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MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Is there a good free hosting service for .wav files other than Soundcloud, or will I most likely need to convert to mp3 to find a host? I'm not really ready to share my music with the world on Soundcloud but would like some feedback to see if I am on the right track.

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sea of losers
Jun 6, 2007

miy mwoiultlh tbreaptpreude ifno srteavtiecr more
you can use private links on soundcloud

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Picosong is ok too for mp3s.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Thanks guys.

Also, I have found that I am absolutely terrible at writing and creating basslines for my tracks. My problems include but are not limited to:

-Bass is either too loud and redlining or too low with no character or punch
-Frequent pops and clicks when using soft synths like Serum. I am sure this is my fault but I have tried a lot of the normal methods (attack, release, global settings)
-Bassline doesn't sit well with rest of track (sometimes this is a musical thing which is hard to teach but some is production)
-General lack of tutorials for creating basslines that are NOT wobbles, growls, future bass, and trap

Any good bass sound design tutorials you would recommend to start with?

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




Honestly, a big eye opener for me was how simple bass sounds can be. A square wave with an envelope attached to a low pass filter works for pretty much everything.

As far as redlining and clicking, compression is going to be the make or break a bassline. There's a lot of talk about clicking online, so you might be best just searching 'bass clicking compressor' as there's more words out there than I'll be able to write you.

'Character' for a bassline is usually about musicality than design, in my opinion. If you consider like, ragga music, the bass is basically just the simplest sound, just programmed in a moving, charming way. For EDM stuff, I normally would pick form the chords being played above and add rhythm where I can. Bass usually needs to be present, but doesn't always have to be the centrepiece of the tune, depending on genre.

Check out some of Calvin Harris' music for an example of basslines which are lacking character, but serviceable. I honestly think he's an amazing producer, but the basslines he uses are often super uninteresting and samey - it doesn't ruin the track at all, but it goes to show that simple works sometimes.

Overall, practice practice practice and just be aware that programming in crazy neuro bass isn't always necessary for every genre (unless you are Feed Me).

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Thanks a lot for the advice, definitely going to look more into compression and basslines to help with the clicks and pops. I happen to listen to a lot of EDM, both mainstream stuff and less-known stuff so I have an idea of the sound I am going for, its just the execution where I seem to fail.

I think one other thing I have found is that when I listen to a full track, it is sometimes difficult for me to separate the bassline out from the rest of the track and hear it as if it were being soloed. When I have watched some tutorials of how producers have created their basslines, I have been shocked to hear what the bassline sounds like on its own because a lot of the time, as you mention, it sounds really really simple, but the way it fits into the track makes it interesting.

Your advice of keeping things simple is something I have to remind myself of when writing anything. Some of my best ideas have come from starting with a really simple tune and refining it from there.

One other question I have is regarding stereo imaging. I have been doing some research on how to give tracks a wider stereo presence and have heard a lot of different advice, sometimes conflicting. I would like to know the preferred or correct way to place individual tracks in specific places on the stereo spectrum. For tracks like Toms, Hats, and FX that should not be dead center, is it really as simple as panning the individual track to the right or left? Are there any free plugins or tools that can help me to visualize a track's stereo image?

Edit: Also Feed Me is one of my idols when it comes to sound design and production but I am definitely not attempting to mimic his style.

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Dec 8, 2016

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




There's stuff like bx_solo or stereotouch, but I haven't used either. Waves and Izotope both have paid stereo tools, I'm sure there's dozens out there.

Usually everything bar the kick & bass is panned to some extent - even snares are often offset (or even mirrored but off-centre, like one at 10L, one at 10R). Toms are often panned wide - think about Phil Collins when programming your toms in. Wide as gently caress is probably how you want it to be.

For synths, look into mid/side processing and layering them. A lot of sound design relies on a few sounds working together with different stereo 'shapes' or 'profiles' to give the illusion of width and fullness.

