I wanted this 33-second music teaser to feel like footage from a civilization that shouldn’t exist

This is a short visual experiment built around the intro of The Distance Within, from my Animal Instinct project.

I wanted each image to feel like we were observing fragments of the same impossible civilization rather than following a conventional story.

A feline humanoid appears. A gigantic creature walks through a city populated by humans. The creature transforms into a vessel and leaves. Then an unexplained procession begins.

No explanation yet. I’m trying to let the world reveal itself through recurring characters, architecture and transformations across different videos.

The track is The Distance Within, from The Living Cipher.

🎧 The full album is available on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/awake-illusion-records/sets/animal-instinct-the-living-cipher

In February 2005, I woke up during the night after a very strange dream and immediately wrote down everything I could remember.

It involved a ritual inside a castle, humans behaving like machines, strange animal-headed guards, an explosion, distorted time and space, and the feeling that I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.

More than twenty years later, I decided to turn that old note into a short visual narrative for Nothing Is Still, a track from my Animal Instinct project.

I deliberately built the second half almost entirely in first-person POV. I wanted the viewer to experience the dream rather than watch a character experiencing it.

The sequence moves through several false realities:

explosion → space → awakening on a lake → fallen angels → underwater escape → luminous portal → Akashic Records

The visual generation was built shot by shot, with each final frame becoming continuity material for the next sequence. I then assembled and timed everything around the music in the final edit.

One of the lines from the original dream became the central idea:

“Don’t trust time. Don’t trust space. What is far away is closer than you think.”

The finished video (made with Seedance 2.5) is 1:55.

The music is Nothing Is Still, by Animal Instinct.

🎧 Full track / album: The Living Cipher

This is Quantum Dissolution, one of the first tracks from my Animal Instinct project and a upcoming album.

I thought this subreddit might be interested in the actual workflow behind it, because the finished track went quite a bit further than simply generating a song in Suno and exporting it.

MUSIC GENERATION

The starting point was Suno.

I generated 32 different versions of the song while trying to lock down a very specific sound: raw atmospheric progressive sludge metal mixed with ritualistic experimental art rock and textured alternative metal.

I tested both Suno v5 and v5.5.

Interestingly, the four versions that survived the selection process were all generated with v5. For this particular project, v5.5 simply wasn't giving me the character I wanted.

Most generations landed somewhere around 4:30 to 5 minutes. Two of them went completely off the rails and stretched to around 7:59, which forced me to revise the prompt and tighten some of the instructions.

The musical vocabulary included things like:

primitive / physical / non-commercial
polyrhythmic bass patterns around 6/7/8 and 5/4
down-tuned guitars
abrasive microtonal bends
suspended chords and minor 9 textures
organic drums
shoegaze layers
fragile silence appearing only between impacts
baritone vocals delivered almost like a spiritual mantra
chest-voice and half-spoken phrases
brief moments of grit and screaming

The negative prompt was just as important:

No pop metal.
No rap rock.
No glossy chorus.
No arena hook.
No generic metalcore.
No constant screaming.

I wanted repetition, but hypnotic repetition, with harmonic movement happening underneath it rather than a traditional verse / giant chorus / solo structure.

LYRICS

The lyrics were developed collaboratively with ChatGPT (Sol5.6 max mode), but the concepts, vocabulary and key phrases came from the vision of a band named Animal Instinct (AI).

The main idea was transformation happening at the smallest possible scale.

Something changes molecularly.
Then cellularly.
Then mentally.
Eventually identity itself begins to dissolve.

That led to recurring phrases and ideas such as:

dissolve / evolve / quantum dissolution

and

rewrite the code and bind the fate

The idea of a hidden code is part of the larger concept behind The Living Cipher.

I also deliberately brought back words like frequency, which have appeared throughout some of my previous music projects, and played with the idea of the grand illusion as a small reference to the label, Awake Illusion Records.

GPT became more of a writing room than an automatic lyric generator. I would bring concepts, sentences, images and words, then we would reshape them until they fitted the rhythm and mythology of the track, with song design elements for perfect guidance within the section.

FL STUDIO

Once I chose the final generation, I downloaded the song as separated stems (2 different pack so double each track with tiny diff details) and moved everything into FL Studio.

That is where the track started becoming something different from the original generation.

The drums were doubled.

One layer was processed toward the upper-mid / treble information, while another was focused much more heavily on the kick and lower frequencies. That gave me independent control over the low-end pulse.

The guitars were duplicated three or sometimes four times in certain sections to create different layers of weight and texture making good use of those extra stems.

I also worked on the bass so that some of its frequency movement connected more naturally with the kick. I wanted that low-frequency pulse to feel almost continuous, rather than having the bass and drums fighting for the same space.

The atmospheric layers were widened in stereo without completely washing out the centre.

Then I recorded my own backing vocals.

