Calima (2024)

Calima was the third work of my solo project. While it has its flaws here and there, I really enjoyed the process and am very proud of the result.

These tunes were old ideas that I discarded long ago and decided to revisit (you may find old versions of LinkedOut, Magpies and Haze on my YouTube channel). Only exception is Loop Jumping which was completely written from scratch when I decided to make a new record.

Synths and virtual instruments:

There are a lot of synth layers in all the tracks of this record. Here is a list of all the virtual instruments I have used:

• Cinematic percussion:
  • Keepforest -> Ferrum
• Orchestral instruments:
  • Native Instruments -> Pianos
  • Native Instruments -> Yangqin (Calima)
  • Spitfire Audio -> LABS (pianos)
• Lead synth lines:
  • Logic Pro -> Alchemy
  • FabFilter -> Twin 3
  • Spitfire Audio -> LABS (synths and pads)
  • Native Instruments -> Any library that I felt like messing with.

Drums

The drums were MIDI-programmed with GGD's P4 kit.

For mixing, I copy-pasted the settings from a Nolly tutorial on drums mixing for individual channels. For the drum bus, I came up with the following channel strip:

Bass

The bass section of this record may be controversial. I intended to use my Marcus Miller Jazz Bass through the Fractal FM3; however, the strings were old and I was too lazy to change them so I programmed a virtual bass with Solemn Tones' Hybrid Kraken plugin. I gotta say, this plugin sounds amazing and mix-ready out of the box, it hurts my bassist pride but I could use it more often in the future.

Real bass is played for the solos in Calima and Magpies.

In terms of mixing, this is the plugin chain:

Guitars

The guitar used was an LTD H3-1000 through the Fractal FM3.

Rhythmic parts were double-tracked with a Cameron CCV amp with Cali-style cabs. Besides, an Horizon Precision Drive pedal is placed before the amps, it works as the typical booster used in every modern-metal tone.

I mostly use the Cameron amp for all the parts, but I experimented with some random presets for the clean parts of Magpies. I also used different rigs for some solos in order to "emulate a guitar collaboration".

In terms of mixing, this is the plugin chain. The EQ-cruve is different for each song and each guitar layer:

Mixing and mastering

This is an old mastering plugin chain, I've used it on both Furrocious Visitor and Calima EPs and while it fulfills its function well, there are aspects I don't like about it...

1. I apply the EQ curve before mixing. It gives a boost to the lows and adds air from the beginning, so it prevents doing extreme EQ moves to every track.
2. I used an SSL-style bus compressor with slow attack/auto release to glue the mix together.
3. I used the UAD Verve plugin to give a nice saturation to the mix.
4. Lastly, I apply a limiter to prevent peaks coming from the snare or other hits and special effects.

Related links

• You can listen to it on Spotify as well as other music streaming platforms.
• If you are interested in learning these tunes or checking the multitrack stems, check out this Gumroad page.