ALR - If Only...

[pain]

New track I made over the past couple a days. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

Soundcloud

[pain]

Usually don't like to bump my own thread but since the only views have been by me, figured why not.

[Drug Noise]

Pretty good beat. There's not a lot to it though, and it sound kinda hollow. Other than that, good job.

[pain]

True, it's very simple but I think it will be more fuller sounding once I get some vocals on it. Probably leaning towards rap vocals at the moment.

[hutyluty]

doesn't sound hollow to me, really like the way you've worked the piano rhythms- could work well with a vocal though

cheers for the dl

[pain]

doesn't sound hollow to me, really like the way you've worked the piano rhythms- could work well with a vocal though

cheers for the dl

Thanks, it was hell warping those piano recordings. Yea the plan is to get vocals eventually. Was leaning towards rap style vocals but now I'm thinking maybe a singer could pull it off. We'll see.

[MedikProductions]

don't go singer, do rap. bring down the hat level too. nice mix i like the piano

[pain]

don't go singer, do rap. bring down the hat level too. nice mix i like the piano

Really? Might I ask why? Rap was definitely the original thought, but most of my friends been steering me towards the singer route. So now I'm confused. Probably gonna end up going with whoever is free and wants to do it first, be it a singer or rapper. Thanks for the feedback. Yea I put some of the drum mix too high after hearing it a few days later, will def fix all that when I put vocals down on it.

[wirez]

Hey dude! Here's my opinion and some hopefully constructive criticism

- I like the piano and the delay on it, but it seems a little muddy even before reaching the drop. My advice would be to try and sharpen it up a little with the delay turned off. EQ maybe pulling out a little in the 400-600Hz area with a wide Q. Move the positive of the cut around in that area until the overall sound seems to have more clarity, that's when you know you've found a muddy frequency area. I've found with pianos in particular this is usually caused by the way pianos are recorded so you get a nasty mud area in the patch before you've even mixed it to anything. The only place that mud seems to sound nice left in is with Jazz-esque sounds. Also give the piano a tad of compression with a high attack to try and make the transients perceivably sharper. Obviously you'll want a fairly long release on the compression so that you can bring up the gain a little to compensate for what's being compressed, but this should all be very subtle as the idea is to give a perceived sharper sound using the compressor, as opposed to perceivably louder. Finally, when you add delay to the piano make sure it has a filter on it and that the delay lines are above around 600Hz, this should stop more mud gathering in those areas.

- There's something I'm not vibing with on your bass. First of all I'm not keen on long sine notes, they never seem to do tracks much justice.. I usually find it makes a track feel stronger if they are broken down into notes that fit the rhythm of the track, it also helps with listeners ears getting tired so quickly. It also sounds quite wide and stereo which is a bad idea for bass. Make sure it's made mono! (I think there may be reverb or something on there too? That needs to come down a bit. Again, make sure the reverb is high passed if it's not already.)

- The kick is clashing with the bass and sounds a little flappy. Pitch it up a bit until its peak frequency sits just above 100Hz, then compress it to bring out the peak transient in a similar way to how I suggested with the piano. Then roll it off so that there's not too much bass weight in there and the main focus of the kick is around 100Hz. Finally open up your bass sound a pull out a slight notch where your kick is peaking frequency-wise.

- The hats that come in later are a bit too loud, bring them down a little.

- Your piano sound seems a little plastic, is it one of the FL standard ones by any chance? You might want to consider investing into a decent multi-sample based piano plug in one day They're always going to make a track stronger from the very beginning.

- Liking some of the chops and stuff and the piano chords and melodies sound decent!

Hope this doesn't seem to negative, was just trying to be as critical as possible

[pain]

- I like the piano and the delay on it, but it seems a little muddy even before reaching the drop. My advice would be to try and sharpen it up a little with the delay turned off. EQ maybe pulling out a little in the 400-600Hz area with a wide Q. Move the positive of the cut around in that area until the overall sound seems to have more clarity, that's when you know you've found a muddy frequency area. I've found with pianos in particular this is usually caused by the way pianos are recorded so you get a nasty mud area in the patch before you've even mixed it to anything. The only place that mud seems to sound nice left in is with Jazz-esque sounds. Also give the piano a tad of compression with a high attack to try and make the transients perceivably sharper. Obviously you'll want a fairly long release on the compression so that you can bring up the gain a little to compensate for what's being compressed, but this should all be very subtle as the idea is to give a perceived sharper sound using the compressor, as opposed to perceivably louder. Finally, when you add delay to the piano make sure it has a filter on it and that the delay lines are above around 600Hz, this should stop more mud gathering in those areas.

