WORKS-IN-PROGRESS for OCTOBER, 2010

[EDN]

@Siderealdb: Sick mate, piano is boom-ting, glitch and beats are phat but to be fair I'm not feeling the auto-tune business, I would maybe just do the melody the vocals are tuned to on a synth or something. Cello or a flute possibly? But otherwise it sounds phat.

@Craggle: That is proper phat, but you need shitloads more sub tbh. It wants to be such an awesome tune, it just needs more bass!

@Simteks: A decent backbeat you got there. What kinda vocal you having over it? I would say your main synth (the wobble that goes right from the start) is a little too gritty, maybe dial down on the distortion slightly, and I would personally use less flange on it, do keep some flange on there, but dial it back a little so that you can't hear it per se, but you can feel the movement of it going back and forth. Really nice beats though, and I'm proper loving the wah wah in there.

[Olux]

@ Craggle - Nice one dude. Heavy track, and the builds are awesome. The bass sound is a little sharp imo, probably just a personal preference though. Loving the beats.

@ Siderealdb - This is awesome. I love the moodyness.

@ Broxamson - I like it so far. It was strangely quiet but the samples and bass were cool. Got the ingredients there for a tasty dubby track.

@ Wobbafet - Sounding good dude. Really like the builds and vibe of this track. Maybe if Eqing isn't getting you the results with the lead try experimenting with your chorus settings a little. And for the bass maybe try the same with some compression.

@ Streetxlite - Sounding really cool so far man. Only thing i could think of with the bass tones is bringing down the high end a bit, maybe with cut off or if you've put in white noise turn it down a little. Other than that it's sounding mean wobbley! Further more, loved the sliced and echoed dnb bits and that video gamey synth.

Here's my latest WIP. All feedback appreciated and welcomed as usual.
Soundcloud

[CenturySam]

@ Siderealdb - Like the composition and the track overall. The violin and piano are killer. They get too loud by the end though, I lost the drums a few times. Can't wait to hear the ending result.
@ streetxlite - Dirty stuff man. As far as the bass and mixdown here are my suggestions. The sub bass needs to be lower. It really over powers the track. With that you might have to turn the kick down as well. I feel like I want that snare to hit harder each time. The wobble is grimmy and pretty solid.
@ wobbafet - Overall the track is put together really well. Has a deep lounge feel to it. It is pretty slow moving, so maybe try to cut it up a bit and throw in a few changes in the drums. Now for the mixdown... Your levels are off is all. Read the first page (at least). It will change your life - http://www.dubstepforum.com/this-thread ... 74832.html
@ broxamson - So same suggestion as wobbafet, read the thread I put up there ^^^ - Otherwise, the wobble needs to change from time to time and a bit too much panning. Just need to flesh out the track is all. Sounding good!
@ Olux - Me likey! Reminds me of Crystal Method.

Here is my WIP. I sat down last night for a few hours and decided to try resampling and slicing up my bass wobble for the first time. I am pretty happy with the result I got so I quickly threw it over a few drums loops (I layered the kick and snare). Mix down was a 5 second job on this so far. Feedback appreciated!

Soundcloud

[frogman]

@century - nice bass sound man liking how its cut up and rolls with the drums. really liking the part where you added more drums back in at round half way it got my head bobbing for sure. only thing i can think of is maybe have a bit more of an intro or buildup but nice stuff so far.

@Olux - reallly digging the intro and the way the bass pulses in at around :50. It felt to me like maybe you could have dropped a fuller bassline or doubletimedrums in to kick it up at about 1.50 because thats where i started losing interest. but other than that really great sounds and atmosphere goin so far.

@EDN - nice sounds you got and i like the drumline you got going. I dig the bass that sort of comes in but i wanted to hear it in a full bassline later on in the track to complete it but great song if you were going for a more ambient feel.

@Psythe - really sick baseline i dig it. on the buildup though when everything drops out and you hear some predator sounds or whatever I was thinking add in a few hihats to build it up quietly before it drops back

@craggle - really feelin this! nice track and I like the buildup. only thing i can think of is make the bassline a slight bit heavier maybe add a sub or something im not quite sure but if it just hit a little deeper/fuller it would be insane good work.



So I was working on my other track yesterday when I decided to start on a new one because my ideas were starting to slow down.I actually managed to get some progress done and this is what I came up with so far (I know its short but I like getting the first minute or so perfect before i move on) -

please criticize with anything that comes to your head while listening, thanks

Soundcloud


im not sure why it keeps saying unavailable; if it still says that just kindly head over to the URL and have a listen thanks

[EDN]

Frogman, cheers for the crit, that tracks a weird one.

