The following is a selection of relevant work I helped producing recently, in different roles. If you wish to listen more of my audio portfolio, feel free to get in touch.
Table Of Contents
Bass
I play both fretless and fretted bass, either on my projects or for artists in need of a solid foundation for their rhythm section.
Production & Mixing
I love to see the best part of a musician’s craft coming to life.
You can preview below recent works, where I recorded acoustic instruments, produced and mixed.
Callum Gardner
I recorded, co-produced and mixed the latest three singles for this super talented London-based singer-songwriter.
I also played both fretless and fretted bass with Callum, in the studio and live.
Ember Rev
The co-production for the latest two albums of this fantastic rock-folk band based in Cambridge, UK, has been a great experience. Many of the best new ideas for my mix template came from the challenges brought by this collaboration.
Mally Harpaz
Recorded, co-arranged and produced the violas for two songs part of Mally‘s stunning new album, Zoom In Zoom Out.
Ciara Clifford
For Ciara’s single, Fold, I wrote the cello part, recorded and produced the violas.
Tøtem
Eclipse is a single by the young producer Tøtem, part of a different batch of new releases, where I upped the ante and played three different electric bass parts.
Also, I co-produced, mixed and mastered.
Composition
Writing music, whether in the form of songs or bass and drums grooves, has always been an integral part of my creativity.
Under the moniker Minutes to Midnight, I’ve been working on a concept album for the last year, titled After 1989: A Trip To Freedom. It’s going to be released on 9 November 2019.
Several collaborators have helped me with their incredible talent and musicianship, including Dan Ecclestone, Paolo Clementi, Gerald Duchene, Callum Gardner and Rachel Goodman.
Audio Editing & Restoration
Noise Removal
During a recent production, I received a Pro Tools session where a squeaky hi-hat pedal sound found its way through a couple of microphones, unnoticed.
Using iZotope RX‘s spectral editing, I painstakingly cleaned it up with excellent results. You can listen to the before and after.
Tuning Correction
Last year, I tracked twelve tracks of viola for a short song. Since a few of them were skewing an otherwise perfect tuning, I went to correct the pitch in agreement with the player.
Forensic Cleaning
Because of my passion for historical recordings, this is arguably one of my favourite tasks.
The following example is an audio cleaning I performed on a 1968 live recording by Robert Francis Kennedy. I even ended up using it in a song of mine.
Drum Doubling
After receiving one slightly muffled mono overhead track from a drum recording, I dug in and suggested drum doubling as a solution.
I sampled three tracks from the drums, turning them into MIDI. Applying my digital drum kit of choice to those new parts and blending them with the original drummer, I was able to recreate both the missing room and a nicer round ambience, fixing the narrow stereo image.
You can listen to the before and after.
Game Audio
During my years as a game sound designer, I was in charge of composing the soundtrack as well as creating and editing all the sound effects.
Helped by fellow audio programmers, I implemented an adaptive soundtrack in the game engine. The playlist can only show the linear ideas, later developed in different chunks so that they could follow the mood of the gameplay.
The track “Trailer” is the audio extracted from a full-motion promotional video. Besides the light musical texture, all the sound effects were recorded in the studio using Foley techniques.
Amongst other things, I created the sound for:
- a mechanical press moulding artificial alien creatures
- spaceships departing and landing
- rain and thunders
- typewriter-like-captions
- people walking on different surfaces
- tiny creatures turning into monsters
The following playlist contains a few examples and experiments, created for an action-platform game similar to the original Ratchet & Clank.
Game Audio Portfolio Copyright Notice
© (copyright) and ℗ (sound recording copyright) by Simone Silvestroni (Minutes to Midnight), except:
- Boss © shared with Joseph Blanc.
- Tex Mex © shared with Joseph Blanc.
- Funk © shared with Joseph Blanc.
- Party © shared with Joseph Blanc.
- Industrial City © Playstos Entertainment, ℗ Simone Silvestroni (Minutes to Midnight).
- Racing Pt 1 © Playstos Entertainment, ℗ Simone Silvestroni (Minutes to Midnight).
- Tribal and Cave © Playstos Entertainment, ℗ Simone Silvestroni (Minutes to Midnight).