And yeah, Feed Me is amazing from a sound design + arrangement perspective. Definitely one of the most interesting producers working. Even so, a lot of his chords and stuff are just square waves with some fancy processing. I think it's Green Bottle where the chords are basically just square > reverb, but the arrangement is interesting enough that it all works and sounds amazing.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Thanks a lot for the help, this gives me some things to look into and experiment with when I get home. I feel like I am close to having a version I feel comfortably posting here for feedback.

zeldadude
Nov 24, 2004

OH SNAP!
How do I get my music out to more people? I've been uploading semi regularly on my soundcloud for a while now but I still only have ~115 followers. I've posted some songs on a few future bass reddits but it doesn't seem to draw many clicks. Any advice?

Here's my latest song if anyone feels like giving feedback:

https://soundcloud.com/atreyugraham/jujubes

Edit: I appear to have killed this thread. Not sure why but it seems like every time I post in here the thread just.. dies for a couple weeks. Sorry I guess :(

zeldadude fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Dec 21, 2016

baby puzzle
Jun 3, 2011

I'll Sequence your Storm.
I bought this song a while ago, but due to technical problems I got my money back for it, but it still belongs to me.

However.. Does this sound familiar to anybody??? I'm not super into recent EDM but this just sounds familiar. I'm worried it might be a copy of some other track. https://soundcloud.com/lermdeml/chos-excerpt2

I don't want to use it if it's a rip off of something else. e: I'm using it in a video game. I'm not releasing it as something I created myself.

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




zeldadude posted:

How do I get my music out to more people? I've been uploading semi regularly on my soundcloud for a while now but I still only have ~115 followers. I've posted some songs on a few future bass reddits but it doesn't seem to draw many clicks. Any advice?

Here's my latest song if anyone feels like giving feedback:

https://soundcloud.com/atreyugraham/jujubes

Edit: I appear to have killed this thread. Not sure why but it seems like every time I post in here the thread just.. dies for a couple weeks. Sorry I guess :(

I feel the same! It's a very shy thread. I followed you on SC just now, I really dig the vibe. You've definitely nailed the candy-coated Future Bass sound.


baby puzzle posted:

I bought this song a while ago, but due to technical problems I got my money back for it, but it still belongs to me.


Whadda ya mean bought? Like, a ghost production deal or?

baby puzzle
Jun 3, 2011

I'll Sequence your Storm.
Yes ghost produced.

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




It sounds like a bad martin garrix / generic bigroom banger song. doesn't strike me as a total copy of anything I've heard. Why ghost producers? What's your story?

baby puzzle
Jun 3, 2011

I'll Sequence your Storm.
Because I need music for a project, and ghost produced tracks are just easier to come by and always have full complete stems. I am also licencing tracks from people normally, but it is much harder to find music that way and not everybody wants to license their music for whatever reason.

Mister Speaker
May 8, 2007

WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR
I'm going to dive back into songwriting whole-hog this coming year. I've been putting it off for too long and I have all the loving gear I'll ever need so it's About loving Time to start again.

Natch, I have some questions to get me started down the right path. Actually, just one question - I was going to ask about "resampling" and for some tips to find a workflow and know when to actually do the resampling, buuut I thought back and I've literally asked that same question with different levels of frustration at least once a year either here or on DOA or something. So for that, I'm just going to find myself in experimentation. Wow, deep bro.

What I really wanted to ask since it's so important to D&B: A lot of producers I've talked to, almost everyone, says that the way to start a bassline is from the ground up, with the sub. Bus it to different distortions or add highpassed midrange elements on top - bam, neurofunk. What I'm wondering is what sort of sub characteristic is a good template to start from? Just a straight sine with zero amp envelope? Or would you dial in something with a slight amp envelope to it and play around the kicks? Do you go full-blown 'Long 808'? What about glide/portamento?

