I am working on a series of very simple, relaxing and healing compositions.
One of the tracks for my new upcoming Album “Life Song”.
- you should definitely pursue this further! Its a great sound that rivals some pretty expensive VSTs out there.
Kontakt Cello VST, in sidechain with an electric cello
Tabla is played by one of my friends.
Awesome. I haven’t even used it in a real song yet. Just messing around and playing.
Ooh, I’ve made a MAJOR update to it. It’s way better now, especially in terms of dynamics. It also has 2 mic perspectives. I’ll be doing a full version soon. I have a few more things to experiment with first before I go all in.
Here’s a link to the update: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoNdWz6KJnnmkMoHeJlNt_gPrjfezg?e=2ohzDG
Finaly I’m getting a bit of relaxation after a day of stress 
Ahhhhhh
No but seriously this is quite beautiful. And I love the use of a Tabla in what to me sounds like a traditional Tabla rythm (it’s called something else I know, but can’t think of the word). Using a chello VST in such an up front centre stage role is a bit of a challenge. I think if you listen carefully you can hear it’s not a live chello, but it sounds quite convincing. Do you do any editing to make it more realistic?
The Boz piano sounds a bit muffled in the background, but I guess that is exactly what you need here.
glad to hear that you found it relaxing
yes it is a Carnatic Variation of the traditional Tabla Tin Taal, you have a good ear for world music!
the cello VST sound is blended in with an electric cello to create a different wider sound that I am trying to synthesize. There are many things that can be done to create a more realistic sound, such as midi note pitch bends, adding additional 'bowing and rebowing` sounds, use of portamento key switches, or legato extensions where the notes are extended abnormally to overlap others.
I actually didnt do much of that with this one because cello is soundscapish and doesnt want to drag attention. I do have it heavily EQd and layered with effects however. I do use real cello quite often as well, I am a beginner cello player and I tend to use cello more as a background than foreground. Maybe one day!
awesome thanks! cant wait for the full version
Sounds great! 
Well that would be overstating my limited experience with indian music. Like so many of my generation who were Beatle fans I followed George Harrison on his journey to becoming a player of traditional Indian music, being taught by Ravi Shankar. I really enjoyed Ravi Shankar’s music, but I can’t say I delved much deeper than listening to one or two albums. I thought about buying a Tabla at one point, but quickly found out that I would either use it as some sort of Bongo’s (not knowing how to really play them) or that I would have to find an indian Guru and spend huge amounts of time to really get to know the instrument in the traditional way. I guess I’m a lazy musician… But I still love the sound. Specialy those bass notes that start really low and then glide into a much higher note…
Well done, great choice of sounds. So does the electric cello export midi that the VST follows or do you just copy one part to the other? And did the tabla player follow you or was he on first with a click track?
yep those are my favorite, its played with a thump of the front knuckle followed by a gentle slide of the wrist on the leather. The tabla is tuned to a Lydian scale of A so it almost sounds like a bass note. Though its not in perfect pitch because Indian/Middle Eastern instruments are often designed to the 432hz as opposed to the concert pitch of 440. So it gets a bit tricky to make it work. I am using Torque to tune it a bit further without sounding too abrasive.
Thank you very much, the electric cello sort of acts like a trigger track. I am using an NLS analog summer and waves maxbass to sum both sounds together to create a massive stereo double with those rich low harmonics. With that method it comes out as a nice convincing sound, though realism isnt really my goal in this track as much as ambient sound synthesis.
The table player had a tempo track at first for the basic beat. Then he listened to the full composition and and added some extra quantized-ish “flair” notes to top it off.
Thank you very much Andrew!
This piece has a really nice feel to it. I need to listen to this kind of stuff more. It feels so good !
Great job!
Just all around totally cool, Michelle! I had to search for Pleiades because I’d forgotten what it meant, but it is an interesting piece of Greek mythology. They are the seven daughters of Atlas who held up the heavens and Pleione who met Orion and destined to travel the stars with him, not to go into too much detail.
I also had to look up Lydian A, musical imbecile that I am. It is beautiful how you played this. I will check out Boz’s piano as well, as I really don’t have any great piano VSTs, and this one sounds very atmospheric.
Kudos to the tabla player, too! All combines into a peaceful, meditative experience.
I’ve tried to load the plugin on my computer many times, but when I try to extract the Zip file, it fails.
Is this link still working properly? The Zip file indicates there is 80 MB of data on it, but I just can’t extract the Zip.
do you have the latest kontakt player? it loads up in the k6
thanks Steve. Lydian A is the same as A major but with a sharp 4th, as in D is sharp. Not sure if you found the right answer or not. Many definitions float around for the alternate scales and modes. Its actually quite simple. The sharp D sort of gives it a different feel. Somewhat asian-celtic-ish. Otherworldly vibe. One of my favorite modes
No, I don’t have that, Michelle. I assumed that I could load the piano samples and play them through MIDI in Reaper. Is it necessary to have Kontact ?
I have not tried it in Reaper but it definitely works with the Kontakt player loaded in FL Studio and Cubase. Its an NKI file i think
I’m thinking that maybe it requires Kontact to open the files, though I can’t even get the ZIP files extracted, which seems a bit odd to me. I don’t recall ever encountering this issue before. Hopefully @bozmillar knows why this is happening.
Thanks for your help, Michelle!
Um, to go into detail, the Pleiades represents the love/peace vibration the planet is now moving towards, which will displace the discordant globalist control agenda which is currently dominating human consciousness. Which you have apparently subscribed to. If you can see any beauty in this piece of music, explore that within your own soul and you might find “the truth”. Look to the heart, rather than the mind, which will only lead you astray and into rationalizations (enhanced by others agendas). While the Aquarian Age does have a degree of mental focus (Air), it is more intuitive than factual. Trust the heart.
the song refers to an ancient Indian-Greek connection linked via the star cluster in the Taurus constellation,
The song circles around an Indian Raga called Raga Kalyani or Krittika ( Pleiades) who is a character in an Indian epic Mahabharata connected with the ancient Greek mythology. Its a bit of a deeper dive than the direct Greek connection.
This is a lovely piece Michelle, and very welcomed after a loooong week. Thanks for sharing! I would agree with @aef and the piano feels too dark and “washy”, especially compared to the cello. But very nice!
Your tune and Evert’s comment here sent me down memory lane. In the late 80’s my friend (amazing guitar player!) was getting his PHD in Sanskrit at the University of Texas. He invited me to go see Ravi Shankar with him play a concert on campus… 
I have also been in love with the tabla ever since… 
Yes, I’m vaguely familiar with that, as well as the Nakshatra in Jyotisha. The mythology actually is much more widespread over many cultures. The ancients spoke of the “Seven Sisters” though we can only see six stars now, a few millennia later. That’s still a mystery AFAIK.
Nice. Very relaxing as intended. I liked how it stops to take a breath every now and then. Much how we should, I suppose!
I’m not aware of Boz’ piano VST but would be keen to check it out. A work in progress still?