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Android 666

lazyatom wrote: »

i'm enjoying your new tracks Android. nice to see/hear an evolution of ideas from earlier works evolving into more complex tunes.

Fortified Wine is a slick piece of work. nice oldschool feel to it without being too retro.

Onwards Again, Bam Bam and Code Of The Caribou are great too. some cool funky break-out sounds in Bam Bam.

if you don't mind some... uh... advice, i think it is a shame that your levels are a little bit off, imho. some sounds seem to spike uneasily while other more important sounds get a little submerged within the mix. i know you are using Reason (and getting some amazing sounds out of it) but the sooner you incorporate Logic/Ableton/DAWofChoice into your workflow, even just slaving Reason into individual channels, and getting the hang of some basic mastering techniques, your tunes will sound more cohesive and sounds will sit better in the mix.

that said, i hate giving advice. it always feels like backhanded criticism. which is worse than a backhanded compliment.

btw, not too sure about Love The City. i hate tracks that use Siren samples in 'em.

Why would you hate giving advice? The whole reason for me posting here on here is to get wrangle as much advice as I can from everyone here.

You're right about the levels and I know where I'm probably going wrong in that department:
1. Inexperience
2. Choice of DAW
3. Lack of monitors.

I'm starting to look around at different DAWs at the moment and I'm going to get Reaper now to experiment with as I can't really afford anything else at the moment and I don't want to go down the route of cracked software. If any one has any experience of Reaper I'd love to hear what they think about it.

I have a friend who has a home studio so I'm going to try and get a couple of hours in there every six months or so to try and get better mixes down but I want to make sure I have some really decent tracks before I go near him. Monitors are not really an option in terms of cost or space at the moment unfortunately.

The last month or so was trying to work up some tracks that were a bit more cohesive in style which is something I want to continue doing and then the next thing is to trying to work on getting my mixes to a better level. But cheers for taking the time out to listening, commenting and the advice. All greatly appreciated.

Android 666

red dave wrote: »

just had some time to listen to the first two there...
that "blown away" tune i love it

Cheers dave, thanks for listening.

lazyatom

DarkJager wrote: »

Stark Light has a nice spaced out kind of vibe to it (sounds really nice in headphones).

Hangover City has got a nice beat and vibe to it, nice bass and kick there as well before the moody synth kicks in. I like the way it continues to build up over the course of the track.

Amillionandonedreams is nicely mastered and very smooth. Lovely melodic synth there as well.

Nice stuff in there man, will defo be giving a listen to some more of your stuff when I've got time. Interesting mix of styles and all seem to be be mixed quite well.

thanks for the feedback. appreciated.

lazyatom

Android 666 wrote: »

Why would you hate giving advice? The whole reason for me posting here on here is to get wrangle as much advice as I can from everyone here.

yeah, i know, i know... i dunno why. i guess i don't want to say something to upset someone.

(why can't we all just... <smokes spliff>... get along...?)

You're right about the levels and I know where I'm probably going wrong in that department:
1. Inexperience
2. Choice of DAW
3. Lack of monitors.

I'm starting to look around at different DAWs at the moment and I'm going to get Reaper now to experiment with as I can't really afford anything else at the moment and I don't want to go down the route of cracked software. If any one has any experience of Reaper I'd love to hear what they think about it.

honestly, your experience is relative. the standard of construction within your work has improved so dramatically that really, all it is now is a question of getting the mixing right, and that takes a little bit of effort. seriously, my advice would be to get your hands on Ableton. (talk to Barry Dempsey at VirtuStudios. nice bloke and always willing to swing a deal!)

actually, just saw on the Ableton site that there's a version called Ableton Intro available for €99. i'm sure that'd allow you to upgrade to the full thing whenever finances can stretch that far.

there are so many quality Ableton tutorials on YouTube it's like your own free Lynda.com subscription! (automaticgainsay and innerstatejt have taught me a lot, particularly regarding compression and sidechaining)

I have a friend who has a home studio so I'm going to try and get a couple of hours in there every six months or so to try and get better mixes down but I want to make sure I have some really decent tracks before I go near him. Monitors are not really an option in terms of cost or space at the moment unfortunately.

rather than heading in every six months hoping to lay down some mixes ask your mate for one solid day's instruction regarding mastering on a track. ask him to demonstrate compression, limiters, sidechaining, low and high pass filtering and hear how they affect the track. simply spacing each channel within the stereo spectrum offers more sonic space for sounds to mix through. even seeing how someone controls reverb and simple delays on a track can have a profound affect on a mix. that way, once you have an idea of how to go about mastering then when you are in Reason, Ableton Reaper or some other DAW you can do all that whizzbang magickery yourself and never need to go into another studio if you don't want!

i don't have monitors, just decent old JVC speakers. i like setting up my sounds within that space and then when it comes to rendering the final track i use ordinary (cheap) Sennheiser HD202 headphones to fine tune the way the sounds fit. seems to work for me.

lazyatom

krd wrote: »

My production skills may be very poor

But

I make cooler music videos than everybody else


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZrXTNvue0

that is one seriously brilliant piece of music and one seriously wacked out vid! excellent stuff all round.

electrogrimey

lazyatom wrote: »

that's a lovely taster of what's to come. i agree with the advice offered by the lads regarding the mix. things need to be pushed up and sidechained. it's shaping up to be a great tune.

