Gunship “Tech Noir” Breakdown

I don't know exactly why, but the friends-and-fans-collab video to "When you grow up, your heart dies" made me tear up quite a bit

https://youtu.be/watch?v=ri9IefTuNzc

That Fly for your life music video is amazing. Thank you for posting it.

It made me look into the making of the visual elements [0] and a more technical look here [1] of the short film "Paths of Hate".

Given some (or all?) of the elements are 3D models, that would make a great experience in VR.

Would it be possible to have it as a VR music video?, or do those compositing shots/passes mean you wouldn't see the same thing? Amazing how creative people are... and how much work goes into such work.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B1eJ40IWwk [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ1J9Af01PY

This song got seriously stuck in my brain for a bit, and not just the melody but the video as well. What I didn’t know is that it wasn’t the original video for the song and honestly somehow that makes me feel better about it.

For those reading this comment that listen to The Adventure Zone and finished the first season, there is an amazing edit of fan art as a music video to Hey Brother that will hit you right in the feels about Taako’s story. It’s not the same genre, obviously, but I bring it up because context + music + amazing editing = magic in that case also.

Amazing music and video. Thanks!

I saw a post here about a similar dogfight in the macross anime, not sure what happened to it. Probably this one:

https://youtu.be/0zdJVajCCFE

It's always nice to watch planes flying.

https://youtu.be/CaIMo1B4ryM

I'd like to start by saying you made a very good argument here, but I would like to make some comments of my own as someone who is absolutely infatuated with this genre. You mention that a lot of synthwave is easy listening, but ironically most of the synthwave artists I tend to enjoy are a lot more "hardcore" I'd list 'carpenter brut','dance with the dead' and 'master boot record' as some good counterexamples to what you described. As for the social aspect, many people agree that the movie 'Drive' really kicked off the modern synthwave movement with its soundtrack and how the music played into the actions of the main character. The interesting thing about that movie is that it exists in a world almost directly opposite of what you described as "smooth social brand exterior" all the characters are living in some form of grime or filth, and the main character is a socially stunted badass. This movie (atleast for me) really set the stage of what synthwave conveyed, its fantasy of what I was told growing up were better times. Hotline Miami is another piece of art that prominently uses the genre to convey harsh ultra violent scenes of death and destruction, the beat and tempo drive the player to move quickly and kill swiftly in these dingy crime infested apartment complexes. Because I was so heavily influenced by Drive and Hotline Miami I see the genre as this brooding soundtrack for antihero's, like the kind of music that plays when the protagonist does some horrible stuff and subsequently smokes a cigarette looking off into the distance trying to understand what they just did. I'll post some example tracks below of darker stuff that fits this ethos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9r2qeouiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E9-rDplPrM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNE2oCZH_4k

Hmm, this comment certainly has its own passionate "depth" of criticism, associating millennials and "younger people" with serial killers.

Do you think you might be projecting some of your own feelings or inner pains onto these groups? Or could it be that you have more to learn about even the complexity of others' inner feelings? It's a strangely broad brush to paint with...

I can appreciate that you have this personal opinion of the genre and I have a completely opposite experience.

I dig synthwave specifically for the eros and hard listening, and I'm in my mid 40s.

> To me this makes synthwave perfect for the way millenials and younger people have had to manage their smooth social brand exterior in every concievable micro aspect of their lives

I think the popularity of Synthwave has a lot to do with the Stranger Things series, which used a lot of 80s nostalgia synths.

I think in it is the opposite way round: Synthwave seems to be nostalgia for a simpler time when technology was something people controlled, rather than now where it seems technology increasingly controls people.

I disagree with everything you’ve said about the genre; but as applied to the specific song listed in the article I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Checkout Boostergangs by misanthropix. Def the sickest synthwave tune

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZgBxLNHhY8

I love Mega Drive! The earlier works are really great too. A favorite:

https://youtu.be/a0Q7e9Q6DlI

A couple of these songs come up on Spotify mixes for me regularly, I really love them.

> Synthwave is the greatest genre of music as far as I'm concerned.

I agree - Synthwave is where my weirdest and most enjoyable music journey began.

If you are a fan of synthwave, you may also enjoy stuff like techno bunker (slightly more minimal). Spotify decided to start lacing playlists with this stuff and my monkey brain got addicted really fast.

Something about the repetitive minimalism of these genres turns me into a coding terminator. I find I forget the music is going after about 5 minutes into the first track. That's not to say this is the only reason I listen to this music, but it's one fun benefit. It's a bit harder for me to concentrate externally when listening to things like trap instrumentals or dubstep (not that these are invalid sub-genres either - I really enjoy them too).

> Hackernews always surprises me, who could believe there are so many synthwave lovers in this forum.

Funny, I always assumed the hn type crowd was the target audience for stuff like synthwave.

Also Lazerhawk

Skull and Shark - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYvqDqoYXMY

Redline - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpDn4-Na5co (my intro to the genre closing on a decade ago).

Trevor Something - Trevor Something Does Not Exist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYOtZvwNCsc

Hands down my favourite in that genre.

The Midnight are great. This is one of my favorites:

Gloria (https://youtu.be/18-Ye2L3ej8)

Came here to recommend The Midnight. Different style than Gunship but an excellent more pop-ish compliment.

Another nice artist, Efence: https://efence.bandcamp.com/

Most famous is Spaceflight: https://efence.bandcamp.com/track/spaceflight

Wow... very good job!

U-he's synths are amazing.

The Midnight, I'm actually biased as they are my favorite band, but you should check them out they also have timeless sound.

Fantastic! Thank you for compiling this playlist :)

Another recommendation: https://youtu.be/zMhEJ0CKUEI

If you don't mind the, uh, colourful presentation, the You Suck at Producing series (and channel with the same name) on YouTube is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kjCxfEZZKo - he also does pretty regular livestreams doing critique and analysis of user-submitted tracks.

If you're looking for a free wavetable synth comparable to Serum from the article, I recommend Vital: https://vital.audio - there's a fairly active community forum there as well.

There's a hands-on educational program called Syntorial that introduces you step-by-step to all the features of a typical subtractive synth using just your ear. On every step, you listen to a sound producible with the features you've unlocked so far and recreate what you hear, then it tells you which parameters weren't quite right so you learn what to listen for to hone your ear.

Subtractive synthesis is different from wavetable synthesis, but most of the concepts transfer. And Syntorial even has a free download (after the initial purchase) which covers Serum specifically, as well as a couple other industry standard synths.

It might be pricey depending on how invested you are in learning, but they have a demo so you can see what you're in for.

From my perspective, outside messing around by yourself, I don't know of a more cost-effective way to learn everything that it covers, and it saves significant time over messing around.

Fruity loops is great, since it comes with everything you need. Reason used to be another good choice but I haven't used it in many years.

The best advice I was given relating to this exact question (20 years ago) was to invest in a midi keyboard, stick with one piece of software and use my free time experimenting with it. That's it. Watching youtube videos is a complete waste of time in my opinion, since a lot of that crowd has fallen into the trap of reviewing one plugin after another, without really being able to create art. At best it's a circlejerk of mimicry and patterned-knowledge regurgitation.

I've done a lot of synthwave discovery via Spotify - once you've listened to a few artists, it quickly supplies a lot more. It seems to do this much better for synthwave than for many other genres i've listened to!

That said, Gunship and Starcadian are the only synthwave artists i've liked enough to actually get out my wallet for, and i think i heard both of them from recommendations. I probably will for Occam's Laser at some point, who i think i first heard on Spotify.