U-He Zebra 3 for Horror Film Music on "The Masque of the Red Death"
Edgar Allan Poe would delight in it.
U-He’s sound design is pretty famous. You hear it in film trailers. Hollywood music scores. Generally, any synth nerd-dom music you think sounds great without knowing why.
Certainly hit music of some sort has used it, because it can sound very Jack Antonoff at times, and everyone these days loves getting his sound, Robyn’s, EDM, a lot of his work influencing everyone else.
It is one amazing brand and product. But how weird can the U-He Zebra 3 synths product get?
Sci-fi, sure. Epic. KEWL.
Can it get spooky? Scary? Gothic horror weird? Romantic era inspired? I decided to test those limits.
Hit it, emoji ghost. 👻
Some back story, for anyone who does not know me. Were I to take a step back in time to work in any other century, I would be thrilled to work in the 19th century romantic era, the times of gothic horror. Deadly romance. Forbidden thoughts. Imagine meeting some of these authors who every studio depends on for hits from the first talkies to now. I can compose anything. Do. Have my pick? You guessed it. Sunshine happy me has a hidden side of depressing, dark, sinister music ready for that piano.
My itch was very strong, wishing that someone, anyone, might bring me on to make some thriller slash horror music again. Opportunities for that are scarce. Ask any production music library, and they will want reality television music or something quick. My usual collaborator, Paul Sutton’s next film is not ready for me to go to town scoring on my laptop. My newest no budget short concepts are all happy themes starring my cat as Sheila the Siamese Cat. Then I remembered, “I have my own gothic horror short in the making, slow motion, for several years.” Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. Gothic horror at its finest (once upon a midnight) hour.
The trailer below contains a quick sample of the original music. Listen to the full song on Spotify! Please do. Bump up my Spotify streams to buy me some lunch.
Making the track. What could I do without the custom sounds tinkering?
I already experimented somewhat with Zebra 3’s custom sound abilities making my 1980’s princess movie music inspired Lana Del Rey cover of “Body Electric.” It was almost too easy making U-He go happy and sweet. Suspiciously easy. Could U-He have made something so simple that any of us could nail down sounds we’re after in any particular creative mood?
No, I craved something U-He had, as far as I know, never done professionally: time travel into the 19th century underworld of music notes. Not Little Women hooray tunes, or anything cute I could make.
And, could I do it without editing anything? The grab and go choice in a hurry for maybe most of you as students, composers, or music producers who don’t have much time? A fun fact I learned watching Kylie Minogue’s Netflix documentary series was how her first hit, “I Should Be So Lucky,” was recorded in less than one hour before she jetted off, London to Sydney.
Zebra 3 turned out to be really cool after I laid down a reworked piano tune of my own. I mixed a free orchestral kit, pretty basic outside of mainly strings and a few more choices, with some wind FX I edited, and parts played on the following U-He Zebra 3 instruments:
Bass Pointer
Arcology Skyline
Belletje FM
Hollow Worlds
Lead Like Nothing Else
Ehlerrium
Pulsating Waves
Suddenly, the track became the perfect soundtrack for me, the red eyed evil version of me as The Mistress of the Red Death with my ghost friends, to create some havoc against Prince Alexander Prospero.
A while ago, I was that flute person who insisted I would only work with an orchestra when I was older. I am now fully a convert to the dark side of strangeness that can be pulled off from the unexpected.