Backrooms - 'People in San Jose' (Synth Cover) [Prophet rev2 + Korg MS-20]

video upload by Ross Piano

"Another one of my favourite cues from the Backrooms score. As I recall, this piece accompanies a montage of establishing shots of San Jose, early in the first act. The piece is in G minor and is built around 2 different ostinatos. Both ostinatos have chromatic notes that create a sharper and more mysterious atmosphere. The first (0:00) features both the natural and raised third (Bb and B natural). The second (0:23) features the raised 6th (E natural), transforming G minor into G dorian. However, the minor 6th (E flat) appears in the melody (at 0:45) creating a contradiction between these two layers. This ‘contradiction’ creates interest and tension.

This arrangement had too many separate layers to feature them all on screen simultaneously. For this reason, the individual screens cut between various sounds/patches.

In addition to all the parts you see on screen, I recorded some ambient drones. I decided not to film these, as the screen would become crowded with shots of me holding down a single note haha.

All these sounds are designed from scratch on analog synthesizers (a Prophet rev2 and a Korg MS-20). I mix in Ableton, where I add additional effects (reverb, distortion, delays etc.). In this case, most of the effects were from Soundtoys.

Download MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a3II...
Download WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gt2f..."