play the piano so I'm not entirely sure what to expect when I start doing this for my own music. I'm basically expecting to feel totally overwhelmed immediately. It's really amazing how much some strings or choir parts can amplify a song. Looking forward to the new album!
I think it helps to know piano, but it is not essential by any means. In fact, I plot most of my midi stuff with the mouse! So as long as you know what notes you're looking for, you can do it all with the click of a button. I just find it much easier to play in midi for certain things, piano and staccato strings for example, as it tracks the velocities and sounds more human. That said, you can still adjust these manually if you like so as long as you have a computer, you can do anything my friend!
Oh man, I programmed all the drum parts for my album , before deciding to pay an actual drummer, which was a wise decision, but adjusting the velocities to my original parts was soooo time-consuming. I actually transcribed all my guitars, and wrote all the drum parts in Guitar Pro first, then imported the midi to my DAW, and had to do it all again since the kits didn't match up exactly, so I got a pretty good idea of what midi programming is like. I've got a midi keyboard this time, so I'm curious to see how I can make use of it. Either way it'll be a learning experience. Thanks a lot for the reply.
Everything was recorded where you are sitting talking in this video?? Yeah right i skip intros too. Good you made a whole songs because that intro is epic.
The songs were all written here yes. Guitars, bass, synths, orchestra etc recorded here too. The final drums and vocals were recorded in Finland and it was all mixed and mastered by Plec at the Panic Room, Sweden :)
@@andygillion Damn, faster response ever :D while im watching lol btw i don't know but you think that you can do a serie like how to record from zero etc? Too much to ask xD every MPE album is fantastic.
@@EADPE I'm going to tailor some tutorial stuff at a more beginner level soon and take people through the first steps of writing and recording songs for sure!
I loved this video! I am starting to compose my own stuff (just for fun), and this video has been very insipational. I'd love to see more of these Andy! They rock! By the way, which libraries you used for the intro? I feel overwhelmed by the amount of offer out there, and I'd love to hear your take on that. Any recommendations?
@@andygillion Thanks man! Please, make more of these "song writing oriented" videos. I think your songwriting style is the best in the current melodic death metal. Having an insight at such talent would be amazing for us mere mortals trying to learn :)
What you describe at around 3:00 : Isn't this a Canon? PS: Amazing stuff! Can't wait for the album! Hopefully the MPE merch will be available in Europe...
@@andygillion thanks a lot! Hopefully touring will be possible next "season". Last time I saw MPE live you couldn't be there for some reason. So I would really like to see you with the boys next time ;)
I remember reading that Hetfield always did a rhythm through the left and right and then a 3rd down the middle, which I've always tended to do as well as it just fills it out, do you recommend not doing this for the same reason you've stopped 4 tracking? This video was awesome man, can't wait for the album!
I think they did that on the black album but that middle one is going to get in the way of vocals and fight for the spotlight, so it wouldn't surprise me if they only added a middle layer when he wasn't singing. I can hear his voice in that interview referring to it as, "the thickener"
The intro is genius! The whole song is killer, along with Lost in a Starless Aeon. Looking forward to the whole album! Do you mainly use Native Instruments?
@@andygillion ok thanks, sounds great and you're not following any specific rules as i could tell.DO you usually use the room mics of the vsts in and send the close mics to a reverb or a compination of the two.?
@@VasilisKoskinas I actually rarely need to go into the VST to adjust the room/near mics etc. If the samples need more reverb I just tend to add a reverb plugin to the track itself, I'm lazy like that. If I need to remove reverb, I'll dive into the VST settings themselves. Sometimes I find with brass it can be much more effective to tweak the mics in the VST but generally with strings I don't need to do much tweaking
Hey Andy that was an awesome walk though. My question is when your quad tracking the guitars how do you pan them? I’m guessing it’s 100% left and right and then about 70-80% left and right.