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
I'll normally use some horrific unison saw/square for the midrange part of the bass, split it as you said and underpin that with a duplicated midi sine. If I'm sidechaining i buss it all together.

A multiband distortion is your friend, Fabfilter Saturn is my favourite.

Just experiment with basic waves processed to hell and back. Long 808s run through the same chain here and there can add interest.

With resampling I'll play a note for 2 bars (lets say G) and bounce it with LFOS set to 1/4, 1/8, 1/12 and 1/16 on the filter cutoff. Each of these notes I will then assign to an octave in Kontakt (or whatever sampler) so when I play up and down the keyboard it stays within those bass boundaries but can quickly add in a faster wub just by pressing a higher key. Its similar to lfo automation but has a different character to it.

Mister Speaker
May 8, 2007

WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR
Nice, so you sometimes don't actually start with the sub, but go for some midrange grit (with detuned waves and filter automation etc.) and then add the sub in and filter/compress everything together afterwards? I was wondering if this was a common technique actually, because sometimes it's just so tempting to immediately gently caress with a reese sound.

Cool tips on the resampling, too, thanks. I was more curious about the effect chains at each pass but that's sort of a thing of the past with how powerful softsynths are these days. Maybe I'm just Bad at Synthesis, because I find it really hard to coax real dirty sounds out of my Virus - other than the obvious, detuned waves and wavetable stuff.

That's neat though, using octaves as different LFO subdivisions. One thing I gleaned from some video tutorials is to just spit out a big reese with all sorts of movement in it, load that into a sampler and tweak the start/end points to find little interesting expressions and make a phrase out of them. It's time-consuming though, and Ableton's Sampler (while it has an awesome morph filter) starts to make everything sound the same. I'd also like to learn more about granular sampling as I understand playing with the 'grain' or 'spread' setting can add crunchiness to sounds.

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
Separate subs just means more control for me. Also its nice to just have the midrange for a bar or two and slam the bass back in.

Resampling is one of those things you can get as deep or as shallow as you want, just dick around, something cool will crop up, especially if you mess with loop points.

https://youtu.be/dFnyGOH-C18

This video may be of use (is it a TI you have?)

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
I have some gift cards and money from Christmas that is burning a hole in my pocket and I want to spend it wisely. I have all of your standard gear/software including:

-Scarlett 2i2
-KRK Rokits
-Microphone
-Keyboard
-Ableton Live Suite
-Serum

For my next purchase, I could go one of two routes and need some thoughts. My ultimate goal is for the purchase to facilitate and enhance my production. I write my own music as well but wouldn't really call myself a musician. The two options are the Push 2 or the FabFilter Pro Package.

Based on feedback from others, the Push 2 seems like an incredible extension for Ableton Live. The seamless integration, step sequencer, physical knobs, and pleasing interface make it really attractive. The only thing holding me back is that I am not sure it will really help as a beginner/intermediate producer. Please correct me if I am wrong but it feels like the Push 2 might be more suitable for a more advanced user looking to streamline his process vs. a newer producer who hasn't even released a single track yet (although I think I am close to sharing something I have been working on here).

The FabFilter Pro Package caught my eye after watching the Deadmau5 MasterClass as he uses a lot of the Pro-Plugins for his EQing, Mixing, and Mastering. What I really noticed were the visuals within those plugins. For the Pro-L (Limiter), it really shows you how much limiting is happening as you adjust the threshhold. But I am wondering if these plugins are more "nice to haves" and Ableton's stock EQ8, Limiter, and Compressor are more than adequate at this point.

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Dec 28, 2016

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
I for one love the Fabfilter stuff, its so useable, and the eq matching features in Pro Q2 are really handy. The consistency between the interfaces is a big plus too.

