How to Replicate Biosphere’s Shenzhou Track Using Loops and a Few Effects

I like Biosphere’s (Geir Jenssen’s) music very much and one of my favorite albums is Shenzhou. The album is made up of repeated looping of Debussy orchestral track samples. The title song is particularly interesting to me as I like the depth and width of the sound. I was able to figure out how to remake it and I’d like to show you how I did that.

Updated 11-July-2023

First, let me say that I am not at all interested in duplicating Biosphere’s work for personal monetary gain. I only want to learn how to make such music and then I would apply it to my own music. Basically, this is not a lesson in how to make cover tunes.

Here is a comparison of the Biosphere track, “Shenzhou,” and my own:

Shenzhou by Biosphere

My Shenzhou attempt

Song Analysis

First, I analyzed Shenzhou, and it was quite easy. It is comprised of a loop from Debussy. This particular loop comes from the Debussy song “Images pour orchestre- III. Rondes de printemps.”

According to WhoSampled.com, this is the track, and they’re correct, but the sound is not coming from the performance they give in their example. I asked them to change it, but they refused, so be aware that WhoSampled is incorrect about that.

The actual version is from “Boulez Conducts Debussy.” Boulez is a superior conductor, and the sound he produces is leaps and bounds above most of the others, so if you can, get anything by Boulez to have outstanding source material to work with. The Cleveland Orchestra is also essential as they are the ones who made this recording with Boulez conducting them.

You can find the loop about 1:17 into the song. Here is a YouTube video of it, and starting at that 1:17 point, you will hear it play the familiar section in Biosphere’s Shenzhou track:

Replication

I bought the CD of Boulez Conducts Debussy and converted all of the tracks to WAV format using Exact Audio Copy.

From there, I pulled the track to my DAW (FL Studio) and cut the loop (using Edison in my case). You could do this in any DAW and audio editor.

This is the loop in Edison, pictured above.

Clicks and pops I removed by properly using Edison, and I have written before about how to do this successfully. Once I had about the right loop (mine is a little off, and I could have fooled around with it to get it exactly right, but that was not my intent), I put it in my DAW as a track and replicated it end-to-end so it would repeat just as it does in the Biosphere track.

I placed a copy of Shenzhou as a WAV file next to my loops in an adjacent DAW track to switch back and forth and compare them.

My series of loops was not normalized and I left the loop as-is, just as it came in from the classical music CD. Visually, you can see the finished track by Biosphere has a much higher amplitude, as it should (being finished, mastered, and all), compared to my loop string.

Playing them both, they sound similar in pitch and cadence, so that was a match. Some items were different. I could hear these things on the Biosphere track when compared to mine:

Amplitude – Biosphere’s was much louder.
Equalization – Biosphere’s track was much louder in the bass region and had some reduced mids and highs. Although I could hear some of the highs really clearly, so it seemed like it was a complex type of equalization involved.
Reverb – there seemed to be additional reverb added in the Biosphere track.
Compression – maybe some, but maybe it was only the equalization making it sound like it.
Saturation – I could detect a bit of saturation in the Biosphere track, but not a lot. This later pointed me toward the Akai S950 sampler that Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) said he really liked due to the filters in it.
Filter sweep – I could hear what sounded like a filter sweeping through the Biosphere track because the sound would become muffled and then canned and then brighter. This sounded like a filter to me. Maybe it was the S950 filter.

This all meant that I needed to line up some effects for my track to make it sound the same as the Biosphere track.

Amplitude

The Biosphere track was louder than mine, and my initial thought was that my sample was not normalized, and maybe the Biosphere one was. I actually found that was not the case because when I normalized my loop, it reduced the dynamics of it.

Instead, I theorized that Geir Jenssen probably recorded this loop using a sampler such as the S950, and in proper sampling, you want to bring a track in at a lower level – usually -12dB is the peak you want on your sampler. I learned this from my Tascam sampler.

Using the same logic, I turned up my track by 12.6 dB, and it came in line with the amplitude of the Biosphere track.

Equalization

First, I applied the FabFilter Pro-Q to my loop track. I used the “EQ Match” feature to first get a profile of Biosphere’s track and then applied the matching algorithm to my own. Wow – what a difference that made! I had to tweak only a few settings to get it close to a perfect match. Here’s what the equalization looked like:

This above looks a lot like a tilt shelf filter (centered around about 230 Hz), so I switched to only that type of filter in Fabfilter Pro-Q and got nearly identical results! Super simple! Plus, I could vary the filter’s magnitude to achieve the same effect as in the original without having to put additional effects on it. Below is what the filter looked like in Fabfilter Pro-Q. Compare it to the one above.

From an interview with Geir Jenssen, I know that his DAW is the Digital Performer from MOTU, so he probably just used a stock equalizer within that DAW. He also said he uses the MOTU Mach3 sampler but may mean the Mach Five version three sampler. But this interview was in 2021, and Shenzhou was made 20 years earlier, so he probably did not use the sampler in the DAW but maybe used the Akai S950 sampler he likes very well.

Reverb

With the sound 90% there from equalization alone, I applied a simple orchestra hall type of reverb. I used a 112 Mikron Reverb (low-cost simple reverb plugin), the stock DAW reverb (no-cost DAW plugin), and a 2C Aether reverb (expensive reverb plugin) – they all sounded the same.

That took the sound exactly in the direction needed, and I was 99% there.

