Violin riser metamorphosis

Here we’re building a cinematic riser from a number of individually recorded violin performances. Modulation, fades and stereo effects go a long way

We start by recording a solo violin playing a series of tremolo pitched glissandi. ‘Tremolo’ means scrubbing the bow quickly back and forth across the strings whilst ‘glissandi’ means multiple recordings of sliding pitches (we use ‘glissando’ for a single sound). All our recordings slide upwards. Here’s the first recording by itself.

Next we stagger the starts of each recording by trimming each pair and beginning them at different times. We introduce volume for each pair by drawing fade-ins on the recordings too, so that tension grows gradually. We also prioritise the volume of the lowest pitches.

Each recording was recorded to a click at 90bpm for 8 bars. As a result, when we place each file on its own audio track and press play, all of the recordings build over the same time period. Here they all are playing together.

The recordings remain bone dry. We set up two auxiliary reverbs – Valhalla Vintage Verb and UVI Sparkverb – before also setting up Insert reverbs on every channel, using a midrange heavy treatment. We blend the wet and dry signals to emphasise the fidgety nature of the overall sound.

Next, we organise the recordings, with the lowest starting pitches at the top and the highest ones on the bottom tracks. We then combine them into stereo pairs, panning each of these left and right by different amounts, leaving one in the middle.

Finally, we add two parallel distortion treatments via iZotope’s Trash. These add drive, grit and bite. We automate the volume of their return channels, so that they fade up as the riser grows and develops.