Be Excellent To Each Other

This is intended for a zero budget film, (http://facebook.com/prayfordawn) inspired by the likes of John Carpenter, which is supposed to make vampire scary again. I think it's pretty good (natch) but is the tone shift at 2m is a bit wrong? Should I keep the sinister tone?

That title page clearly says "Pray for Pawn".

Doh! It was meant to be pray for porn! I'll get in touch with them...

Oooh, I'll have a listen tonight.

Defo keep the sinister tone. In fact at two mins it should go more sinister IMHO. If I didn't know it was for a horror theme I wouldn't have guessed.

I do hear the Carpenteresque influence which works nicely, I just think it should be deeper and more broody. It's very clean throughout too, personally I think some elements need scuzzing up with some form of distortion.

Don't mean to sound harsh dude, I like the sounds in the intro. Good stuff.

All feedback is appreciated. I don't think scuzzing up the sounds would be a good idea because I'm aiming for the old style of soundtrack like in 70s/80s stuff where it was very synthy.

I agree, I think you should keep the sinister tone.

The 2 minute mark made me think that it had gone into a bit of a "romance" part of the film.. if you get me?

Apart from that, I think it works!

Well you've hit the mark in that respect. Like I say, just my opinion based on what little I know of the film, your intentions and the music itself.

Good stuff and sounds like a great project to be part of.

Yes a couple of people have suggested it's a bit 'romance' at the tone shift. Maybe the music would be better as end titles. But I am planning a version which stays consistent in tone. The main driving force behind the film loves this music but the director fancies something a bit more NIN in tone. Which I'm also working on but less enthusiastically.

The customer is always right.

If the dosh is too.

Carpenter's synth sounds were a bit more analoguey and gritty sounding than yours. As has been suggested, a touch of distortion, bit crusher or valve warmer plugin might give it that feel more. Maybe have a bit less or thinner sounding reverb on the drums as they didn't have access to such clean sounding reverb in the 70s. Maybe try the bit after 2 mins using minor scales or dischords to keep it more sinister sounding.

That seems fairly sensible advice (though I do love that original version anyway and its change of tone is something I enjoy but I have to consider appropriateness). I could possibly add those effects later but maybe it doesn't have to be precisely a recreation of that old style, who knows. But as I say it's good to have these comments.

Was this all done in software or were real synths used, as that is pretty darn impressive. It really reminds me of direct to video 80's Spy movies (sorry we're a wuss with horror movies so this could be low budget horror too).

It's all done in soft synths. I mean I've got the synths to do it but do it with them would be a bit more difficult.

Here's another bit of music I did for it. They asked for a more industrial sound so this is what I came up with