Those are some interesting ideas, I'll definitely copy/paste and save this for whenever I revisit and mix again on this track. All I have is a basic ep, compression, maybe a light distortion if I remember correct, then delay. But it was mind first time mixing in a real piano to any of my electronic stuff so I could tell things could sound better than they did.

There's something I'm not vibing with on your bass. First of all I'm not keen on long sine notes, they never seem to do tracks much justice.. I usually find it makes a track feel stronger if they are broken down into notes that fit the rhythm of the track, it also helps with listeners ears getting tired so quickly. It also sounds quite wide and stereo which is a bad idea for bass. Make sure it's made mono! (I think there may be reverb or something on there too? That needs to come down a bit. Again, make sure the reverb is high passed if it's not already.)

This was my first time making a sub bass using all saw waves instead of sine wavs so that may be it. Also I don't really know how to make tracks mono in ableton even though I have googled this issue a bunch of times. If you know please let me know. Don't have a reverb on it but I'm thinking a new batch of plugins I used may have made it stereo and may be what your hearing. Something for me to look into.

The kick is clashing with the bass and sounds a little flappy. Pitch it up a bit until its peak frequency sits just above 100Hz, then compress it to bring out the peak transient in a similar way to how I suggested with the piano. Then roll it off so that there's not too much bass weight in there and the main focus of the kick is around 100Hz. Finally open up your bass sound a pull out a slight notch where your kick is peaking frequency-wise.

Good info here thanks.

- The hats that come in later are a bit too loud, bring them down a little.

Yea I noticed this later

Your piano sound seems a little plastic, is it one of the FL standard ones by any chance? You might want to consider investing into a decent multi-sample based piano plug in one day They're always going to make a track stronger from the very beginning.

Actually that's a recording of a real piano, but once I started warping it and playing with it in live I noticed it not sounding as good. A part of me wants to blame live but its probably something I did.

- Liking some of the chops and stuff and the piano chords and melodies sound decent!

It was a 10 second sample of a longer recording of my friend playing I took. Every melody in the song is the sample processed in some way.

Hope this doesn't seem to negative, was just trying to be as critical as possible

Nah, thanks for the feedback. If I don't hear these things, how else am I gonna get better?

[wirez]

maybe a light distortion

Be careful with distortion, although it can work quite well for giving a sound a bit more harmonic interest, it quite often causes harmonic content where not needed, for example in your low mids. If you're using distortion, be sure to compensate with EQ to help keep clarity of the sound afterwards

This was my first time making a sub bass using all saw waves instead of sine wavs so that may be it.

Personally if you're looking for a sound that actually sounds like a sub (but with a bit of harmonic content so it pull throughs the mix or can be heard on smaller systems), using just saw waves (or any other than sine) isn't really ideal. You'd be better using just a sine and one other single oscillator on top to add some more interest to the shape. Use the main envelopes attack and decay to your advantage to get a more or less 'thumpy' sound.

Actually that's a recording of a real piano, but once I started warping it and playing with it in live I noticed it not sounding as good. A part of me wants to blame live but its probably something I did.

Ah I see. Well multisample pianos are so advanced that it's pretty pointless using a real piano unless you've got some super amazing thing recorded in a grand venue. My opinion of course, but I'd far rather use a multisampled gem than a real average

[wirez]

maybe a light distortion

Be careful with distortion, although it can work quite well for giving a sound a bit more harmonic interest, it quite often causes harmonic content where not needed, for example in your low mids. If you're using distortion, be sure to compensate with EQ to help keep clarity of the sound afterwards

This was my first time making a sub bass using all saw waves instead of sine wavs so that may be it.

Personally if you're looking for a sound that actually sounds like a sub (but with a bit of harmonic content so it pull throughs the mix or can be heard on smaller systems), using just saw waves (or any other than sine) isn't really ideal. You'd be better using just a sine and one other single oscillator on top to add some more interest to the shape. Use the main envelopes attack and decay to your advantage to get a more or less 'thumpy' sound.

Actually that's a recording of a real piano, but once I started warping it and playing with it in live I noticed it not sounding as good. A part of me wants to blame live but its probably something I did.

Ah I see. Well multisample pianos are so advanced that it's pretty pointless using a real piano unless you've got some super amazing thing recorded in a grand venue. My opinion of course, but I'd far rather use a multisampled gem than a real average