TheWevel
Apr 14, 2002
Send Help; Trapped in Stupid Factory
I'd recommend the FabFilter pack too. The EQ8 and compressors in Ableton are passable but the advanced features and sound quality of the FabFilter stuff is worth it. The Ableton limiter is garbage.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


Does anybody know of a good guide on how to mix and EQ audio? I've got a track that I'm about 80% satisfied with in Cubase but I want to put some finishing touches on it before I throw it on Soundcloud.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Vargatron posted:

Does anybody know of a good guide on how to mix and EQ audio? I've got a track that I'm about 80% satisfied with in Cubase but I want to put some finishing touches on it before I throw it on Soundcloud.

Mixing and EQing are such broad topics that its going to be hard to recommend a guide that will help you finish your specific track. For Mixing, you are going to want to learn techniques like gain staging, bussing, compression, limiting, panning, stereo imaging, and a bunch of other little things to get the most out of your mix. EQing is different for every single track in your mix so I am not sure what sort of tips you are looking for.

One little mixing tip that I have found really useful as I build a track is to not go above -6dB for any individual track in the mix to allow enough headroom for the master channel. Obviously this doesn't mean you should peg everything at -6dB or you can never go above that, but its a great guideline.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


MrSargent posted:

Mixing and EQing are such broad topics that its going to be hard to recommend a guide that will help you finish your specific track. For Mixing, you are going to want to learn techniques like gain staging, bussing, compression, limiting, panning, stereo imaging, and a bunch of other little things to get the most out of your mix. EQing is different for every single track in your mix so I am not sure what sort of tips you are looking for.

One little mixing tip that I have found really useful as I build a track is to not go above -6dB for any individual track in the mix to allow enough headroom for the master channel. Obviously this doesn't mean you should peg everything at -6dB or you can never go above that, but its a great guideline.

I guess I'm looking for more of an understanding as to the purpose of EQ and sort of the "best practices" for mixing. To me it sounds like it's pretty subjective and up to the producer but I would like to have some base level of understanding instead of just twisting knobs at random.

I'll see if I can find some information about the different aspects of mixing you noted above. I haven't even heard most of those terms yet.

xzzy
Mar 5, 2009

While you're reading up on it, I also suggest you do some simple listen tests. If it sounds good in the car, your headphones, and your living room.. you probably did a good enough job.

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
Whats your monitoring situation like?
I love my new(ish) monitors but they only go down to 50hz so sometimes a listen through headphones will reveal a bunch of bass hum i wasn't expecting.

Whilst mixing should be done with ears, not eyes, running your track through a spectrograph (like Voxengo's Span which is free, or even just looking at the eq section of your master out) can reveal if there's any weird peaks in there. As a -very very very do-not-take-this-as-gospel- general guide, you want it looking something like a plateau with a small dip around the middle. As stated, this is not the case for everything but if its one long flat line then it'll more likely sound 'wrong'.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


NonzeroCircle posted:

Whats your monitoring situation like?
I love my new(ish) monitors but they only go down to 50hz so sometimes a listen through headphones will reveal a bunch of bass hum i wasn't expecting.

Whilst mixing should be done with ears, not eyes, running your track through a spectrograph (like Voxengo's Span which is free, or even just looking at the eq section of your master out) can reveal if there's any weird peaks in there. As a -very very very do-not-take-this-as-gospel- general guide, you want it looking something like a plateau with a small dip around the middle. As stated, this is not the case for everything but if its one long flat line then it'll more likely sound 'wrong'.

I've got a pair of M-Audio monitors that I'm using but I'll need to get the exact model number when I get home. I think they were on the lower end of the price spectrum and I bought them used.

I did notice a lot of bass when I listened to the track with on my regular PC with a subwoofer. Like more bass than I expected. I probably just need to turn down the sub though.

Would anybody want to listen to the WIP of the track I'm working on for reference/input?

NonzeroCircle
Apr 12, 2010

El Camino
Post it dude, you can do a private link on soundcloud so only people in this thread can find it if you aren't ready to put it out in the open yet.

It may be an idea to do a bit of reading on monitoring too, sub crossover frequencies etc so you aren't doubling up your bass.