Just finished the track. Let me know guys!

http://soundcloud.com/frankiegrimes/stevestime

krd

red dave wrote: »

i'm not up on the technicalities of eq or mastering myself, but at the end just try to make it sound the way i want it to i guess...

"guerilla shareware"? is it extra mastering plugins like shareware versions of WAVE? i'm using the mixer in FL studio (and Spectrasonics)

There's some Eq'ing stuff I'd like to learn and master. For the minute I don't know. I've experimented - many of my experiments have gone horribly wrong. Even some advice on eq'ing and compression I've heard has said avoid using either as much as possible. It's not a good way to shape sounds - there are sounds where compression is used as an effect; that's different . I'd like to know how to use the spectral analysers in Ableton - I've seen a quick demonstration of eq-ing with analyser but I can't remember the details.

One thing I've learned: For me; the mastering plugins generally don't work. The automation is no replacement for your ears. And there may be other ways and better ways of doing things. Though I haven't tried it, I imagine by using careful volume rides in the automation you can fix things and get them to work better than the mastering tool might. The mastering tools are robots - they might not make the right choices.

I've also found out - other people have been avoiding the mastering tools and using shareware audio editors to get good sounds. You might find you're killing yourself trying something one way that there's another way to do it.

Ableton in itself by itself is incredibly powerful. The basic Ableton has amazing tools before you go anywhere near plugins.

I have monitoring speakers - but I've never plugged them in. One, I'm not ready to use them. Two, I don't want to wreck them. Three, I'm not looking forward to the pain of getting down to seriously working on minute details that will drive me absolutely nuts.

I have heard stuff through the monitors. One thing I'm really aware of - they can make stuff sound deceptively clean. You can get away with fitting a lot more sound than will be possible to hear on ordinary speakers. Like cinema soundtracks - They sound amazing in the cinema on surround with the huge basses and big crunchy whoomp noises. But they don't really sound like anything when you hear them anywhere else.

There's certain sounds I know I will not be able to do until I switch to the monitors.

At them minute I use these crappy speakers that are slightly broken - which is useful - the bass cone starts to crackle if I've gone too far. The monitors would probably let me go too far. I also constantly switch between the speakers and my laptop speakers - you just hear different things - nothing ever sounds good on laptop speakers though - some stuff can; which drives me nuts because I don't know how that works, certain tones work really well on laptop speakers - I try not to use headphones after a few experiences of getting something that sounded great on headphones only turn to muck the second I put it through speakers. Head phones eventually give you a splitting headache.

I need to work out many more techniques. Some of my methods are not very good.

It's really only after a few days when I hear something I've done the off bits start kicking me in the ass. I know it's not a magic tool that's going to fix them. It's that I really need to think about what's wrong and come up with a way to solve the problem.

krd

red dave wrote: »

what a great tune and video. work really excellent with each other... how and where?

There's lots of weird and wonderful stuff on Youtube and the internet in general.

If you type random stuff into Youtube - you'll eventually find some very random things. Every thing from trailers for 70s horror films to Norwegian interpretative dance. Lots of extreme sports stuff - weird stuff in general. Usually weird works very well when you add music to it.

Videos are fun and it's a good way to see your music - it can really make it come alive and make many of the flubs invisible. If I had a better internet connection and some better video editing software I'd make more.

There's a video editing function in Ableton. I haven't used it yet. I don't have the video clips and other things blah blah. But I will use it as it will allow me to cut clips on the beat - which looks really impressive once you get lots of weird stuff together and have it matching.

lazyatom

electrogrimey wrote: »

Just finished the track. Let me know guys!

http://soundcloud.com/frankiegrimes/stevestime

i like it...

some seriously huge sounds in there. my speakers looOOOOove those gated synths. the bass line is so solid i just want to hear more of it. like that part around 3.28... i just want to hear that for most of the track and have the other elements weave through intermittently.

the melody that you have going seems to take over too much for my liking, being honest. especially after that mid-track breakdown.

there's just something about the kick as well. it seems to swing out at you at odd moments. it's great during the 'big sound' sections, but with the melody part it seems to pop out of the track in a strange way. not sure if i dislike the effect, mind you...

solid tune.

electrogrimey

lazyatom wrote: »

i like it...

some seriously huge sounds in there. my speakers looOOOOove those gated synths. the bass line is so solid i just want to hear more of it. like that part around 3.28... i just want to hear that for most of the track and have the other elements weave through intermittently.

the melody that you have going seems to take over too much for my liking, being honest. especially after that mid-track breakdown.

there's just something about the kick as well. it seems to swing out at you at odd moments. it's great during the 'big sound' sections, but with the melody part it seems to pop out of the track in a strange way. not sure if i dislike the effect, mind you...

solid tune.