Vis-á-vis your track, I really like your string hits, and the way your tune drops. However you need to process your drums badly, your kick and your snare could really do with beefing up. I'm guessing you haven't been mixing down a great deal so far, given that your only a minute in, thats fair, but you really need to get all of the component parts into their own space within the mix.
Also forgive me if I'm wrong but one of your noises sounds decidedly like the "Brutal Electro" preset in Massive. While its a cool sound, the fact that I can recognise it and I don't even really use Massive ain't so good. Take a little time to work up a nice sound to put in its place. Something that can be unique to you.

Soundcloud

If anyone can give me some words of wisdom on this one that would be awesome.

[frogman]

Frogman, cheers for the crit, that tracks a weird one.

Vis-á-vis your track, I really like your string hits, and the way your tune drops. However you need to process your drums badly, your kick and your snare could really do with beefing up. I'm guessing you haven't been mixing down a great deal so far, given that your only a minute in, thats fair, but you really need to get all of the component parts into their own space within the mix.
Also forgive me if I'm wrong but one of your noises sounds decidedly like the "Brutal Electro" preset in Massive. While its a cool sound, the fact that I can recognise it and I don't even really use Massive ain't so good. Take a little time to work up a nice sound to put in its place. Something that can be unique to you.

Soundcloud

If anyone can give me some words of wisdom on this one that would be awesome.

thanks for your crit. no I havent gotten into mixing too much yet thanks il try beefing up the drums. and yes haha the second bass sound is the preset brutal electro, i just threw it in there for temporary creative thinking purposes and im definately going to go back and change to a new sound but that was the general idea of what i wanted to sound to be like. thanks again; i will go back and work on the drums and changing the second bass sound


@EDN - wow really nice sounds I like how you are good with percussion. it was groovy sounding and i liked your use of left and right channels. an obvious yet maybe unwanted criticism would be to add some nice bass? XD


btw - how would I go about beefing up my drums? thanks

[CenturySam]

btw - how would I go about beefing up my drums? thanks

Layering samples - I usually use 3 samples for my snare and 2 for my kick. Than mess around with the gain and volume levels. Remember smallest adjustments make the biggest difference.

If you want to quickly beef up your drums just layer another set on top of them in the final track, just make sure to go back and adjust gain levels so you get a proper mixdown.

[EDN]

Ah I think you might have been listening to the wrong one.
Seemingly the one I was asking about:
Soundcloud <====this one
doesn't wanna work.
Vis-á-vis drums, you wanna layer up some drum hits. So start a new project on whatever software you use and call it "drum processing".
Kicks, get yourself a sub bass sine wave, layer it up with your lead kick (the noise you want it to sound like) and some kinda relatively high click to give it a bit of presence.
For advice on snares, watch this video, although he ain't all that this is a decent video about getting good sounding snares from Rusko.
http://www.vimeo.com/3595144
So you got a nice beefy lead snare sound (like something out of an amen that actually sounds like a snare drum) then maybe an 808 clap layered on top, little bit of white noise, maybe some reverb, compression or whatever. Basically just layer up drums until they sound phat. Reference them with a drum sound that you like (for example I always compare my drums to Culprate drums (i.e. http://soundcloud.com/culprate/culprate-grave-robber-1).....and then get bummed cause his sound awesome, but I'm aiming for a specific sound.
Also if you can get yourself a copy of Schaak Audio Transient Shaper, this vst has proven invaluble for me in creating drums.
My descriptions of these things are crap cause im lazy, but I know everything I know from looking on the internet and through trial and error.
Safe

[wobbafet]

@wobbafet: REally likin the tune itself man. Maybe to get the bass sounding a little less muddy, sidechain the bass from the kick, not enough to make it obviously audible but just enough so that if thats whats causing mudiness it gets rid of it.

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion. I'm not sure what sidechaining is though. I keep hearing the term but it's totally alien to me. Anyone care to clear it up?

[frogman]

@wobbafet: REally likin the tune itself man. Maybe to get the bass sounding a little less muddy, sidechain the bass from the kick, not enough to make it obviously audible but just enough so that if thats whats causing mudiness it gets rid of it.

