I'll forget that this is in pretty much no way industrial (it's more like electro house with trancey synth presets) and tell you what I honestly think of it.
(Brace yourself, btw.)
Overcompressed. Not the punchy and powerful overcompressed sound typical of electro house stuff. It's the all too common "I put too much reverb and delay on everything and didn't really think about the levels and it started clipping so I threw a default compressor preset on the master bus" sound.
The drums and chord progressions are uninspired even for dance music. The sounds you used have no real personality, they're nothing that hasn't been heard on this site a thousand times before. Okay, so technically the composition isn't bad but it's very bland and forgettable and those preset sounds do nothing to aid the replayability.
Don't get me completely wrong now, there are some good ideas in here (e.g. the bassline rhythm is pretty neat) but the main problem here is the lack of originality and dynamic variation. I mean, post-compression I can pull the play marker to any random part of the song and with few exceptions it will be the have the same volume and tonality. You know how to use automation so use it more liberally and in more appropriate places! Cutoff fade on the square lead at the end is ugly unless you fade the volume out some before it gets to the point where the cutoff value hits the sound's fundamental frequency.
Fair enough, dull and insipid trance/dance/whatever tracks on NG are a dime a dozen and I'm not this harsh on all of them. It's pretty clear that you're at a stage where you should know what you're doing but for whatever reason you've not really made any ground with this new track.
As soon as I heard the intro I was like "oh hey that title is rather clever". You've got that beat down, I love the whitenoise-y backbeat!
I would only suggest some soft analog hum running in the same channel as the kick drum with a compressor so you get that subtle hissing sound sweeping in before the backbeat like in Closer. Nicely done!
This should be adventure game music for sure. It's the sort of energetic and emotive piece that the Dark Cloud games were missing. I especially like the kinetic string stabs, though I think the pizzicato arpeggios are a little bit forward and may sound better on a piano or harp even.
I thought that this could have used more dynamic variation before that amusing and smoothly initiated change at around 3m19s. The levels of individual instruments were fluctuating a fair amount but I felt that the overall level of the piece stayed in the same region.
Speaking of that change... Makes this feel a lot like ending credits music hehe.
Yeah I got to work on my dynamics throughout the main piece alot more and 'thinning' it out. Hey? and harps, wish I thought of that before and that would cool. I'll be sure to add that in this song later.
Intro totally reminds me of Kraftwerk's modern stuff mixed with some chilled out Infusion track. Very cool and very sassy.
I don't mind the beat that comes in around 2 minutes but there's a lot panned low frequency reverb which is uncomfortable to listen to, If you're using a fruity reverb (or any other reverb) I'd suggest setting the low cut value to about 400Hz and then rolling off <80Hz on the channel's main 3 band EQ. If you have any effects that convert the signal from stereo to mono put them in and then maybe use a send with a panned effect to widen the stereo image.
I don't like the 4x4 kick and I think the backbeat snare is too strong. I think if you had that kick sound with more decay on an offbeat rhythm it'd be quite interesting and more ambient sounding.
As a side note, I think it's cool that you're really going in depth with FL. A lot of people who use it never really bother with all the more advanced and ultimately more powerful features. Great to see someone squeezing the most juice from the fruit ;)
Compositionally I think this is top notch. The sax is nicely articulated and the piano feel and solo is great, if a little too straight but it's easy enough to sequence some intentional timing and velocity "errors" ;)
Drum arrangement is quite nice but that hi-hat sounds like modulated whitenoise, the open hat is especially painful. All the other cymbals seem a little bit too toppy too. I also felt that some of the reverb on the saxophone was unnecessary but at the same time it wasn't really detrimental to the experience like the god-awful hi-hat was.
Again, this is just 100% superb compositionally but the hi-hats and cymbals are a pain :(
For raising the standard of industrial music on NG. :)
At first I was a little worried by the intro that this might end up being some sort of amateur crunch fest but as soon as the muffled melody came in I was sold on this. Excellent mix, great vocal tone. I especially love how you slowly brought in more and more glitchy percussions towards the half way mark and then dropped them all out again.
