Centre of the Crystal in Cubase
The original concept
00.35 Tom is a big fan of horror and sci-fi film soundtracks, and as with many of his tracks, the first stage in Centre of the Crystal – which, bear in mind, was made over a year earlier – was sourcing inspirational sampled sounds on which to base the whole thing. “It’s a job trying to remember where it all started”, he laughs. “I’m a bit of a horror soundtrack fan, so the ideas for this track started just from collecting sounds – bits and pieces that gave me this… not exactly horror, but a sci-fi, quirky vibe.
“I collected together stuff that just gave an atmosphere, a slightly bizarre tension. And I’d have gone through horror soundtrack records and stuck samples into a favourite plugin: Serato Sample.
“What I’ve got here,” Tom continues, “is a printed version of what I would have done in Serato Sample. What I would have come up with is a kind of elongated horror string. This is enough to spark my imagination and give me an atmosphere. There are various ways that you can mess around with Serato Sample – you can adjust the key,