Now that you mention it I notice that odd kick thing thing. I didn't do anything to make any of the 4 kicks per bar be louder than others so it doesn't make sense to me, unless it's just an effect created by the sidechaining and they aren't actually louder.

You're actually not the first person to say they would have preferred the bassline to be the main melody of the song, but I just don't see what I could have done with the track if it was that way. Hmm.

Neurojazz

electrogrimey wrote: »

You're actually not the first person to say they would have preferred the bassline to be the main melody of the song, but I just don't see what I could have done with the track if it was that way. Hmm.

Have the bassline heavy in the mix, do lots of detail work on the filters, lots of detail work on the drums (keep it simple though!), reduce clutter where possible so the bassline remains the instrument leading people through the track.

You could also use subtle flangers at random points that are slow moving on the basslines to 'weird them out' to peoples ears fooling them into thinking the track has changed.

If you find big things need to change to make things fit - DO IT. Don't skimp!

Check each transition 'crosses over' into each part so you are happy with it... if it doesn't work/lift/drop then deal with it on the spot and don't stop until happy.

Then at least you've done as much as you can with the bassline and drums behind to create a solid backbone.

seannash

electrogrimey wrote: »

Just finished the track. Let me know guys!

http://soundcloud.com/frankiegrimes/stevestime

grimey im gonna be harsh and say its still all over the place,even from a melody perspective its nothing memorable.

anyway the synths are too overowering in the begining,that kind of soft explosion pad sound is totally drowning everything out everytime it hits.

the synth at 1:28 just sounds bad to me both the melody and the sound used for it.

the drums are very weak too
i dont know its a different sort of song from your last one but it seems very messy compared to that.

id honestly go back to basics and concentrate on a nice drum beat and maybe wrangling in that really wide synth bass.

remove the low end from that explosion pad thing,double it and then pan it left and right so as it doesnt mess with whats coming down the middle.

also there seems to be no basic hats.like boom/tsssh/boom/tsssh/boom/tssh to help drive it along

sorry for being harsh dude,just dont want to bull**** you

electrogrimey

seannash wrote: »

grimey im gonna be harsh and say its still all over the place,even from a melody perspective its nothing memorable.

anyway the synths are too overowering in the begining,that kind of soft explosion pad sound is totally drowning everything out everytime it hits.

the synth at 1:28 just sounds bad to me both the melody and the sound used for it.

the drums are very weak too
i dont know its a different sort of song from your last one but it seems very messy compared to that.

id honestly go back to basics and concentrate on a nice drum beat and maybe wrangling in that really wide synth bass.

remove the low end from that explosion pad thing,double it and then pan it left and right so as it doesnt mess with whats coming down the middle.

also there seems to be no basic hats.like boom/tsssh/boom/tsssh/boom/tssh to help drive it along

sorry for being harsh dude,just dont want to bull**** you

Cheers, I actually much prefer people giving real advice than just saying 'yeah, it's great', or whatever. I'd admit it is messy, my first real experiment with synthesis as stuff.

A lot of people have been saying the bass sound is nice and they don't like the lead, so maybe I'll do a dub version or whatever without the lead, make a much deeper track. I just don't listen to a lot of deep house and techno and stuff, so it just never occurred to me to do that when making it.

About the drums, a lot of the stuff I listen to, especially dancehall/baile funk stuff etc doesn't actually have those 2/4 beat hats, it has much bouncier off beat drums, so that's what I was going for. Might go back to it and try it a more tech-house style though.

The explosion pad and the helicopter noises and stuff at the start are moreso I suppose myself being excited about finding out how do that stuff on a soft synth more than musical endeavor, which is in hindsight not the write way to make a track :pac:

lazyatom

i had the very indescribable pleasure of hearing one of my tracks, Ceramic, played in a club last night. a DJ mate dropped it into the mix between Jen Zimmerman's Compression and Kassem Mosse's Untitled B1... awesome.

i just wanted to share that with some folks!




apologies for blowing my own trumpet ...

seannash

lazyatom wrote: »

i had the very indescribable pleasure of hearing one of my tracks, Ceramic, played in a club last night. a DJ mate dropped it into the mix between Jen Zimmerman's Compression and Kassem Mosse's Untitled B1... awesome.

i just wanted to share that with some folks!




apologies for blowing my own trumpet ...

congrats man,its a great buzz hearing your tracks out

electrogrimey

Here's another track I've been working on. It's a bootleg remix of that 90s track Inner City - Good Life.