Filter

One last thing would complete the sound, but you must listen to the whole Biosphere Shenzhou track to know it. It is the filter sweep sound that is going on during the whole track. Sometimes the sound gets a muffled sound and then becomes brighter. This sounded like a filter to me.

I read in an article that Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) really likes the Akai S950 sampler for its filter, which sounds so good to him. (source)

“My two favorite instruments in the ’90s were the samplers from Akai S950 followed by S3000. I could use these almost blindly. The lowpass filter on the S950 is so unique that I acquired another S950 on the used market this week. The filters are the most important part of all the instruments for me. I have read a lot about filters lately and found out that Roland SH-5, an analog synth from 1975, should have the best lowpass filter ever. So when this came up for sale on the second-hand market here in Norway recently, I just had to purchase it. Roland has also recreated the SH-5 filter in the Eurorack module SYS-505. That’s why I’ve also invested in Roland’s System 500 Complete Set, a Eurorack version of System 100M from the ’70s. So even though I do not fully master these instruments yet, the SH-5 and System 500 are my favorite instruments at the moment. Otherwise, I just have to say that I can not work with many of the new instruments that have a lot of LEDs. It looks ugly and destroys concentration. System 500 and SH-5 are perfect in that respect and remind me of my old Sony shortwave radio from the ’70s.” – Geir Jenssen (source)
https://headphonecommute.com/2021/01/25/in-the-studio-with-biosphere/

I found an S950 replica in a plugin by Inphonik called the RX950, and in their manual for it they speak of how it has some unique filters in it and how to set it up. I set it to their recommended “Lo-Fi Goodness” setting (from their manual), and it gave the track an even closer representation to the Shenzhou track just by the analog nature this effect provides.

Then, by adjusting the filter downward, I got exactly the type of sound that is that muffled portion in the Biosphere track. I turned the Filter knob from max toward min and settled at about the “39” position to get a near exact match in the corresponding part of the Biosphere Shenzhou track.

I found now that I did not need to move the filter in the equalizer to get the sound I wanted but could do it solely with the RX950. This makes sense, as Geir Jenssen has said in interviews that he likes the Akai S950 sampler.

rx950-user-manual Download

Summary

Record a loop out of some orchestral music (Debussy in this case) using a sampler like the S950. In a DAW, do it like this:
- Cut the loop using a DAW plugin like Edison in FL Studio.
- Amplify it sufficiently using anything in the DAW (faders, volume controls, etc.).
- Modify the sound using an S950 replica plugin in the DAW, like the Inphonik RX950, so you have the analog effect of a sampler and the beautiful S950 filter to play with. Automate the filter effect later to give the track some character and variation.
Apply equalization in a basic way (tilt).
- Use a stock EQ in the DAW as long as you can get the needed 20 dB boost in the lows and cuts in the highs.
Add some simple reverb.
- Use any reverb that can give a hall-type reverberation to the loop.

What I Learned

Doing this little exercise, I learned a lot of things:

It is easy to make a loop-track-based composition and have it sound good (without actual tape or a sampler). The loop was simple, and it took only a few minutes to cut it out in my DAW (not tape) and get it looped well. But I would probably not do this with my music because the sample I used here is not my own, and I don’t want to get in trouble. I did it just for this exercise because the Biosphere track used it, and I needed to do the same to replicate the track to understand how it was done.
You don’t need a lot of effects to make a track like this. Three effects made this track exactly like the original. Simplification is key. Less is more, and all that.
The width, depth, and tone of the track came mainly from the loop material itself and not a lot of effects. This surprised me.
The incredible stereo width of the track came, in part, from the radical equalization – notice how the low tones are emphasized in the EQ curve while the high tones are attenuated. The source material had a lot of high tones, so this radical equalization emphasized the lows and reduced the highs. This made, in effect, a deep “smile curve” on the material – causing the highs and lows both to have a part while the mids were dropped/flat. I see this a lot in Biosphere’s works, and this explains it. It gives a false sense of width to the material without actual stereo widening and is a neat trick. It works because our ears are most sensitive in the mids and less at the highs and lows, so emphasizing the highs and lows with this equalization tricks your brain into thinking the material is wide.
A good equalizer is invaluable, and Fabfilter Pro-Q is amazing. It did 90% of the heavy lifting on this track. The “EQ Match” feature was impressive. It was the first time I used it, and I will again.
A great reverb is invaluable. It finished the track and gave it the airy goodness it needed while not sounding canned or tinny.
Filtering was a finishing touch and made the repetitive looping interesting by changing the tone. It was incredibly easy to achieve this, but it belies the fact that some serious thought had to have gone into the whole track to achieve the desired taste. Where I could just copy the original, it takes considerable effort and artistry to dream all of this up in the first place, and I sincerely respect Biosphere for this magnificent achievement.
The balance of the Biosphere track heavily favored the low end. The whole album does. It is nearly unlistenable in my car (Bose high-end stereo system) as all I can hear is a boominess from every track. So I learned that in my own mastering, it pays to listen to tracks on various different systems (my car included) and to not go too far off balance so listeners can have better experiences. I found this same boominess with deadmau5’s CD, “5 Years of Maus.” It is unlistenable, just like Biosphere’s Shenzhou album, due to too much bass and subsonic frequencies.

Bonus Lesson Learned: I have a new appreciation for Debussy’s music and classical music in general.

Also, copying is the only way to learn:

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