Another general rule of eq is its normally better to cut frequencies than boost: If, for example, your bass and a piano are clashing, cut the frequency area on one and it'll give the other more space to breathe.

Watch a few videos on youtube for genres/producers you like- eqing a DnB track is likely going to have different focuses than say, funky house.

Use reference tracks, put a tune you like in your project, listen to it and then play your track and see where it sounds different. This is also a good way to learn the ins and outs of structuring a tune.

Basically though, if it sounds good, it is good and mixing takes practice. Even listening to stuff i did a year ago my music sounds 'better' now as I've learned and practiced.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Definitely agree with everything NonzeroCircle mentioned, especially listening to your track through multiple sources. I have been at a point where I thought my mix was decent on my KRK Monitors, but as soon as I listened to it in the car, it was abundantly clear that the kick was too loud. Now while I should probably have been able to tell this from my normal monitors, the car stereo made it obvious for my untrained ears.

I wanted to add a few things I have picked up since I just recently started out on music production and these helped me a lot.

EQ
You want to pay special attention to your low end frequencies as these are usually the biggest offenders for muddy mixes. In my Ableton Template, I put an EQ8 with a LP24 filter on most tracks to start off, just to completely cut out the sub frequencies. The only track where I don't cut these out are my Sub Bass track and sometimes my Kick drum.

Don't neglect the high end frequencies either as sometimes big leads can put out some really high frequencies that can eventually materialize as artifacts when mixing. Don't be afraid to cut off everything above a certain frequency.

Sidechain Compression
This is probably one of the most important techniques in dance music production. This is the technique that gives that pumping effect while also letting the kick punch through the mix. I am not too familiar with how this is done in Cubase but essentially you add a Compressor to a specific track, let's say the bass. If you want the bass to sit nicely with the Kick, you can usually select a Sidechain Option on the Compressor and select an Input (Kick). Then it is just a matter of adjusting the threshold until you get the right amount of pump. What this is doing is telling the compressor that every time the Kick hits, duck out the Bass for a fraction of a second so the kick punches through followed by the bass.

Compression (non sidechain) can also help a lot to tighten up groups of instruments. I really like grouping (or bussing) all of my percussion and then throwing a Compressor on it to balance/tighten up the group. This helps it not sound like a different person is playing each individual percussion hit.

Limiting
Limiting is something I knew very little about until recently when I was watching deadmau5's MasterClass. He talks a decent amount about limiting and how to use limiters to give your tracks a volume boost. Essentially, a limiter lets you set a threshold (let's say -6dB) and will not allow sound to go above that volume. At the same time, you can boost the Gain on the limiter to bring out some of the quieter sounds while not going above threshold. This is definitely a thing you will have to train your ear on because if you push the gain too high, you will start to hear digital distortion (bad).

Hopefully some of these tips give you some ideas and don't hesitate to ask any questions and/or share your work in progress here.

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jan 4, 2017

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


Here's a Soundcloud link:

https://soundcloud.com/user-260658691/the-start-of-your-journey-wip/s-u3BUP

I've still got some work to add on the drum programming and varying the melody a bit more on repeats, but I think I have a decent foundation.

To me it sounds a bit muddy and I want to make the mix a bit fuller, so I may add some instruments or get the mix adjusted. I also haven't done any stereo panning so that will be the next task on my list.

All that being said, I'm feeling pretty good about it since it's basically a track I made to learn how to use Cubase.

Thanks for all the feedback and tips on EQ. It sounds like it's one of those "learn by doing" things.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Vargatron posted:

Here's a Soundcloud link:

https://soundcloud.com/user-260658691/the-start-of-your-journey-wip/s-u3BUP

I've still got some work to add on the drum programming and varying the melody a bit more on repeats, but I think I have a decent foundation.

To me it sounds a bit muddy and I want to make the mix a bit fuller, so I may add some instruments or get the mix adjusted. I also haven't done any stereo panning so that will be the next task on my list.

