EPICA - Design Your Universe (Orchestral Album)

Here's my tributte to this wonderful album, 10 years after it's release. Design Your Universe - Orchestral Version.

You can get it for free here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1FbdEOD02hxgMuVvgPNW57xyAcqwArazI

0:10 Samadhi ~ Resign to Surrender
7:46 Unleashed
14:15 Martyr of the Free Word
18:46 Our Destiny
24:40 Kingdom of Heaven
38:37 The Price of Freedom ~ Burn to a Cinder
45:25 Tides of Time
50:58 Deconstruct
55:08 Semblance of Liberty
1:00:41 White Waters
1:05:20 Design Your Universe

It's all been written by ear, mixed by me.

-Resign to Surrender. I've always loved the way Samadhi's main theme is used during the chorus of the song, and I tried to add more epicness to the orchestral.

-Unleashed was a rather difficult one. Not only is the orchestra barely audible, but also the tempo is kinda difficult to find, and to add some more difficulty to it I decided to add the "Duet Version Extended" intro, from the "This is the Time" CDS.

-Marty of the Free Word is not one of my favorites, but it turned out to be a relly cool one (except for the "requiem aeterna" part, which broke my head while trying to decide what to do there). The Violas feature prominently here.

-Our Destiny was an entire surprise. the mid-part of the song turned out very agressive, I just wanted to keep on adding layers upon layers of instruments, while respecting the original song. I really liked this one.

-Kingdom of Heaven. It made me grow and learn a lot about how Epica used the orchestra in this album and it made me realized how many possibilities there are to get a more "fluid, not boring" sound. The small details, those which can be easily left out and even might pass unnoticed, are the ones which ultimately make the song come to life.

-Burn to a Cinder. I don't know why it took me so long to cover this one. Even though the last part, ("why can't I bleed with you...") isn't exactly accurate, as i wrote it completely out of my memories (I was, by that time, really exhausted), the rest turned out cool.

-Tides of Time was created back in 2015 along with fellow musician Rodrigo Tenorio. As soon as he released his piano cover, I thought of adding the orchestra, as writing piano isn't exactly the easiest, nor the funniest thing to do.

-Deconstruct. Several attempts were made to do it, however I always wanted the orchestra to sound way more epic than it actually is. In order to finish this one, I just had to "let go" and treat it as an ordinary song. Those sliding stacattos were, may i dare to say, the most difficult part out of the entire album.

-Semblance of Liberty. I felt that because of it having such little orchestra, it would turn out as a really boring song (I even though of leaving it out of the series). In the end, however, I decided to try and (out of my non-existing creativity) create an entire orchestra background along the original, in order to add more "epicness" to it. I decided to give it a more cinematic approach and use a super agressive orchestra. It's a rather odd experiment, so let me know what you think of it.

-White Waters. I always thougt that an orchestral cover of it would be impossible due to the strangeness of the song overall. In my mind, the backing track for White Waters was mostly percussions and synths, so I decided that I would somehow add the orchestra wherever I could, but I also needed to respect the original song. In the end I really liked it, as for me it sounds kinda ethereal, magical... Very different from what I had in mind, but still cool.

-Design Your Universe. Another one which I had to "let go" and treat it as a regular song. There are a lot of things going on in the back of the song, specially since the "find your balance..." part. I'm not still 100% satisfied with it, as I still think it must be more epic (it's never enough when it comes to this masterpiece). I think some choirs might do the job. As I've always hated a song to end fading out, I added a piano ending to it, pretty much what Coen does live.

The Piano in "Tides of Time" was played by Rodrigo Tenorio. Check out his channel, he's a very young and talented musician - and epican! (I'm still waiting for your "The Piano Principle" cover album ;) www.youtube.com/user/rodras98
He also provided a lot of help with the piano in "The Price of Freedom ~ Burn to a Cinder".

You can follow me on instagram @rdcnrs (not entirely a music profile, but in order to stay in touch)

Please, do not respost or use without the proper credits being given. It's a lot of effort put on these songs.
Enjoy!! And suscribe if you want to see more covers like this.

Видео EPICA - Design Your Universe (Orchestral Album) канала Rodrigo Canchola