“A Memory Away” is one of the few songs on this site that – from inspiration to composition – changed hardly at all. After writing “Faith,” I tested various variations on that same chord progression but was unable to find anything that worked. It wasn’t until I heard “Not Enough” by OLP (Our Lady Peace), which uses the same chord progression as “Faith” and “A Memory Away,” that I realized the kind of style I wanted to try and achieve with MIDI. I’d never heard an intelligent pop-rock instrumentation in MIDI, so this was a bit of a gamble. I worked off the instrument mix OLP provided and put together what I guess is really a variation on “Faith” with a strong OLP presence. Go figure.
As soon as I heard it, I knew this would be a perfect female character theme for the lead character of Defiance, one of the story premises discussed by the video game team I was working with at the time. The protagonist of the story was a girl named Cara, who I see being comparable to the main character in “Underworld” (if you haven’t seen the movie, you should – it’s good). Cara was a strong, action-oriented girl who ended up falling in love with a man she thought she was saving. Thus the song is a mix of electric guitar and other rock instruments but with a mellow melody.
Technically speaking, the song may not be anything outstanding – but I’m pleased that my first attempt at producing a realistic alternative-type song using nothing but MIDI instruments worked out. The mp3 version uses a mix of soundfonts and multiple VST effects to create a very nice, surprisingly realistic sound. I think you’ll like it.
"A Memory Away" by Tanner Helland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be obtained here.
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