Andy Gillion thanks dude I gave it ago and was really happy with the results. Its a bit of a pain in the butt to track each part 4 times but it’s definitely worth it. Thanks again dude 👍🏻. I’ve stuck the track up on my UA-cam channel if you feel like checking it out tracks called Storm.
so did you render out the strings and other orchestral elements to .wav's or something, and then send that to the engineer? did you use Omnisphere for just about all of them? sounds really amazing
Omnisphere 2 takes care of a lot of elements but Cinematic Strings, Cinesamples and a bunch of others do a lot of the work. Yeah, everything was constructed on my PC and sent to Sweden for the final mix!
@@andygillion at least it's not programmed. I can always tell! 😉 Please tell me embers of a dying world had real drums by mikko. Also, where did he go? 😂🤘
amazing breakdown.. I always wondered how a pro approaches producion. Tho I wonder, have you written that piece by yourself? I mean do you just go to your band and tell them this is what you guys play! I mean, are they completely out of the creative process in this one?
![ANDY GILLION - Exilium (2024) [FULL ALBUM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QTS7X435Ihk/mqdefault.jpg)
I've been dying to see a video like this forever, but I wasn't expecting this much depth! I am so happy you did this man. Cheers Andy!
My pleasure!
i liked mpe already after the album unborn, but man... after you joined, the band has been on a whole new level. thanks for these videos and keeping mpe alive!
+ 1
Yes, more of this, please!
Fresh air from the start with that intro
I am so glad the intro became a full length song!!
Yes, that intro/orch. Is worth being proud_of. Sounds Epic.
Agree, that tapping melody from episode666 always stayed with me too, very cool.
Your comment on the MPE motif-piano line, right on!!
I never actually seen a person with chromesthesia, like seeing/imagining certain colours when hearing notes. That's a pretty cool ability to have really.
Honestly, one of my favorite videos from you Andy. Thanks for the peek behind the curtain.
Cheers Josh!
love it!!
Very nice, that is great content right here keep it up!
Genius
That two-bar delay on the strings in the intro is the coolest thing I've heard in 2020.
Thanks so much for this dude, great to get an insight into your creative process!
Cheers Chris
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I am now able to appreciate your music and dedication to perfection. You desperately need to come to Kansas City, we are loving that Septicflesh comes here to the Riot Room, Amon Amarth tours and goes to the Granada in Lawrence, KS. We are FILLED with metal heads, you'd be surprised. Maybe, when this whole Covid19 shit finally ends, you might consider coming down. Peace out brother.
Great video! Very interesting and shows how much work was put into this.
Awesome, loved it!
I learn so much through watching your videos and seeing how you approach and refine your compositions, that it makes the finished product sound EVEN better!
I really enjoyed the song (THAT SOLO!!) when I first heard it, but NOW.... I LOVE IT!!
Cheers dude :)
Brilliant as usual. You do write some amazing intros.
Cheers Ryan!
Thank you for this! 😃🤘🤘
Wow, Andy, thank you for sharing this. You are a huge inspiration and a masterful musician.
Thanks so much 🙏
Wow, Andy. We need more musical composers like you. I like how you got some of your inspiration from In Flames. They are my other all time favorite band next to MPE.
Awesome breakdown of the song composition. I found your description and analysis of quad tracking rythm guitars versus just doing one on each side really compelling. Thanks!
Yeah it took me a while to be persuaded but I think I prefer double over quads now for the most part!
Love these videos. It helps me big time to hear you discuss this stuff. Mixing and recording has been a struggle for me.
This is the real "behind the music".
My most anticipated album right now by far! Thank you so much for this video, it is really interesting to see you explain the creative process of the songs in depth... I really hope this will turn into a series just like you said at the end! By the way that blue/purple part right before the solo is amazing, pure headbang moment \m/
Cheers and much love...
that was amazing! great insight about the song writing process. that color coding is also great stuff!
