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^NabLa^ Group: Members Posts: 187 Joined: Oct. 2001 Posted: June 02 2009, 14:29 Hey guys, I've been in the forum for quite a few years even though never been particularly active. Over the years I've heard some good music in here, and could do with some feedback on this: http://www.divshare.com/download/7552263-0eb I know it's not the usual style people tend to do in this forum, but I'm very curious about anything you have to say, whether you hate it or not, production, anything constructive really. I am slightly handicapped on monitoring equipment so can also do with comments on the mix and freq balance. This is intended to be listened fairly loud btw Cheers! -------------- ^NabLa^ Back to top

Scatterplot Group: Members Posts: 1981 Joined: Dec. 2007 Posted: June 03 2009, 10:11 I listened to 2-3 minutes of it. The EQ is good. Nice n' crisp. However, that kik drum with no snare to accompany it gets monotonous after a while. I'd like to see song up-loaders provide more details on how the recording was made, it would help with analysis. Was it made with loop-based software(Sony Acid, etc)? If so, I'd have to look at it differently than say, a Yamaha MM6(we have one at my school, it sounds very similar to this)or Motif sequenced with Cakewalk or other sequencing software. I was falling asleep yesterday to one of those "court-judge Judy" type shows. A woman was suing over buying poor wedding catering. The cake was lop-sided among other gripes. What's up with the cake? But is nice and crisp sonically. -------------- We raise our voices in the night Crying to heaven And will our voices be heard Or will they break Like the wind Back to top

Ginger Daddy Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: April 2002 Posted: June 03 2009, 11:36 Hi, Have you played Portal by any chance....? About the music - I only listened to it on laptop speakers so can't comment on the EQ but it sounded well put together with really good use of 'echoes' and glitchy processing. Cheers, Terry. -------------- http://purplerhapsody.co.uk - no words, just emotions Back to top

^NabLa^ Group: Members Posts: 187 Joined: Oct. 2001 Posted: June 03 2009, 11:53 Hey Scatterplot, thanks for the feedback and the randomness, lol. Judy would've had it easier if she had known the cake is a lie beforehand. Give a go at the whole length of the track if you can, as the theme changes sharply in a few places. The snare comes in at around 2:00 when the first groove change comes in. In retrospect I think it's a bit buried in the mix, particularly as the sound density increases. Technically-wise... the sequencer is Live 8. All sounds are fully synthesized except for the knifewielding-like reverse snare. Synths used are all software: Synth1 (background pad throughout all the track), Predator (FX at beginning and end), Vanguard (all the other pads, they come and go but IIRC it's 9 of them), kickdrum is Psykick vst (which basically generates a sine wave then pitchbends the hell out of it). Bass is Alien303, seems popular these days in psytrance and goa trance world. The distorted lead is Vanguard again with a hell of a lot of overdrive, filtering and lfo goodness. The smooth lead is actually 2 leads, one top end one bottom end. The top end is Albino 3, the bottom end Superwave P8. All effects are Live bundled, compressors, limiters, delays, reverbs... Delay and reverbs are on send channels, the tracks that need any of those all go there instead of using their built in fx for consistency. There's a lot of automation as well (particularly on delay sends). Snare and hats were generated from white noise in an old copy of Cooledit I had hanging around. The reverb is eqd to pump up the top end and get rid of the bottom end, with a pinch of overdrive for shine. What else. K&B are on a group channel, each independetly eqd to remove unwanted freqs, then mashed together through an eq, a multiband compressor to bring up the bottom end, and a regular compressor to put it all together. All compressors are fairly conservative in order to keep trasients from disappearing. The pads are all in a group channel, this channel has a compressor that only acts on sub 400Hz via a sidechain to the kick. Kept it subtle to help the kick going through and avoid pumping on leads. @Ginger thanks for the feedback as well bro Portal... yeah you got it I have this theory... goa trance is written by geeks, for hippies... -------------- ^NabLa^ Back to top

Scatterplot Group: Members Posts: 1981 Joined: Dec. 2007 Posted: June 03 2009, 13:25 Anytime dude. BTW.....laptops do have headphone jacks. Those of you who want serious headphones for serious music.....look for Sennhieser and spend as much as you can afford. No shit. A good mix is only as good as your speakers and/or headphones can provide. I prefer perfectly FLAT response. 100% accurate flat straight-line response. RE your song, I'm kind of old school rock(the snare is always on the downbeat) etc. Terms like trance, psych, indie, etc. have no meaning for me. You either feel it or you don't, yet I lean towards more "produced" for commercial value than raw power piss poor recordings(local Austin music comes to mind). At the time Led Zep and other classic bands were recorded some would say it was raw, but for the times it was incredibly commercial. By the same token go forward a few years. Genesis' mid to late 70's albums were considered too "arty" to be commercial at the time but looking back they were incredibly commercial.  For the genre you are doing, and I've heard a lot of it, you are doing very WELL. No question about that. I can offer this before I (yawwwn) go to bed....there was a very commercial band once in a galaxy far far away. They called themselves "The Cars". How did they get their name? OK. They would do a trial mix of a song(s), then go out to a car or several cars and listen to it. Thinking, "we want this to sound good in a car" presumably for the best radio airplay. Then go back in the studio and tweak things, go back to the car stereos, you get where this is going. The thing is, today, with rap, and two 12" or bigger woofers stuffed into the trunk, the whole GD car rattles. Not an accurate guage of any recording(I miss the old days). Even stock stereos put into Mazda or Toyota cars, or replacement Sony, Kenwood, etc stereos can be an accurate guage. With all the EQ presets and whatnot. So that leaves us with FLAT expensive headphones. Even newer speakers are not that flat. I bought a pair of Sony Tower speakers 2 years ago with two 8" woofers in each, a midrange and a tweeter in each. Way too bassy. I bought an equalizer JUST for them. Got them flat responsive, then I was happy. Whatever you record, do it accurate and flat response. Let the guy on the other end tweak his stereo for his/her needs. My production 2 cents worth.... Jim -------------- We raise our voices in the night Crying to heaven And will our voices be heard Or will they break Like the wind Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: June 04 2009, 18:39 @ NabLa: it's good on the sonical level and I like electronic dance music, but this is too repetitive to hold my interest for more than 2 minutes. Sorry. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

^NabLa^ Group: Members Posts: 187 Joined: Oct. 2001 Posted: June 05 2009, 13:51 Haha fair enough. Sound-wise is there anything you'd say doesn´t blend with the rest? Too boomy or too thin at the bottom end? -------------- ^NabLa^ Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: June 06 2009, 17:24 @ NabLa: no, sonically it's perfect. It's just that the only repetitious music I like comes from people like Kraftwerk... and Mike Oldfield. Even JMJ's "Waiting for Cousteau" nags me. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

^NabLa^ Group: Members Posts: 187 Joined: Oct. 2001 Posted: June 09 2009, 12:18 Thanks for all your comments guys, track is now being mastered and release will happen sometime during the summer. Cheers! -------------- ^NabLa^ Back to top

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