Maskine - Sounds as If

I began working on this a couple of minutes before the written exam began earlier this year. The track is a bit weird but it peaks after 2 minutes, and it actually turned out a lot better than I had expected, not so say it's one of the few tracks that I'm really satisfied with.

I've uploaded the track here or you can listen to it on MySpace in case one of them doesn't work.

http://www.myspace.com/maskine

I like the heavy use of reverb combined with the flangey effects, lots of room and depth to the mix. The crackly textures are nice. The sax sounds out of place to me, sort of took me by surprise. Though if you processed it into something weird it could be really cool. Just my thought anyway, someone else will like it I'm sure. There are a couple bits on the sax that hit the minor third while the pads are playing a major 7th chord, and that I do think you should do something about (pitch shift up the semitone perhaps). I like the kick sound. The bit at the end where you chop up the sax sounds sweet. Cool track, it's got vibe.

i like the new name spelling. MA5kln3 was a bit too l33tz0r for me.

i don't like sax often, but under dubby glitch it's quite satisfying. processing it would probably be cool.

I quite like this Squee. Early I felt a 4/4 909 rhythm would make a nice addition and a bassline too. Actually I don't mind the sax; its different. Feels a bit Sade with that sax. Yeah still feel a bassline would have made a nice addition and maybe few extra layers too. Mmm if I was working on this track personally would have taken this down a 4/4 route.

Thanks for the comments. It's a bit weird that the sax gets out of tune, because I have an earlier version of the track where the sax sounds just perfect, but I may think it's because my friend mastered the track and he usually masters heavy metal, so a lot of our (my friend is in Maskine aswell) tracks sound a bit weird now, so we've started mastering our own tracks.

I really SUCK at making basslines, but I'll see what we can do about it, and you're absolutely right that a 4/4 beat would be great. Something deep dub-like and a little high pitched hihat may just make it a bit more funky.

I'll see what I can do about it, because we're working on tons of new shit right now, because in mid-November all our newest tracks are being played a big chill-out festival, so we need to make our tracks sound as good as possible.

i'm glad to see you working on audio again. this is quite enjoyable :-)

plus i love the sax. :-)

thx.

  Squee said:

It's a bit weird that the sax gets out of tune, because I have an earlier version of the track where the sax sounds just perfect, but I may think it's because my friend mastered the track and he usually masters heavy metal

I thought the mastering sounded good as far as EQ, compression and spacial dimension goes. The issue I had was that the sax plays a third that's a semitone lower than the one the pads play in spots. It may be that without mastering the pads weren't as spread out and were therefore less noticeable(?) Usually the activity happening further left and further right comes out a lot more with mastering, so anything with a stereo image (as pads usually are) become more prominent. Because of that I always mix what's going on in the centre higher than I mix what's going on left and right.

  Zephyr_Nova said:

  Squee said:

It's a bit weird that the sax gets out of tune, because I have an earlier version of the track where the sax sounds just perfect, but I may think it's because my friend mastered the track and he usually masters heavy metal

 

I thought the mastering sounded good as far as EQ, compression and spacial dimension goes. The issue I had was that the sax plays a third that's a semitone lower than the one the pads play in spots. It may be that without mastering the pads weren't as spread out and were therefore less noticeable(?) Usually the activity happening further left and further right comes out a lot more with mastering, so anything with a stereo image (as pads usually are) become more prominent. Because of that I always mix what's going on in the centre higher than I mix what's going on left and right.

I remember hearing my friend babbling about that and then he brought up a something on the monitor showing what sounds and frequencies in the track we could hear and which we couldn't, then he changed something and I didn't understand jack shit of it and then I had some more coffee.

d00d u should make it longer and add a few more layers. if you do, dont change anything u got down already.