The only part of this I didn't like was that first line that was screamed. To me it seems a little forced and detatched from the mood of the rest of the song. I think the second screamed line worked much better since it was a climatic part of the song.
This really makes me want to work on more industrial stuff again. Excellent work!
"I am thinking about making another version of this song ( something like IDM/breakcore/dnb)."
Yes. Oh god yes. But more mellow, glitchy IDM like Schneider TM or Bochum Welt.
I like the piano processes... Very tasteful. They remind me of a dude called Martin Mackerras who wrote a very technical and long (46 minutes) piano piece called "The Waves".
I think you need to turn down the master fader and remove any compression on the master bus or insert the compression before the reverb. The mix at the end gets a bit muddy sounding and sounds overcompressed. could just be ear fatigue though >_<
I actually didn't use the compressor. but I must agree on muddiness.. .on high volumes it sounds heavy.
I'm still not sure about the remix - how to do it and should i do it.. will see.
The dynamic articulation is spot on! I think more timing "errors" (gradual lapses in the tempo, dropouts etc.) would be nice to make this feel even more warm and cuddly :)
I think this would loop better had you ended on the IV chord... The perfect cadence feels too final and following the IV it sounds kind of forced wheras the rest of the piece just flowed so naturally.
Constructive, I like that. Thanks, I'll be sure to keep in mind about the tempo stuff, and about the IV, yeah. I think I'll edit most of that chord out and add more of the major ones for a lighter sound.
midimachine
a soundcloud page lol
All 146 audio Reviews
Rated 2 / 5 stars March 20, 2009
Hmmm...
I'll forget that this is in pretty much no way industrial (it's more like electro house with trancey synth presets) and tell you what I honestly think of it.
(Brace yourself, btw.)
Overcompressed. Not the punchy and powerful overcompressed sound typical of electro house stuff. It's the all too common "I put too much reverb and delay on everything and didn't really think about the levels and it started clipping so I threw a default compressor preset on the master bus" sound.
The drums and chord progressions are uninspired even for dance music. The sounds you used have no real personality, they're nothing that hasn't been heard on this site a thousand times before. Okay, so technically the composition isn't bad but it's very bland and forgettable and those preset sounds do nothing to aid the replayability.
Don't get me completely wrong now, there are some good ideas in here (e.g. the bassline rhythm is pretty neat) but the main problem here is the lack of originality and dynamic variation. I mean, post-compression I can pull the play marker to any random part of the song and with few exceptions it will be the have the same volume and tonality. You know how to use automation so use it more liberally and in more appropriate places! Cutoff fade on the square lead at the end is ugly unless you fade the volume out some before it gets to the point where the cutoff value hits the sound's fundamental frequency.
Fair enough, dull and insipid trance/dance/whatever tracks on NG are a dime a dozen and I'm not this harsh on all of them. It's pretty clear that you're at a stage where you should know what you're doing but for whatever reason you've not really made any ground with this new track.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars March 19, 2009
I see what you did there...
Thought I'd check some of your stuff out :)
As soon as I heard the intro I was like "oh hey that title is rather clever". You've got that beat down, I love the whitenoise-y backbeat!
I would only suggest some soft analog hum running in the same channel as the kick drum with a compressor so you get that subtle hissing sound sweeping in before the backbeat like in Closer. Nicely done!
;-)
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars March 16, 2009
Lovely!
This should be adventure game music for sure. It's the sort of energetic and emotive piece that the Dark Cloud games were missing. I especially like the kinetic string stabs, though I think the pizzicato arpeggios are a little bit forward and may sound better on a piano or harp even.
I thought that this could have used more dynamic variation before that amusing and smoothly initiated change at around 3m19s. The levels of individual instruments were fluctuating a fair amount but I felt that the overall level of the piece stayed in the same region.
Speaking of that change... Makes this feel a lot like ending credits music hehe.
Very well done :D
Yeah I got to work on my dynamics throughout the main piece alot more and 'thinning' it out. Hey? and harps, wish I thought of that before and that would cool. I'll be sure to add that in this song later.