\m/
oh man oh man .. . I've been obsessed with this song in specific and the masterpiece of the composition beyond words ... and here I am at 2am sitting with my guitar playing along to the original song when I desperately kept looking for the solo's tabs so i stop playing what i made up by ear haha or possibly run into some guitar backing track as a dream come true and I accidently came across this video ... this is literally like when you spent years worshipping nutella then you accidently come across the "behind the scenes" and get to see the bits and pieces of its making, taste the hazelnut alone, the chocolate part alone hahaha ... I swear getting to hear these different elements and orchestras and choirs and guitars and parts separately for this song went straight to the heart man! i'm in love with this song and i now got to hear a bit more close-up of it! really a big fan of your style and your songs and if you ever ever ever release tabs to the solo or a guitar backing track to this song ... by Thor and Odin please let us know! hahahaha keep it up man and sorry i expressed myself too much with this long comment, but the song just deserves it all!!!
Haha, dude, your comment has made my day! Thank you! 😊
This is ggreat, keep doing it!
That’s one of the most purple things ive ever written 😂 so awesome man, i love this as much as i love the album! Looking forward to more like this
Awesome!!!
Your intros are among the best , what kind of fool would skip them ? I always wish they could last longer. Very cool video, it is always nice to get a flavour of what is going on behind the creation of an album. Thanks a lot! 🤘
Thanks, that means a lot!
+1 on the intros, they always feel like epic movie soundtracks and they blend soo good into the metal riffs afterwards. This one here is really catchy and I love that it comes back in the last section of the song 🤘🏼
"that's one of the purplest things I've ever written" - f*ing legend xD
So much attention to the details, I love it! Cheers for that extra 1% :)
The song is crazy good, that intro melody gives me chills
Thanks! :)
Andy, that was a fantastic video. Thanks so much for that look inside!
The explanation of the orchestration is brilliant, I love this stuff. It's inspiring, making me want to write better and practice more. Please keep doing these videos, they're awesome and I can't wait to buy the new album.
Cheers Jeff!
The first time listening the song, I was like, damn, why are they releasing an intro as a single? Then when the riff starts, I was like jumping with joy! This song is in my spotify playlist during work and on repeat. Can’t wait for the album release...you sure theres only one single atm? Hahahahah
You can learn more about production on these than in some online courses out there. It's great watching how easy you build your song structures. Thanks and keep uploading these! :)
Thanks for saying that, I'll certainly do more :)
Thank you, Mors Principium Est is allways an inspiration to me. Great music and this is a great video to show us how you work. Maybe i will make a song hehe. When i see ho much work you put into it alone its a big inspiration,,,,and the way you put it all together....great. I allways loock forward for an new album from you.....and i allways love it.....This new 2020 songs are great....waiting for the rest :-). You are my favoritt nr one band ....keep up the good work, and all the great thing you show us. Bigg thumbs up for you Andy and the band.
Thank you Kent, that means a lot!
Very impressive work. Thank you for all your hard work, Andy! Inspirational!
Love watching a pro at work. Can't wait to hear you guys live! (sounds weird to even say it)
As a guitar player and huge fan of you as a player, I've always enjoyed your playthrough videos immensely, but this is even better! Looking forward to hearing what other crazy things you came up with in other songs on the album!
I really like this kind of content. Could you make more?? it would be interesting to talk about what kind of compressors, eq, reverb, etc you use. I'm learning a lot man, Thank you!!
I'm glad it's helpful! I'll definitely do more
Hey Andy,
just discovered your band while ago and I am totally blown out - as expected. The thing I wasn´t expected is the thing I was able to find you on UA-cam with deconstruction vid like this!
Amazing stuff, I am grateful I can see how you work with orchestration and VSTs- awesome inspiring work.
Thank you, greetings from Czechia!
Cheers dude!
Starting the second verses with part 2 is what triggered me the most in this track :)
Fantasthicc. Can’t wait!
Holy shit thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for also using the same DAW as I do.
This is such an awesome video format. Very informative and inspirational for someone who tries to write songs himself. And really something you do not see too often on youtube. There is lots of mixing, composing not so much. It is very cool to get some insights into your methods and artistic choices.
This song is so damn good Andy, keep it up bro! Can't wait for the album release!!
The new song is absolutely killer! Love this series! Would love to see more about the sound Libs you´re using. Some tracks are named and some other you´re talking a bit, but some other not. Would love to hear more about that.