All that being said, I'm feeling pretty good about it since it's basically a track I made to learn how to use Cubase.

Thanks for all the feedback and tips on EQ. It sounds like it's one of those "learn by doing" things.

For a first track getting to know the software this is a good start dude! Here are a couple things I noticed that may help.

-The percussion levels overall are too low. You have a cool percussion beat but its too dialed back for dance music in my opinion. The Kick should generally (not always) be the loudest part of your mix and its pretty subtle here.

-As you mentioned, you haven't done any stereo panning and as such, the track sounds very "in the center" to me. The opening chords (strings) could be widened out to improve the stereo image as well. A neat trick for doing this is to duplicate the track and pan one hard left and the other hard right.

-Side-chaining your chords, leads, and bass to your Kick should help with the clarity and the overall presence of the Kick. Also make sure you don't have sub frequencies (usually in the kick and bass) competing with each other.

I'll try to take a listen on my monitors when I get home and see if I notice anything else.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


Thanks man, I'll do some work on the track with your suggestions this weekend and see what I can come up with.

I checked and I have M-Audio AV 40 monitors. Probably not top end but they're good enough to get me started. I'm also looking for some good headphones to get a sense of the sound levels better.

I'm not sure what genre I make stuff in but my main goal is to do chiptune or video game music type stuff. I'd like to get into Vaporwave or Future Funk at some point but sampling will be a whole other rabbit hole to go down.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Vargatron posted:

Thanks man, I'll do some work on the track with your suggestions this weekend and see what I can come up with.

I checked and I have M-Audio AV 40 monitors. Probably not top end but they're good enough to get me started. I'm also looking for some good headphones to get a sense of the sound levels better.

I'm not sure what genre I make stuff in but my main goal is to do chiptune or video game music type stuff. I'd like to get into Vaporwave or Future Funk at some point but sampling will be a whole other rabbit hole to go down.

Anytime dude! Looking forward to hearing your progress. You have given me the confidence to post a WIP here for some feedback as well, just need to export to audio and post to SC when I get home.

Also, I wouldn't worry about getting "good" headphones for the purpose of monitoring. You are much better off using earbuds if you just want to have a better sense of the sound levels together and as a reference (a good mix should sound good no matter what device you are listening through). I would save the money because trust me you will have no shortages of places to spend it.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


https://soundcloud.com/user-260658691/the-start-of-your-journey-wip-mix/s-z9af3

I've redone the mix some more to hopefully make things sound a bit wider. Am I heading in the right direction? I'm still figuring out how to sidechain in Cubase but I think I've got the general mix down the way I like it.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.
Ok, so I finally have assembled a track that I would like some feedback on. A couple notes on this:

-Style is probably closest to House/Deep House
-The track is not finished, I cut it off at 4:00 for this demo but there is probably a minute and half left I want to finish it with
-Also planning to add a few elements to make it more interesting (lead after the drop, some random fx)
-The arrangement is relatively simple, I was really trying to focus on learning and applying production techniques
-Mastering is very minimal

I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to listen and anyone who provides notes. This is the first thing I have ever felt comfortable sharing so I look forward to getting outside feedback.

https://soundcloud.com/bradley-freeman-3/driftwalk-wip/s-9QpUI

Edit: Fixed link

MrSargent fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jan 9, 2017

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


Track is showing as deleted for me.

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Vargatron posted:

Track is showing as deleted for me.

That's really weird. I click the link and it works fine for me. It's a private track so could that be causing issues?

Figured it out. Was using the normal link instead of the secret link. Should work now.

