First serious project which is almost finished. 3 days. 15 hours of sweat, blood and tears.



I don't like this track too much. I tried my best but still is too boring for me.
How can I improve this? What I must change? What I must add? What delete?

Do I have to improve mixing or what is now is ok? Drums are ok or are too loud?
How to make kick more punchy and all composition subby bass feeling?
How to mastering this?

I have limiter on every channel set to -0.19db.
I have limiter on master set to 0db and is bumping around -6db if drums playing.
Also I set master gain to -3db.
Is this wrong?

Cheers

 

Last edited: May 25, 2020

It's a cute track! My favorite part was the dut-dut-dut synthy theme that begins the track, it evokes broken toys and sounds like the beginning of a goofy fat duck's life story. Certainly unusual. Sadly the fat duck theme was not fully explored later in the track as it decided to go all epic and broad.

One thing you're missing is "fills", little starters and enders on the beginnings and endings of clips that would help break up the phrase monotony. This sounds like annoying bullshit, but the difference it makes to the sound of things is huge. Basically little parts that blend rhythmically with the actual clip, introducing it or letting it go, but not part of the clip itself, so they repeat at a different rate. Including rhythmic punctuation, like periods, commas in sentences.

Another thing that would give your sound a massive boost is kind of going to freak you out at first. I propose to you this exercise: now that you have about all the parts you need finished and you already arranged the track, bounce the parts into audio clips, turn off all grids, and begin to re-arrange your whole track by ear. Using only the pulse you hear inside the clips you made, and no grid whatsoever, re-align everything meticulously by hand. You'll see how it changes everything because you'll find two things:

- There's a whole world of awesome sounding possibility inbetween the rigid stricture of grid bars. It will change your sound, and I think you'll like it a lot more.

- The possibility of playing with the "pulse" is unexplored because you always had the grid. Now that you have to rely on hearing the pulse from your own clips only, you will be basically forced to explore different techniques of hiding the pulse temporarily, teasing the pulse back in, breaking up the pulse with a clip that suddenly goes in triplet or dotted notes etc. It's laborious but it also makes a huge difference...

Last mega-tip: when you're rearranging your shit, play with repitching the clips to help you. Use oldschool sampler mode which changes the length of the clips as well as the pitch and adjust things by ear to fit together how you want, differently from section to section, especially the beat samples vs the synth samples.

 

Last edited: May 25, 2020

The rhythm reminds me of the end section of I Am The Walrus. If the song isn't giving you that "great! It's finished " feeling, then shelve it. That's the only thing that's important. How you feel about it. I have dozens of old tracks that sit around for years and suddenly I know how to finish them after forgetting about them.

 

Sorry for late answer. I was little lazy.

I created this sound 2 years ago. Reminds me of hypnotic electric guitar. I wanted to make totally different sad song from it in Radiohead, Nirvana style maybe (Alternative Rock) but I didn't had any idea how to develop melody, connect elements and what would fit to make what I want. This sound was resting on my hard disk until in previous week I remembered about it and decided to make something, anything with it and finish the song for making step and learning new stuff.

You was dissapointed that after first drums "drop" this sound is not changed to something different or maybe I should use a few different melodies and little mixed them?

You mean drum fills? Shakers or hihats for example on the beggining of the bar and the end? Or something different? Can You show me an example?

Thanks! Really nice. I must play with this exercise and spent some time on it. How long clip must be? 1 bar? But how to use it in practice? Everytime I must almost finish the song and then render to audio clips and then mastering and stuff like that?

 

Last edited: May 28, 2020

I found this song. You mean something like in this song? From "epic" intro to something different?

 

Try to think of your clips as phrases that say something, so they can be any length, and begin from any point in the bar. Once he said what he had to say, shut him up (possibly with a pretty "flurry" on the end). Clips which repeat are a special case, where he is trying to hypnotically lull the listener, you shouldn't use that possibility lightly or all the time. Any time you listen back and it seems like the repetition is predictable, maybe you can re-evaluate it, because listeners will be bored of it.

About the no-grid exercise, you can think of what elements in your track are providing the simple steady pulse in each part of the arrangement, and try to put those down first (grid free) and then you add your phrases relative to the pulse you're hearing from those elements, and not from the normal grid. It's an exercise to gain freedom from the grid, which in my opinion can be as oppressive as it is useful. If you can develop a good feeling for song flow without a grid, you will be able to use the actual grid a lot more effectively when you decide to use it.

 

Why has the whole world suddenly become alergic to panning? I know everyone will listen on their fucking phones anyway but for the few of us that actually put on headphones and listen to things could every goddamn sound not just pile up in the center? Fuck!
/rant sorry
Other than that I actually really like it. Two things maybe- I don't know where I am the Walrus came from but it would be cool to add some Ringo to it. Put some of the crap from the end of Strawberry Feilds on it (3:00), just screw it up enough to not get sued.

And put someone screaming about Satan on it. That always helps.

 

You mean is too centered? I should more expanding to sides? I was listening this all the time on speakers and checked few times on headphones. I used Izotope Imager/Ozone 8 to extend sides.
TB-303 echo part is extended, weird synth is extended, vocals, even drums and there is some subtle panning.
Pretty everything more or less. I thought it was wide enough.

 

Last edited: May 28, 2020

I used subtle left/right effect with vocal before "drop" at 2:16 - 2:22
And subtle effect with TB-303 from sides goes to center 2:23 - 2:27

 

What's your recommendation for better panning things? Any techniques?

 

Do you have any workflow for laying down those pulses and edit fast?

 

You mean @Satai post? Trurl post is about something different.

 

Of course I was referring to @Satai post