P.S.: Nice to see that I´m not the only one in the world who prefers colorcoding per section. Haha!
I'm probably that one guy in a thousand never skipping intros.
For me, an intro can make or break an album as it sets the tone and feel of what is to come.
I have to shuffle most of my playlists "manually" because it is filled with "intro + song"-combinations.
Some songs just don't sound as good without the intro and this is one of them!
Can't wait for the full album release!
Hope to see you in Belgium in April next year.
Btw, that riff is a masterpiece!
Same on all points, even about Belgium! 😂
That 40 sec intro is my favourite piece of music of the year. Reminds me so much of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. By all means, do release it as a bonus track or something...! Cheers for the insight and breakdown of the creative process!
Thanks! My pleasure!
Great job Andy, I wrote a couple of questions, regarding this composition to ask which sounded great, and i was courious for the technical solution. You answered all of it here. Great stuff, looking forward to see more of these!
Amazing * - *
Soo, you lifted some magic off the MPE style and it appeared to be a shitload of hard work underneath. Why am I not surprised? 😉👍
Haha pretty much yeah!
Believe me mate, this doesn't even touch the surface of hard work! The rabbit hole is deep....
Damn Andy, that is pretty involving, very cool to see that. Always looking forward to more MPE. Be well!
Cheers!
Cool video. I watched this video first then I listened to the song. My brain was picking out all the parts you were discussing. It was like I was listening to the song through someone else's ears; don't know how else to describe it. Oh yeah and seeing music in colors. If I put on some headphones, lay back on a couch or recliner, relax and close my eyes I see music in colors too. I also see music in waves but I don't know how to describe that process in words............
Dude I feel exactly the same!
@@andygillion This will be a cool series. Everyone else seems pumped up about it too.......
Thanks for the tour master ...
Just waiting to get the album...
I understand perfectly how it is to get part by part together and get an entire song...
And the entire band work as team that's great
Take care dude.
🤘🤘🤘
That was awesome! You really should make more of these vids, it's super interesting to see behind the scenes stuff with regards to actual composition. It's not something you see often, sadly.
Incredible video Andy. Such amazing work went into this. Cant wait for more MPE. Please take my money
Interesting video! Good song!
I love this video. I'd just like to hear a word on bass aswell in a future video
Really correct about people skipping intros. Also i play a collection of latest albums on shuffle while driving, intros suck in that sense :)
Hahaha even Andy goes back and listens to his great leads again!
I'm telling you, one time is just not enough
Thx for sharing and explaining. This is awesome for non musicians like me and I supose for musicians too.
My pleasure, always fun to go through this stuff!
Hey Andy. Thanks for the details of your song making. It brings your creation to life! On the song Skyless, it seems as though Samus66 added some blast beats after the fact, but you did not seem enthused about it. In my opinion, it is there at the blast beat parts where the song really climaxes. What can we expect on drums on the next MPE CD? Perhaps blast beats and cool double bass patterns at faster tempos? My favorite song from the '17 Embers album is the Colours of The Cosmos.
Nah I loved everything Samus added to my solo record, I was only joking when I said he had been naughty for adding extras haha. The drummer who played on the Liberation album also played drums on the new MPE record, so you can expect lots of fast drumming from Marko!
Andy: I respect you a lot
Fascinating insight into your methods mate 👊
I am wrapping up my band melodic death metal first album. Andy thank you for all of your hard work and influences. Love and respect from Saudi Arabia. Keep up the great work!!
Saudi Arabia, wow! Thanks dude and best of luck with your music!
@@andygillion You are welcome Andy! Cheers for your words and nice wishes. Hopefully we share the stage in future 🤘🏽 😎
Can't wait to hear this song live. The tapping section reminded me to Episode 666, and you just confirmed it! . Epic song.
great man, excelent, you are really talented and helped me a lot to learn things to apply in my DAW. Just one suggestiong, you should play the entire song at the end with the DAW image running to see the final result with no comments, Love the commenst in the video but will be great to listen to it like that
太棒啦老铁，虽然我英语不太好，但是至少大洋对岸的中国还有你们的粉丝。
dude, thanks for making this! i seriously just learned so much from this video. and i also thought of episode 666 the first time i heard the new song at that one part. more of these kinds of videos please!
