Keep in mind It is without any "mastering" done to it, but arrangement is completed as i feel it should be. Advice and Critique is welcome, I do hope you enjoy it, rather than cause any nosebleed.. well maybe some blood could be an interesting start! If your William S. Burroughs fan you may particularly enjoy this take on the Soul Killer reading =) .. Thanks in Advance.

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Yeah needs mixing there's little space "coz your bass riff" even though its panned. Difficult to comment further

 

Very good. I like it. You worked your ass off to communicate the images in your brain as a sound, and you did it very well.

After listening to the piece I ask myself, is this a pre-apocalyptic, or a post-apocalyptic vision? It could be both. The narrative seems to start off as a foretelling of imminent nuclear weapons aggression but, later, switches to a post-mortem view. The music, however, remains constant and, because of that, it misses an opportunity to reach out and really speak for you.

I think there's room to add some theatricality to the track. Would you consider, perhaps, inserting a bassdrop to symbolise the actual dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, then, either switch to a minor key in order to wring out a sense of grief in the listener, or, alternatively, introduce some really fat majors in order to emphasise our Man's passion for violence and destruction?

You remind me of one of my favourite percussionists: Stomu Yamash'ta. If you ever manage to track down a copy of the soundtrack to his Red Budda Theatre production, "Man From the East", carefully listen to the track called "Memory of Hiroshima".

 

Last edited: Sep 24, 2015

It should not be mastered! there is no "free place" to do "mastering". You have crashed everything and You have made bad choices durring mixing. Some tips: take out the limiter (Ozone?) from master chain, try to mix eveything below 3db (in peaks!), move DRUMS and BASS up to front, rest take back. Make more EQ on channels to fit, compress to fit and, the most important remember - LESS is MORE! Always! Try to learn how to use correctly Voxengo SPAN - helps A LOT.

 

Love the ideas & the general track. Is great. The only thing I personally didn't like was the drums.
What did you use for the drums if I make ask?
For me not enough punch and low end and a bit too much on the high end . Drums didn't really cut through for me personally .
That could just be my ears tho lol.

Overall I like it and is original I fresh. Well done

 

Cool idea, but the only blood shed was coming from my eardrums as the highs are soooo very harsh and painful to me, and I am an old geezer and not all at the apex of my high frequency hearing career. I love William S. Burroughs and kudos on the effort and creative aspect of your track. Now I must rest my aural being for an hour or so before I can go back to work.

 

Just my opinion (or taste), but the drums need to cut through the mix more & maybe a multiband compressor could help fatten the low end a bit more & tame the highs. A little more filth or grit would suit, or some sub bass (very low) or another layer to make it a little more interesting, & it crying out for a fat drop like silence, then boom in ya face, but otherwise very nice. Great ideas... keep it up dude. The more you do the better you will get.

PS. I used to be a drum n bass DJ, so I've heard a lot of DnB.

 

i don´t want to start a loudness/dynamics war debatte here.
but for the most "issues" mentioned above you can try 2 thing..

before your limiter ..
1. use a plugin that can make everything from 0-200 dead mono. there are many free ones out there. i use "bx_control"
(will give you more energy&control in the lowend)
2. after this & before your limiter you can use a.) a deesser to reduce that sibilance that was mentioned from some users above, or b) some kind of vintage pultec eq emu. (waves,overtone dsp & so on) to attenuate the 20hz band.

this are "quick" fixes at the end. but with electronic music it can be done that way.

if you want to fix it in the mix i would suggest that you get yourself a chart that tells you want frequency range is need for each instrument. if you clean up your tracks that way before making it "loud" this will help too.

besides that . nice sample libray usage (i call it audiotetris ) i mention it because these tracks/stems however you call it are pretty much premixed. you can get the results you want by eqing not need frequencies out and are good to go. if i am wrong and you programmed the drums by yourself.. BIG UP for your "1st" track. keep def. going on..

 

Last edited: Sep 24, 2015

Love the bass...it is really dark. It needs work but if this is your first track congratulations...
I would like to have this vibe for my own projects.

 

Wow, thanks for all the honest reviews!, I admit I haven't much of a forum user and will do my best acknowledging comments or answering questions lol.

I left my responses inside the quote boxes. Not sure an easier way to split them up more effectively, hope not too confusing.

 

Id Say Half tetris hehe.. For bass I used 2 VST. First was Trillian and used multiband frequency x3 one for low mid and high bound to a knob and The second layer was just Ableton sampler with a snippet of a bass shot in a sample pack.
The Sub was just a sin wave in massive, but in the first and second dialogue sections I had used bass and sub samples.
I explained the situation in earlier reply that i was still typing when you posted (for the drums)=)
For the VST I did use midi clips from packs, however made sure to at least alter them lol

It looks like eqing is my weakest point from most comments and will look into utilizing your suggestions/plugin recommends.
Thanks for the advice! =)

 

Thanks! definitely first track (Completed[now arguably]). I did have those first try make some newb loops and scrap the whole project when you hear it the next morning sessions, but never a whole "song' lol. The vibe Would mostly get accredited to Mr.Burroughs and that voice of his lol. Ultimately why i choose to give it a shot. Thanks again !

ps.If your a Ministry fan, they have a pretty neat remix of just one fix called quick fix with Mr.Burroughs in it. ****Edit : viewer discretion is advised my bad *****

 

Thanks alot! I did try to fatten them with parallel compression and sidechain kick and snare. I never tried a multi band one yet as far as I know. Could/should I slap a few into a blue cats multi band eq situation, or are there dedicated ones?

 

This is great for a first finished track yeah its a bit crushed and distorted but im sure you can play with that.

I love your style. If at 1:28 it dropped into a sick twisting neuro section then id be asking where i could purchase it!!! keep up the good work

P.S I'm not saying you have and its down to the type of sound your looking for, but i used to slap limiters and compressors on everything, but these days i dont bother. I tend to use compressors to control peaks, and limiters/comp to bring out some characteristics of a sound i find isnt coming through. I am no expert though.

 

Last edited: Sep 24, 2015

TYVM! =) too kind.. maybe a neuro mix with an epic drop is in order ill let you know if it ever comes to be!

 

Yeah no worries. Do you have a soundcloud link?

 

https://soundcloud.com/gotoffeasy

 

Glad to hear you liked my advice. Just do a search on audioz for multiband compressors, there are quite a few available. T-Racks has one that I've used & some of the Izotope products have them in there plugin chain as well (Alloy I think?). Also do a search on youtube for a tutorial on how to use it properly. Basically if you put it on your master track or submix bus just before the master track & you can compress all of the low end frequencies to taste & turn up the gain on just the low frequencies. Basically its a normal compressor, but you can compress different frequencies different amounts instead of the whole track. Hope this helps....