Some more tracks

I'll collect my new music in this aptly titled thread. Feedback is welcome, of course.

http://soundcloud.com/th555/jazlim

Trip-hop/jazz sampled stuff

http://soundcloud.com/th555/coptekvogel

Microtonal (god that sounds pretentious) experiment

http://soundcloud.com/th555/bbgmo

Chillout, background music for a photo slideshow

http://soundcloud.com/th555/walahhhla

I'm home again, this is a little tryout of a progressively faster track..

And here's a silly dark soundscape:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/rekkord

(still can't edit, sorry for the double posts lol)

And here's a silly dark soundscape thing. Still can't edit my posts...

http://soundcloud.com/th555/rekkord

  On 7/16/2012 at 7:04 PM, th555 said:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/bbgmo

well, you really need to work on your production and mastering skills - a lot of what you posted i can barely hear! but the above track is quite nice :)

Thanks ;) I know, my production skills are very minimal. Where should I start learning? It is all about eq, compression and reverb, isn't it?

i would say to start with it's all about listening. so forget about EQ and compression and the like and concentrate on getting each of the seperate audio tracks [in a tune] to sound as good and loud as they can, without drowning each other out and so you can still hear all the individual parts of the tune. be careful not to let the bass dominate and muddy up the bottom end, make sure you listen out for the high end frequencies and adjust the volume of say, the hi-hat track (or whatever else in the upper frequencies) so it stands out but doesn't become too harsh etc. once you're happy with the overall mix (with no EQ or compression yet added), then perhaps try running the whole thing through a mastering suite - i personally favour T-Racks for this.

Here's a track I finished today

http://soundcloud.com/th555/hu-lang

I tried to pay a bit more attention to the production, especially keeping the bass stuff clean, but I'm still not sure about the drums. And now that I'm listening it again I think the reverb is also a bit too much.. And thanks again for your feedback, bcm :)

Actually, I like those drums a lot. I think the bass getting in the way, though.

The bass is pretty busy and I don't know that the filter sweeps are working in its favor - that goes for the pad too, it just feels kind of nauseous with that high resonance.

I agree that the reverb might be excessive. I think generally the bass has too much going on in the mids and highs. The track would probably sound a lot less crowded if you simply removed the reverb and muffled the high end on that bass.

I like the sonar blip, I have been meaning to use that kind of device in one of my tracks and haven't got around to it yet.

Thanks for your feedback, you're probably right. The bass is spanning a very wide frequency range and it's also quite loud. I had a lot of fun with sampling and slicing the drums, glad you like them.

the reverb is a bit much, yeah. I really like the part at 1:30 though. especially when that synth comes in.

great lengths too! it gets right to the point, which is never a bad thing for this kind of music.

  On 7/16/2012 at 7:04 PM, th555 said:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/jazlim

Trip-hop/jazz sampled stuff

I like what you start out with, kind of reminds me of Satyricon-era Meat Beat Manifesto. Not so into the sped-up drums, nor the piano (I generally don't like piano though) or the "extended" breakdown of it. Mostly just feels like a sketch. I would enjoy hearing that beginning piece expanded on.

  On 7/16/2012 at 7:04 PM, th555 said:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/coptekvogel

Microtonal (god that sounds pretentious) experiment

Drums remind me of Art of Noise or something. The melody feels kind of wanky. Seems like you are just sort of using the microtonality as an "effect" here rather than exploring the interesting intervals or taking advantage of the interesting properties of that scale.

I like that NES-type noise blast. Ooh this turned evil in a hurry with the creepy moaning and the drone bass. I like.

Ironically, I think the microtonal stuff referred to in the title is holding this one back.

  On 7/16/2012 at 7:04 PM, th555 said:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/bbgmo

Chillout, background music for a photo slideshow

The juxtaposition between the crystal clear electric piano tones and the sort of lo-fi drums feels a bit lopsided - not most people would notice but it is apparent on the snare and open hi hat. I like the reverbed out claves. The chorus you add to the EP after a bit doesn't really do anything but make it sound less defined and widens the stereo image for no apparent reason.