It makes my day to read that people are getting something from these videos.
Such a nice stuff man, I wish you have more similar videos, especially if you could do live compositing sessions. Thanks
Amazing Andy, just brilliant! Thanks for the insights! Pray tell, what's the panning on the two rhythm guitars?
100% hard left and right on the rhythms :)
@@andygillion Thanks a mill mate! :)
I just started to get into that overwhelming Cubase world. Really good video here. Like to hear your thoughts and ideas 🙂 keep it going!
Btw. Epic intro.. 😉
Cheers!
Wait, no bags of McDonald's? No red thunder?! This is really cool man. MPE albums are probably the only album I wouldn't skip the intros. Can't wait for this masterpiece.
Andy hey, the video is beautiful. How about having a new one about your way of mixing the track? I am curious as hell what effect banks you use for choirs and strings, the way how you pack the guitars and so on. Just tell me where to put the money)
I'm planning on putting together some more in-depth masterclass videos where I'll touch on mixing. Though I mixed the synths here, I must say that the end result of the album's mix was in the hands of Plec from The Panic Room Studio. That man is the real genius!
@@andygillion I am dying looking forward to seeing it. Hope you manage it soon. Thanks
Awesome video! Would you mind doing one on the synths, orchestral stuff/sample libraries you usually use for Mors Principium Est and your solo stuff?
I’ve never quad-tracked because I didn’t know it was a thing until recently. I’ve always considered myself something of a Jon Schaffer protege and didn’t think two more tracks would help with the tight attack “bite” that I was going for. I feel like if I’m going to add two more tracks then they might as well be harmonies, with identical picking perhaps but with different notes.
the extra two tracks in a quadtrack really just give it a sludgier feel. Which is amazing for more basic stuff, chords, anything that needs to sound huge, but often on intricate and fast notey riffs it doesn't actually add anything beneficial and can even end up sounding worse
Great content, Andy. Its really inspiring to see how other people work and write, thanks for sharing your way with us. Really appreciate that you do this kind of videos. Would you tell which plugins you use for writing? They sound really good, my cubase guitar tone is much more "numb" ^^
for D.I guitar referencing I use anything from Neural DSP - The Nameless Suite was used in this video and it sounds great!
Super interesting stuff! Would definitely enjoy seeing more of this kind of content! Is there going to be any sort of "making of vlog" for this album like there was for the previous ones?
Sadly not, unfortunately not everyone in the band agreed with the comic nature of my videos so I had no choice but to stop making the studio/tour diaries. That's one reason I decided to do this instead
@@andygillion Well I'm genuinely sorry to hear that, but thank you for still taking the time to make this video!
Holy Andy's cow!!! this is a masterpiece dude! that pink section, which you mentioned was kinda inflames influenced by, reminded me also of old Children of Bodom. Is the album out already? ma ears and ma pocket are ready!!!!!!!!
Album is released on October 23rd! Thanks for your support dude!
That was pretty interesting and educational in a way, thanks! I'm surprised to see the bass not being recorded live but rather just synthesized and freezetrack'ed Oo I know a lot of folks usually record the bass parts themselves - especially the guitarists. Now I'm kinda curious about why it's not the case here with MPE music? Or maybe it's only the part of the project, where you did everything yourself and let the rest of the gang record the other stuff?..
Looking forward for the new album and more stuff like that, cheers! ^_^/)
I tracked the bass (real bass) for the Dawn of the 5th Era album. On this album I decided to program it. Both yield great results in this day and age and as the band is only two official members there's a lot riding on my shoulders to fill in all the gaps, not to mention writing lyrics too
@@andygillion I see. Well, this makes sense to me, although still feels a little bit sad, but like you said, it's already some heavy weight on your back, plus the circumstances. Thanks!