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion. I'm not sure what sidechaining is though. I keep hearing the term but it's totally alien to me. Anyone care to clear it up?

sidechaining (forgive me if im a bit off) is when through compression or volume the sound that you want to sidechain (in this case the bass) is sort of linked to the kicks peak level so that every time the kick hits its peak level (every time the kick hits), the sound from the bass that you are sidechaining ducks out for the time that the kick is at its peak, allowing for the bass to be audible while the kick is hitting and can also have a jumpy feel and is commonly used in house or dance music. take a listen to pretty much any of deadmau5' old chord tunes and they all use sidechaining.

just give a quick search for "sidechaining in ________" (whatever program you are using) on youtube and there should be several results



- just a quick question from me @EDN: "get yourself a sub bass sine wave, layer it up with your lead kick (the noise you want it to sound like) and some kinda relatively high click to give it a bit of presence." what do you mean by this? i make my own kick sample out of a sub bass with quick attack? or i layer the kick with a sub sample??
and In the track I have uploaded there is already two snares and two kicks layered on top and they are EQd to sit over the sub and surrounding the mid bass but still dont hit very hard ; would placing a snare or kick milliseconds before the actual hit be a good way to add depth or no?

and woah! really liking the way the bass rolls in on the drop of 'rust'. not much to say here except good job and continue working on it. - hats miight be slightly too loud int eh into? thats just me though

[broxamson]

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion. I'm not sure what sidechaining is though. I keep hearing the term but it's totally alien to me. Anyone care to clear it up?

easy to side chain open up your bass track and on the very end of the signal chain put a compressor some where on the compressor should be a button that says "sidechain' after youve enabled it should have an input source, and that would be your kick.

this technique works with compression, gates, autofilters, etc.

[carsonac]

Soundcloud

What do you guys think of this??
i just threw this clip together in a few hours
I think the kick needs a bit of Eqinq and compression
any suggestions?

[oooh]

carsonic -sounding good, nice melody
EDN -not really my cup of coffee but i think it works
simteks - feeling the drums. the main bass melody needs work tho.. maybe to the extent of changing the waveforms on your oscillator?

[oooh]

Soundcloud
Soundcloud

Thanks for the feedback of my last song

Heres a couple of tracks ive made in the last 2 days. Still need to be mixed and reworked.

[EDN]

@frogman: So i start with three samples, one which is a sub sinewave (or a nice sounding kick with a lowpass cutting off at around 70hz) your main kick which would probably be sampled from an actual kick drum (eq out the subbass and compress to taste, maybe give it a little boost at around 120-300hz depending on what sounds good) and a higher kinda click sound with all the low freq's taken out (probably 300 or less, but like i say these aren't definite numbers, whatever sounds good) layer them up and export them. Then take that sample, listen to it and if it needs any more eq or compression add that on and render again.
Oh, and I do this, I dunno how popular it is, but tune all three samples so they are the same note and sit with each other. Then tune them to the root note (the most common bass sound in your song) so that they add to the bass rather than masking it, it can be tricky and a bit arduous but its worth it (in my opinion).
Just try and make sure you got good sounding samples to begin with that really helps, and remember don't just follow what people say about these things, play around with different things and you can get different sounds, trial and error is the key.

@oooh: I like the 8 bit sound, however I would maybe chuck some more complex melodies in there, maybe some nice harmony lines. I'm listening on laptop speakers atm so I can't really comment on the production but when I get back in the studio tomorrow I will give you some more helpful feedback.

[streetxlite]

Running off to work right now, no time to listen to any tunes SORRY! i'm already so damn late i hope i don't get fired
but i promise to leave a paragraph of constructive feedback for each and everyone of you who listens and offers their thoughts, swiftly upon my return home. thanks guys

Soundcloud

[wabble]

Soundcloud limited internet access here... will post feedback for those who do same headphone mix..

[JayZest]

@wabble some sick sounds in there haha nice

@frogman - not my kind thing, its sounding okay!


Here's a new one

feedback please guys!


Soundcloud

[kikaruu]

@Frogman: I like the build-up before the drop the most. The first bass portion seems a little murky/indistinct, though. EDN already commented on your drums, so I'll leave that as it is. Keep at it.

@CenturySam: Hearing a chopped up bass is a sort of first for me. I do think that the resultant silences could use a bit of filler, but that's probably just due to the way I operate. Other than sounding a tad bit static, it sounds pretty tight, production wise. Nice job.

@Olux: I like the filter sweeping. Adds a bit of dynamism to the synth line.

@EDN: Oh, I love how your kick sits in the mix. And that bass work? Spot on. Extra points for setting up nice variations on the drums.

@Carsonac: A bit of leveling would help, as well as sub bass for your, well, bass. Your kick stands out, which is good, but I think its volume detracts from the bassline.

@streetxlite: I like your panning. Nice to see something other than standard mono now and again. You can never have enough breaks, either, so nice drums (although they seem a little sparse). Oh, and kudos for using different sources for your bass.

And so, this is what I've been working on today. What will make this shine?

Soundcloud

[frogman]

@streetxlite - cool sounds and chill vibe to it. I think the bass was a little bit blown out on the first drop. I kind of got bored near the end because it got a little bit slow try doubling the drums with more kicks and hats on the second drop. and wow dont know what to saw about the second 'throat' song but awesome. exactly my style of tune.