Overall, this track feels very balanced which adds a lot to the chillness. The resonant synth pad disturbs that somewhat, but not too bad. I like the mellow bass too.

  On 8/29/2012 at 9:42 PM, th555 said:

Here's a track I finished today

http://soundcloud.com/th555/hu-lang

I tried to pay a bit more attention to the production, especially keeping the bass stuff clean, but I'm still not sure about the drums. And now that I'm listening it again I think the reverb is also a bit too much.. And thanks again for your feedback, bcm :)

  Quote

I like what you start out with, kind of reminds me of Satyricon-era Meat Beat Manifesto. Not so into the sped-up drums, nor the piano (I generally don't like piano though) or the "extended" breakdown of it. Mostly just feels like a sketch. I would enjoy hearing that beginning piece expanded on.

Indeed, mostly a sketch, and not a good one either. With the last piano thing I tried to do something like what plaid did with the guitar in Scoobs in Columbia (or some other mbuki mvuki track), just throw a fast riff in there and then continue. I might do something bigger with that beat later, it's quite nice.

And you're right about the "microtonal" track. I only adjusted the pitch-keytrack thing of the synth and fiddled a bit on the keyboard. Now that you've said it, that might indeed be the weakest element of the track.

  Quote

The juxtaposition between the crystal clear electric piano tones and the sort of lo-fi drums feels a bit lopsided - not most people would notice but it is apparent on the snare and open hi hat. I like the reverbed out claves. The chorus you add to the EP after a bit doesn't really do anything but make it sound less defined and widens the stereo image for no apparent reason.

Overall, this track feels very balanced which adds a lot to the chillness. The resonant synth pad disturbs that somewhat, but not too bad. I like the mellow bass too.

I believe I added a bit of distortion to the drums, to give them a bit more character. I felt a bit lo-fi would be okay since the rest wasn't that "acoustic"/organic (or how do you say that...) either. The claves function kind of similar to the sonar blips you mentioned earlier, simple things like that can work very well. The idea behind the chorus was to make way for the synth with it's higher cutoff freq and filter sweeps. But maybe I should've approached that differently.

  On 8/29/2012 at 10:15 PM, Friendly Foil said:

the reverb is a bit much, yeah. I really like the part at 1:30 though. especially when that synth comes in.

 

great lengths too! it gets right to the point, which is never a bad thing for this kind of music.

Thanks :) I often find myself thinking "well, this is it, I can only make it better now, not longer" when a track is only 2 or 3 minutes long. But I'm glad to hear that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Thanks again guys, for taking the time to provide me with such useful comments. Really appreciated.

Here's a new track, all synth sounds are from the nanozwerg. Really happy with this little thing ^^

http://soundcloud.com/th555/rareromerarimo

i personally don't really understand compression as such yet, just that it brings things together ... definatly use eq, just cutting out unused areas of frequancy for a sound makes it louder/cleaner and creates room in the mix. from what i've heardd of your tracks the timbres need to be louder, use the stereo field and eq. you can do all that in whichever DAW your using.

I'm never really sure what to do with the stereo field. I could play with panning a bit more, but just putting a stereo delay or something on top of everything doesn't make much sense to me.

  On 9/22/2012 at 12:12 AM, th555 said:

I'm never really sure what to do with the stereo field. I could play with panning a bit more

panning yes. place sounds in different areas. its about creating space in the mix so each sound has its own area to do its thing

http://soundcloud.com/th555/baroque

Some baroque-ish melodies. Or not, never really listened to the real stuff :P

  On 9/22/2012 at 12:24 AM, Social Spastic said:

  On 9/22/2012 at 12:12 AM, th555 said:

I'm never really sure what to do with the stereo field. I could play with panning a bit more

 

 

panning yes. place sounds in different areas. its about creating space in the mix so each sound has its own area to do its thing

and use the haas effect on one or two instruments, it helps making room when you have many instruments cause you can generally play the affected tracks lower.

