Featured image of post Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen

A metal album I decided to produce inspired by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

“Four Horsemen” is the album I created where I wanted to play around with creating metal tracks on JummBox. Due to its very MIDI nature, JummBox only has one guitar feature for a distinctly “metal” sound. I wanted to try and play around with the tools in JummBox and transform this guitar sound into something more than just its preset.

The idea for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was kind of random, it just popped into my head. I did think it would make for a really sick theme for a series of metal tracks, and so I decided to center this album from the perspective of the four horsemen.

Once again, this uses the Cm/Gm phrygian notes, the ones that produce a really sick metal sound. I have also used certain riffs and musical themes from many different inspirations, ranging from Slipknot to MASTER BOOT RECORD, though they may not be apparently obvious. Check out each of the track descriptions for more details.

War

This track kind of picks off what I put down for Bloodlust, another track I've made that you can check out on this site. I wanted to go full-blown metal for this, but the distortion probably got the best of the track. It took over 7 iterations to get it to a point where it sounded alright, but considering how the newer tracks like Famine turned out, I might revisit it once more to boost the volume and rid the distortion. I happened to have also used a small Cm phyrgian riff from the start of "Pyschosocial" by Slipknot. This is also where I began to play around with panning effects, and the outcome was great!

Pestilence

This track is slower and more movement based. It starts of slow, representing the spread and behavior of disease. Then it slowly slides into a metal structure and a solid groove towards the middle. Not one of the most exciting tracks per say, but I still think it turned out quite nice. I happened to use some progressive or "djent" sounding parts of the track from a song callled "Through Purgatory" by a very niche band called "City of Dis." I also must add, the ending certainly turned out very nice, and I might do something like that again!

Famine

This track had some things change in it compared to the previous ones. I utilized pan effects and layering of different instruments to create a louder, richer guitar sound without any of the distortion that comes with the lower octaves. Then, I simply took advantage of the pan effects to create really cool effects and fun musical melodies within the track, especially the section where the "peak" of the piece is achieved (measure 29 to be exact). The breakdown also has a fun little section before entering into shred. Overall, the piece is just a whole lot of fun and I really enjoyed trying to perfect this style. I got one of the sections from a track by MASTER BOOT RECORD called "DBLSPACE.EXE." I just shifted that section in a different key signature and made it match the tempo of the track, which is a bit faster.

Death

Applying the principles from Famine, this track has the same effects, except this time the backing drone sound that Famine had is replaced by the sound of a church bell, or as the preset lists, a "tubular bell." This portrays that sound of "Death." I even decided that this piece should feature some sort of calm middle section, which I thought to be quite fitting for this piece. Some inspiration for this piece comes from "Questions" by British thrash metal band Xentrix, as I got the idea of using the ending section from that song.
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