Vargatron
Apr 19, 2008

MRAZZLE DAZZLE


MrSargent posted:

Ok, so I finally have assembled a track that I would like some feedback on. A couple notes on this:

-Style is probably closest to House/Deep House
-The track is not finished, I cut it off at 4:00 for this demo but there is probably a minute and half left I want to finish it with
-Also planning to add a few elements to make it more interesting (lead after the drop, some random fx)
-The arrangement is relatively simple, I was really trying to focus on learning and applying production techniques
-Mastering is very minimal

I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to listen and anyone who provides notes. This is the first thing I have ever felt comfortable sharing so I look forward to getting outside feedback.

https://soundcloud.com/bradley-freeman-3/driftwalk-wip/s-9QpUI

Edit: Fixed link

Here's my take on this:
- The opening synth pad was a little "muddy" for my taste. Kind of feels like it could use a bit more resonance on the synth to give the chords a bit more of an outline. It also sounds like you may have a bit of a filter cutoff set in there.
- I did like the sound of the lead voice breaking in over the intro synth. It led into the drop really well and I enjoyed the tone.
- The dynamic shift after the drop was great and I enjoyed everything going on after it. Very laid back and chill with a good beat.
- Biggest thing standing out to me was the kick drum ducking the percussion (especially the reverse cymbal). Feels like your top end is constantly getting ducked out when the kick hits.

Granted I am not super literate in house/electronic music that much but I liked what I heard. Sounds like it's a really good track so far! Are you recording this using MIDI inputs?

MrSargent
Dec 23, 2003

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Jimmy T.

Vargatron posted:

Here's my take on this:
- The opening synth pad was a little "muddy" for my taste. Kind of feels like it could use a bit more resonance on the synth to give the chords a bit more of an outline. It also sounds like you may have a bit of a filter cutoff set in there.
- I did like the sound of the lead voice breaking in over the intro synth. It led into the drop really well and I enjoyed the tone.
- The dynamic shift after the drop was great and I enjoyed everything going on after it. Very laid back and chill with a good beat.
- Biggest thing standing out to me was the kick drum ducking the percussion (especially the reverse cymbal). Feels like your top end is constantly getting ducked out when the kick hits.

Granted I am not super literate in house/electronic music that much but I liked what I heard. Sounds like it's a really good track so far! Are you recording this using MIDI inputs?

First of all, thanks a ton for listening and providing feedback. Wanted to provide a couple notes on your feedback.

-There is definitely a filter cutoff on the intro synth pad and it doesn't quite fully open up until the lead starts to fade in. It was my poor attempt at introducing the sound and slowly expanding it but I think I agree that it makes it sound a little flat. Going to play around with some resonance or FX to see if I can bring it out a bit more from the start while still bringing it up to peak over time.
-Thanks a lot!
-Thanks again! This took me forever because I had written my main 4-bar loop and an intro separately and was having a really tough time bridging them
-Yah, this is pretty typical for dance music since the kick really needs to punch through the mix. I kinda like the pumping effect on the reverse cymbal but maybe its a bit too exaggerated. I could play around with the compression settings a bit so it isn't so over the top but still lets the kick punch through.

Pretty much all of the synths were done in MIDI using a couple VST's (Massive & Serum). I will usually start with chords I record via my external keyboard / MIDI controller and then go into the MIDI and start moving it around manually. I used the Ableton Simpler (loaded with samples from my library) for most of the percussion and straight audio for some of the effects.

Over the weekend, my wife wrote some lyrics to go with this track that I am really excited about. She also sings and I am going to try and convince her to record the vocals sometime in the next week. I really think that could take this to the next level.

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well why not
Feb 10, 2009




I liked it quite a lot, but I kinda agree it's not as clear or full sounding as it could be. I'm really focussed on mixing right now, so I'm probably really sensitive to it - so take this with a grain of salt - but it seems that there's kick, synth chords, the pluck and then the other perc kinda sits on top of that. It doesn't feel like they're combined together, like there's a gap below the percussion.

Maybe because there's no snare and I've been listening to hyper-compressed snare music for like 2 weeks. Take what you will from that. It's sounding good, super keen to hear the next version, so I followed you on SC.

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