  On 9/21/2012 at 11:57 PM, Social Spastic said:

i personally don't really understand compression as such yet, just that it brings things together ... definatly use eq, just cutting out unused areas of frequancy for a sound makes it louder/cleaner and creates room in the mix. from what i've heardd of your tracks the timbres need to be louder, use the stereo field and eq. you can do all that in whichever DAW your using.

We might wanna brush up on our basics before giving technical advice.

  On 9/22/2012 at 12:12 AM, th555 said:

I'm never really sure what to do with the stereo field. I could play with panning a bit more, but just putting a stereo delay or something on top of everything doesn't make much sense to me.

One word: Haas effect. Pick one element/instrument/track and duplicate it. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Shift the duplicate forward (chronologically, that is) somewhere in the ballpark of 30-100 milleseconds.

Also, if the instrument is rhythmically specific (e.g. a high-hat playing incessant 8th notes) then perhaps you wanna split the difference (i.e. shift one track forward 20ms and the other track back 20ms).

Flying Lotus does it alot, although I can't think of which tracks off-hand. But I think the Haas effect is simply the best and easiest way to inject width into a mono source.

Personally I subscribe to the cult of "LCR," wherein elements are panned solely hard-left, center or hard-right. In the early stages of stereo "LCR" was all that was available on consoles. I don't know why, but I just love the sound of it. Anyway, you might wanna give it a try.

P.S. I mega-dig the first three tunes.

Ah, never knew that was calles the haas effect. Thanks for your explanation. Several sources say the delay shouldn't exceed 35 ms though. That + panning should get me a bit further :)

It mostly annoys me when a sound is panned hard-left or -right, could you maybe give an example of a nice track using LCR?

ps. thanks :)

  On 10/5/2012 at 12:13 PM, th555 said:

Ah, never knew that was calles the haas effect. Thanks for your explanation. Several sources say the delay shouldn't exceed 35 ms though. That + panning should get me a bit further :)

It mostly annoys me when a sound is panned hard-left or -right, could you maybe give an example of a nice track using LCR?

ps. thanks :)

For the actual Haas effect to happen: yeah between 10 and 50ms roughly. But it still sounds good pushing it past that. Your ear is no longer fooled (the whole idea is that it's supposed to still sounds like a mono source), and then it starts just sounding like a panned delayed signal.

I don't usually use the actual Haas effect ('"fooled you!") but I still call everything in that ballpark "the Haas effect" if that makes sense.

and yeah I'll look for an LCR song. The early stereo Beatles stuff with the ridiculous panning (vocals left, guitars center, drums right) is LCR. LCR has a very distinct sound that sounds less like a stereo spectrum and more like 3 different 'posts' or 'stations' where the music hangs out.

Yeah I noticed that past a certain delay time it just becomes 2 separate things. Sounds nice as well though, especially with a bit of delay.

Anyway, I've got another track finished, this time sort of an 80's thing. Hope you like it :D

http://soundcloud.com/th555/jazag

Btw, I was listening to kraftwerk's radioactivity album on the train. Sounded like LCR, and actually quite nice :)

Here's two more tracks:

http://soundcloud.com/th555/laapapap2kdo

http://soundcloud.com/th555/chat

Last one is all nanozwerg, I think I need to stop using it so much :P

  On 10/5/2012 at 9:07 AM, LimpyLoo said:

One word: Haas effect. Pick one element/instrument/track and duplicate it. Pan one hard left and the other hard right. Shift the duplicate forward (chronologically, that is) somewhere in the ballpark of 30-100 milleseconds.

Ooh that's severe! 20ms are sufficient for me, I probably never go over 30.