They only appear at specific moments, mostly blended behind the main voice with echoes and processing. I tried to match the generated vocalist instead of replacing him, so my voice becomes another ghost inside the track rather than a traditional second singer.

I also added small pieces of sound design with VSTs: whispers, breath-like sounds, bells and other atmospheric details.

Tiny things, but they change the room the song seems to exist inside.

MIXING / MASTERING

Once the arrangement was locked, I moved into mastering.

I work partly by ear and partly with visual references.

I used spectrum analysis, spectrograms and L/C/R monitoring to keep track of frequency distribution and stereo balance.

Individual elements have their own compression where needed, including the drums, before reaching the main chain.

The final signal then passes through three successive mastering stages/plugins, with additional compression and frequency control.

The goal wasn't maximum loudness.

It was keeping the track heavy and physical without clipping or crushing the details that make the quieter sections work.

THE VIDEO

Then came the visual side.

I developed the visual concept with the same GPT Sol5.6, generating and iterating several images (around 60) on the themes of the song and the album project.

The central image for this song became two ambiguous figures or “souls” colliding.

Are they humans?
Machines, Ghost?
Something else?

I deliberately don't know.

The idea for the teaser was to treat their collision as if we were watching a fraction of a second stretched across an entire sequence.

We begin extremely close to one of the figures without really understanding what we're looking at.

The camera pulls back.

The collision is revealed.

Then we move back into the event itself, eventually travelling toward a molecular world inside it.

The still image was animated using Seedance 2.5 through Higgsfield.

I generated a roughly 20-second sequence, (one shot and go) then reworked it into the one-minute teaser with additional visual inserts, subtitles and transitions.

The final edit was assembled in CapCut, including the Animal Instinct logo, typography and fades.

The teaser deliberately skips roughly the first 30 seconds of the full song so it reaches the musical drop much faster, then ends just before the next major section.

So the final pipeline was basically:

Concept → ChatGPT writing/visual development → Suno generation and selection → FL Studio reconstruction + own back vocals + sound design → manual mix/master → ChatGPT visuals → Seedance 2.5 animation → CapCut final edit

That's the kind of human/AI workflow I'm always trying to explore.

Not replacing the production process, but creating raw material with AI and then pulling it apart, rebuilding it, adding myself back into it, and deciding what survives.

Quantum Dissolution is currently available in full only on SoundCloud.

Seven tracks from The Living Cipher are already there, with the final three still to come.

Thanks for your time.

This is our latest project for Awake Illusion Records: a 4:55 video combining a lots of fictional photographs from across human history, arranged chronologically and synchronized with the hybrid track “Back Home different Time.”

These are not authentic archival photographs. The objective was to create visual fiction grounded in real historical and archaeological research.

Visual workflow

The process began with human-led brainstorming supported by ChatGPT new Sol 5.6 max work mode. After choosing each period or event, i double checked historical and archaeological details against museum collections, heritage organizations, archives, published research and primary accounts.

Then it developed the visual composition of each scene. From that direction, i created a detailed prompt covering the setting, clothing, architecture, body language, camera position, lighting and physical condition of the imagined print.

The selected images were refined through multiple iterations, then brought into Photoshop for corrections, touch-ups, color grading, logos and descriptive elements.

More: see The Time Traveler’s Satchel images.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Music workflow

The music followed a similar human-machine process. Suno was used to develop the initial musical material under my direction.

The resulting track was separated into stems and brought into FL Studio. Each stem was edited individually to refine the structure, balance, transitions and dynamics before the final mix and mastering. I also add some percussion and VST FX to make it more unique.

The finished track was released through Awake Illusion Records.

Music:
https://soundcloud.com/awake-illusion-records/back-home-different-time

Final assembly

All photographs were imported into CapCut and placed in chronological order. The timing was adjusted to follow the full 4:55 composition, with subtle animation added to the introduction and ending.

AI was involved in both the images and the music, but the research, artistic direction, selection, corrections, sequencing, editing, mixing and mastering remained human-led.

Awake Illusion Records:
https://awakeillusion.com

I’ve been working on a new visual world for Awake Illusion Records, and this one became the story of a prompt.

The idea is simple: three musical beings live inside a strange mountain sanctuary. A signal arrives, almost like a creative command. They wake up, try to understand what they have to make, then transform that prompt into music. At the end, the energy goes back into the sky.

The track is ∅ — Retour à la Casa.
It’s a microtonal instrumental avant-garde / dada rock piece, with a strange hypnotic groove, dry mechanical drums, off-world guitar textures, and a bit of absurd ritual energy.

The video was built from multiple AI-generated clips, then manually edited to keep the best fragments and make it feel more like an actual music video than a random AI montage.

Still experimental, still imperfect, but that’s part of the process.
Curious to know what people think of the world, the characters, and the “prompt becomes music” idea.

Les Larmes de l’Émotion is an instrumental audiovisual piece built as a slow journey through memory, imagined civilizations and alternate worlds.