P.S. Yay, "Dawn of the 5th Era" means my cover was sort of "on spot" with the bass being real, tchie
@@SoulStrings I get it, but to be honest, sadly these days it's customary to totally autotune bass and hide it in metal mixes as a quantized underlayer. A lot of thought went into the basslines on this album and our mixing engineer liked it enough to turn it up to be pretty audible in the mix as we feel it adds a lot of character to the compositions, programmed or not. I appreciate some will be disappointed by that of course, but this was a mammoth production and I'm really happy with the way it came out. As far as the overall sound and mix goes I'm extremely happy with what we achieved!
@@andygillion Indeed if the final result is rewarding and awesome in general, the process of achieving that goal slips into the background a little bit. And yes, the audible basslines in mdm are kinda rare and definitely add a lot to the music ^_^
I don't seem to hear the color coordination like you're able to, although it makes sense the way you explain it. One thing I know I can hear that a lot of other people can't is texture. I've tried to explain it to some people and not everybody gets it.
Yep, I think the texture aspect is actually more prominent for me than colour. I definitely mix in my mind's eye. There's a very vivid image that comes along with audio
Good shit dude, can't wait on the rest of this album :D
If only you gave guitar&piano lessons, I'd sign up immediately, given how insanely good you are with either...
Love the kind of look behind the scenes, more please ^^
Greetings, -Merlin
Cheers Merlin! I am planning some song writing tutorials soon so you may be in luck
Curious to know what the "Bodom Riff 26-04-18" contains.
it's a bitching riff that sadly didn't make it
Amazing track man!
kind enough to share the setup for your guitar sound in this track??
Cheers from GREECE!!
The playback of the D.I guitar is the Nameless plugin from neural!
@@andygillion can you make a tone tutorial somewhere in the future? I really love the guitar tone!
Hey guy ! Great song !! Can you tell me what is your VST name for Staccato sound please ?🙏
I used two VSTs, EWQL Gold and Cinematic Strings!
This is a great video, thanks for breaking the composition down! I suppose the answer might be obvious, but do you find that your skill playing the piano helps the orchestration process move more quickly? I know plenty of music theory, but I don't play the piano so I'm not entirely sure what to expect when I start doing this for my own music. I'm basically expecting to feel totally overwhelmed immediately. It's really amazing how much some strings or choir parts can amplify a song. Looking forward to the new album!
I think it helps to know piano, but it is not essential by any means. In fact, I plot most of my midi stuff with the mouse! So as long as you know what notes you're looking for, you can do it all with the click of a button. I just find it much easier to play in midi for certain things, piano and staccato strings for example, as it tracks the velocities and sounds more human. That said, you can still adjust these manually if you like so as long as you have a computer, you can do anything my friend!
Oh man, I programmed all the drum parts for my album , before deciding to pay an actual drummer, which was a wise decision, but adjusting the velocities to my original parts was soooo time-consuming. I actually transcribed all my guitars, and wrote all the drum parts in Guitar Pro first, then imported the midi to my DAW, and had to do it all again since the kits didn't match up exactly, so I got a pretty good idea of what midi programming is like. I've got a midi keyboard this time, so I'm curious to see how I can make use of it. Either way it'll be a learning experience. Thanks a lot for the reply.
Everything was recorded where you are sitting talking in this video?? Yeah right i skip intros too. Good you made a whole songs because that intro is epic.
The songs were all written here yes. Guitars, bass, synths, orchestra etc recorded here too. The final drums and vocals were recorded in Finland and it was all mixed and mastered by Plec at the Panic Room, Sweden :)
@@andygillion Damn, faster response ever :D while im watching lol btw i don't know but you think that you can do a serie like how to record from zero etc? Too much to ask xD every MPE album is fantastic.
@@EADPE I'm going to tailor some tutorial stuff at a more beginner level soon and take people through the first steps of writing and recording songs for sure!
@@andygillion that will be epic. I will be waiting forward for that. Cheers from Lima - Perú. \m/ Stay heavy \m/
I loved this video! I am starting to compose my own stuff (just for fun), and this video has been very insipational. I'd love to see more of these Andy! They rock!