Rated 4 / 5 stars March 16, 2009
Nice
Intro totally reminds me of Kraftwerk's modern stuff mixed with some chilled out Infusion track. Very cool and very sassy.
I don't mind the beat that comes in around 2 minutes but there's a lot panned low frequency reverb which is uncomfortable to listen to, If you're using a fruity reverb (or any other reverb) I'd suggest setting the low cut value to about 400Hz and then rolling off <80Hz on the channel's main 3 band EQ. If you have any effects that convert the signal from stereo to mono put them in and then maybe use a send with a panned effect to widen the stereo image.
I don't like the 4x4 kick and I think the backbeat snare is too strong. I think if you had that kick sound with more decay on an offbeat rhythm it'd be quite interesting and more ambient sounding.
As a side note, I think it's cool that you're really going in depth with FL. A lot of people who use it never really bother with all the more advanced and ultimately more powerful features. Great to see someone squeezing the most juice from the fruit ;)
Rated 4 / 5 stars March 9, 2009
not bad
too much reverb on everything but otherwise this is a nice transcription :)
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars March 9, 2009
Ohhhhh yes.
Compositionally I think this is top notch. The sax is nicely articulated and the piano feel and solo is great, if a little too straight but it's easy enough to sequence some intentional timing and velocity "errors" ;)
Drum arrangement is quite nice but that hi-hat sounds like modulated whitenoise, the open hat is especially painful. All the other cymbals seem a little bit too toppy too. I also felt that some of the reverb on the saxophone was unnecessary but at the same time it wasn't really detrimental to the experience like the god-awful hi-hat was.
Again, this is just 100% superb compositionally but the hi-hats and cymbals are a pain :(
Man, why do my hats suck so much :(
I'll really have to fix it.
Rated 5 / 5 stars February 24, 2009
Thanks...
For raising the standard of industrial music on NG. :)
At first I was a little worried by the intro that this might end up being some sort of amateur crunch fest but as soon as the muffled melody came in I was sold on this. Excellent mix, great vocal tone. I especially love how you slowly brought in more and more glitchy percussions towards the half way mark and then dropped them all out again.
The only part of this I didn't like was that first line that was screamed. To me it seems a little forced and detatched from the mood of the rest of the song. I think the second screamed line worked much better since it was a climatic part of the song.
This really makes me want to work on more industrial stuff again. Excellent work!
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars February 18, 2009
Niiiiice.
"I am thinking about making another version of this song ( something like IDM/breakcore/dnb)."
Yes. Oh god yes. But more mellow, glitchy IDM like Schneider TM or Bochum Welt.
I like the piano processes... Very tasteful. They remind me of a dude called Martin Mackerras who wrote a very technical and long (46 minutes) piano piece called "The Waves".
I think you need to turn down the master fader and remove any compression on the master bus or insert the compression before the reverb. The mix at the end gets a bit muddy sounding and sounds overcompressed. could just be ear fatigue though >_<
Great job :)
I actually didn't use the compressor. but I must agree on muddiness.. .on high volumes it sounds heavy.
I'm still not sure about the remix - how to do it and should i do it.. will see.
Thank you for the review though ;)
Rated 4 / 5 stars February 18, 2009
oh yeah
oh wow man. That beat has me bopping along like an idiot. the intro was a little misleading and a bit too drawn out but the best was sweet :)
I'm guessing your sister is doing the oooooh's? She's not terrible at all, I think the way you've layered her in adds a richer texture to the song :)
This has an awesome fun cheezey feel about it. It's like The Knife meets Queen meets Depeche Mode :P
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars February 18, 2009
ahh nice :)
The dynamic articulation is spot on! I think more timing "errors" (gradual lapses in the tempo, dropouts etc.) would be nice to make this feel even more warm and cuddly :)
I think this would loop better had you ended on the IV chord... The perfect cadence feels too final and following the IV it sounds kind of forced wheras the rest of the piece just flowed so naturally.
Great job overall :)
Constructive, I like that. Thanks, I'll be sure to keep in mind about the tempo stuff, and about the IV, yeah. I think I'll edit most of that chord out and add more of the major ones for a lighter sound.