Let me know what you think.

http://soundcloud.com/frankiegrimes/inner-city-bootleg-mp3

QuestionmarQ

Just putting up some stuff that you can download there-new one everyother week and just called it From The Vaults-
Here is the First one called Butterfly

http://soundcloud.com/questionmarq/questionmarq-butterfly-from-the-vaults

Neurojazz

QuestionmarQ wrote: »

Just putting up some stuff that you can download there-new one everyother week and just called it From The Vaults-
Here is the First one called Butterfly

http://soundcloud.com/questionmarq/questionmarq-butterfly-from-the-vaults

Was the Southern Fried cd a licensed thing? or freebie?

franklyshocked

Here's the final version (well an mp3 on soundcloud) of a track I've been messing with for the last few months.

Rip The Sheets

Thumping stuff

red dave

electrogrimey wrote: »

Here's another track I've been working on. It's a bootleg remix of that 90s track Inner City - Good Life.

Let me know what you think.

http://soundcloud.com/frankiegrimes/inner-city-bootleg-mp3

hey man,

yeah i prefer this one to the other one. i'd put some reverb the sample to give it more life or something and maybe some flangue during the track. when listening, the sample (for me anyways, at the start) sounds a bit separate from the track. the cut in the sample is a bit sudden. (maybe that's intended) a few effects on it and it would bring it more together (i think).

QuestionmarQ

Neurojazz wrote: »

Was the Southern Fried cd a licensed thing? or freebie?

It was a double cd given away free as tool to promote artists from cork.(given to national press,reviewed in hotpress etc- radio stations in both ireland and abroad it was a great idea)

The first cd was more rock-band material and the 2nd more electronica.

Review can be gotten here
http://www.cluas.com/music/albums/southern-fried-2-3337.htm

and more info about acts here http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/southernfried/

electrogrimey

red dave wrote: »

hey man,

yeah i prefer this one to the other one. i'd put some reverb the sample to give it more life or something and maybe some flangue during the track. when listening, the sample (for me anyways, at the start) sounds a bit separate from the track. the cut in the sample is a bit sudden. (maybe that's intended) a few effects on it and it would bring it more together (i think).

To be honest I prefer this one too, even if I haven't spent as long on it.

The vocal sample? I hadn't got round to things like reverbs on tracks, but yeah listening to it now a bit of reverb would be nice on that. Cheers.

Rockshamrover

Hi folks,

If you get a chance, will you have a listen to my latest attempt? It's called The Wrong Way.

Cheers.

http://soundcloud.com/rockshamrover/the-wrong-way

DarkJager

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Hi folks,

If you get a chance, will you have a listen to my latest attempt? It's called The Wrong Way.

Cheers.

http://soundcloud.com/rockshamrover/the-wrong-way

I really like this track man, lovely chilled vibe to it (perhaps its just the buckie but I'm in a relaxed mood now ). Nice sweeping soft synths and a sweet beat to keep it together. Like that dial up tone sound in there as well, something different. Nice work.

DarkJager

New track from me, another trance track. This one is called Defibrillator. Any feedback much appreciated as always

http://soundcloud.com/cloud-10/defibrillator

Rockshamrover

DarkJager wrote: »

I really like this track man, lovely chilled vibe to it (perhaps its just the buckie but I'm in a relaxed mood now ). Nice sweeping soft synths and a sweet beat to keep it together. Like that dial up tone sound in there as well, something different. Nice work.

Cheers Darkjager, my music does have that effect on people (makes them sleepy:D)

Rockshamrover

DarkJager wrote: »

New track from me, another trance track. This one is called Defibrillator. Any feedback much appreciated as always

http://soundcloud.com/cloud-10/defibrillator

Just listened to your track. I'm no expert on this kind of music but I know what I like. I like this. I especially like the drop down section.

The only bit I wasn't crazy about was the way you gradually built up the bass sound from the drop down section. But that's probably the normal way to do this?

The final explosion sound is great.

Cheers.

DarkJager

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Just listened to your track. I'm no expert on this kind of music but I know what I like. I like this. I especially like the drop down section.

The only bit I wasn't crazy about was the way you gradually built up the bass sound from the drop down section. But that's probably the normal way to do this?

The final explosion sound is great.

Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback man. Yeah, normally in trance you try to breakdown and then build back up into the beat. I'm no master at it yet, but the bass buildup helps introduce the kick back into it

dasdog

Carlos Montoya

http://soundcloud.com/dasdog/propoganda-farruca

DarkJager

dasdog wrote: »

Carlos Montoya

http://soundcloud.com/dasdog/propoganda-farruca

Classy track man, liking it! Nice progression, vocal clips are interesting to say the least That guitar part is ****ing classic Great track.