By the way, which libraries you used for the intro? I feel overwhelmed by the amount of offer out there, and I'd love to hear your take on that. Any recommendations?
Glad it could inspire! I use too many libraries to mention but Omnisphere 2, Action Strikes, EWQL Gold to name but a few
@@andygillion Thanks man! Please, make more of these "song writing oriented" videos. I think your songwriting style is the best in the current melodic death metal. Having an insight at such talent would be amazing for us mere mortals trying to learn :)
What you describe at around 3:00 :
Isn't this a Canon?
PS: Amazing stuff! Can't wait for the album! Hopefully the MPE merch will be available in Europe...
Yes! I know this to be referred to as a "round" also, but perhaps it was made famous by Pachelbel's Canon in D?
@@andygillion thanks for the quick reply!
Is there a release date announced already?
@@jicklesjingles8134 sure is - Oct 23rd!
@@andygillion thanks a lot!
Hopefully touring will be possible next "season". Last time I saw MPE live you couldn't be there for some reason. So I would really like to see you with the boys next time ;)
This sounds awesome!! If I may ask, what are your most used orchestral sample libraries?
EWQL Gold, Cinematic Strings, anything from Cinesamples!
I remember reading that Hetfield always did a rhythm through the left and right and then a 3rd down the middle, which I've always tended to do as well as it just fills it out, do you recommend not doing this for the same reason you've stopped 4 tracking? This video was awesome man, can't wait for the album!
I think they did that on the black album but that middle one is going to get in the way of vocals and fight for the spotlight, so it wouldn't surprise me if they only added a middle layer when he wasn't singing. I can hear his voice in that interview referring to it as, "the thickener"
Andy Gillion ah that would make a lot of sense actually! Thanks man!
The intro is genius! The whole song is killer, along with Lost in a Starless Aeon. Looking forward to the whole album! Do you mainly use Native Instruments?
I use all kinds of stuff but Native Instruments I guess is the spine of most of the plugins I use other than Omnisphere 2
@@andygillion Right on, thanks for the reply!
Hey Andy, could you tell as which libraries do you use for all the strings etc?Thanks.
for this it's EWQL Gold and Cinematic Strings
@@andygillion ok thanks, sounds great and you're not following any specific rules as i could tell.DO you usually use the room mics of the vsts in and send the close mics to a reverb or a compination of the two.?
@@VasilisKoskinas I actually rarely need to go into the VST to adjust the room/near mics etc. If the samples need more reverb I just tend to add a reverb plugin to the track itself, I'm lazy like that. If I need to remove reverb, I'll dive into the VST settings themselves. Sometimes I find with brass it can be much more effective to tweak the mics in the VST but generally with strings I don't need to do much tweaking
Hey Andy that was an awesome walk though. My question is when your quad tracking the guitars how do you pan them? I’m guessing it’s 100% left and right and then about 70-80% left and right.
That's exactly it dude!
Andy Gillion thanks dude I gave it ago and was really happy with the results. Its a bit of a pain in the butt to track each part 4 times but it’s definitely worth it. Thanks again dude 👍🏻. I’ve stuck the track up on my UA-cam channel if you feel like checking it out tracks called Storm.
so did you render out the strings and other orchestral elements to .wav's or something, and then send that to the engineer? did you use Omnisphere for just about all of them? sounds really amazing
Omnisphere 2 takes care of a lot of elements but Cinematic Strings, Cinesamples and a bunch of others do a lot of the work. Yeah, everything was constructed on my PC and sent to Sweden for the final mix!
Did the liberation= Termination drummer have input on the drum parts?
I wrote the drum parts with midi first and Marko stayed pretty true to it but obviously added some real drummer flair
@@andygillion at least it's not programmed. I can always tell! 😉
Please tell me embers of a dying world had real drums by mikko. Also, where did he go? 😂🤘
amazing breakdown.. I always wondered how a pro approaches producion. Tho I wonder, have you written that piece by yourself? I mean do you just go to your band and tell them this is what you guys play!
I mean, are they completely out of the creative process in this one?
Thanks Vincent. In essence yes. I wrote the music from 2011 - this album.