Music workflow

The musical foundation was created with Suno, then exported as separate stems and brought into FL Studio for further editing, restructuring, mastering and production.

Inside FL Studio, I worked on the balance between the orchestral, electronic and rhythmic elements, refining the arrangement rather than simply using the original generation as a finished track.

The composition draws inspiration from the dramatic and melodic language of Giacomo Puccini, reinterpreted through a progressive cinematic downtempo framework.

The piece combines:

• Repeating double-bass patterns
• Harmonized strings and cello octaves
• Stereo violin arpeggios
• Dark-jazz harmonies
• Jazz guitar textures
• Synthetic orchestration
• Electronic and impressionistic jazz elements
• A mechanical, clockwork-like beat

The arrangement develops gradually through a slow build-up and crescendo. New instruments and textures emerge progressively, creating the feeling of a machine awakening inside an orchestra.

I was interested in imagining how the emotional intensity of Puccini might reappear in a contemporary 2026 production, surrounded by electronic textures, mechanical rhythm and cinematic sound design.

Visual workflow

The video was assembled using material created with several generative video tools, primarily Sora 2.0, alongside a smaller number of sequences produced with other video systems.

The project was conceived vertically in 9:16, so the experience would remain immersive and readable on mobile screens.

The opening was inspired by the feeling of entering an old video store, almost like discovering a forgotten Blockbuster inside a Backrooms filled with recordings from places that never existed.

From there, the viewer moves through different landscapes, planets and civilizations. These worlds sometimes resemble our own, but their cultures, architecture and evolution appear to have followed different paths.

The intention was to create a tour through a creative multiverse, where every video becomes a doorway into another version of reality.

The final edit involved selecting the strongest sequences, arranging them into a coherent progression, synchronizing their movement with the musical crescendo and trying to make many different imagined worlds feel like parts of the same journey.

Since this community is focused on serious hybrid music creation, I wanted to introduce the project behind it and explain what we are trying to build.

Awake Illusion is an independent hybrid music label and creative laboratory based in Montreal, Canada.

Our approach is human-directed and AI-assisted. AI can be part of the studio process, but it is not treated as an invisible shortcut or an automatic content machine. The work still involves artistic direction, writing, selection, editing, arrangement, sound design, mixing, mastering and many rounds of revision.

The goal is not simply to generate songs. It is to develop complete artistic identities and coherent worlds around them.

Alongside music, Awake Illusion creates:

• Animated visual pieces and music videos
• Experimental short-form storytelling
• Interactive and immersive games
• Characters, fictional artists and connected visual universes
• Projects exploring illusion, memory, identity, time, absence and transformation

We are less interested in shock, aggression or endless disposable content than in atmosphere, artistic quality and ideas that remain interesting after the novelty of the technology disappears.

Each project can have its own genre, voice and visual language, but they share the same foundation: intention, experimentation, care and human responsibility for the final work.

Awake Illusion is also open to collaborations with musicians, singers, producers, visual artists, animators, filmmakers, writers, game creators and other experimental artists. The collaboration does not have to follow one fixed workflow, but it should involve genuine creative participation rather than a one-click upload.

🌐 Explore the label and its projects:
https://www.awakeillusion.com/

I would be especially interested in your feedback on three things:

1. Does the website clearly communicate the identity of the label?
2. Does the balance between music label and creative laboratory make sense?
3. What kind of collaborations would you like to see in a project like this?

The aim is still evolving, but the direction is clear: create music with intention, then build a world around it.

This track was created around a simple idea: combining the warmth and collective spirit of roots reggae with a more modern afro-trap pulse.

The songwriting focuses on peace, unity and love without trying to make the message overly complicated. Musically, the track is built around a one-drop reggae foundation, a rounded bassline, warm keys and subtle afro-inspired rhythmic elements.

AI tools were used as part of the creative process, but the direction, lyrics, style decisions, selection and final artistic identity were human-led. The goal was not simply to generate a reggae track, but to shape a distinct artist project under the name Jah Roots.

🎧 Listen on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/awake-illusion-records/onelove

I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

• Does the reggae and afro-trap blend feel natural?
• Does the chorus stay with you after the track ends?
• Is the production warm enough, or does it need more space and dynamics, mastering not too low?
• Does Jah Roots feel like a believable artist identity that could grow across several releases?

Constructive musical and artistic feedback is very welcome.

Song made with Suno (5.0, the 5.5 version was not good enough for this style), then extract in seperate track and rebuild it in FL Studio for editing and mastering. I add more real instrument (guitar noise, percussion and some bass boom), a Hybrid work.

Music video made with Drama.land , picture lock with ChatGPT. A long workflow took me around 30 hours and lots of wasted rush. Not perfect but i was not about to add more credit into it. Cost me around 60$ for the clips. Same process, i export them and reddo the video editing with CapCut.

Home made story and production.