Alftænd - No tomorrow

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Prophän
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Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Prophän »

So here it is, after a yearish of learning techno production without (sadly) any musical instruction, here is what I'm offering to your delicate ears today, of course any form of feedback is welcome, i'm particularly interested in the bad part of it tho.


dubdub
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by dubdub »

The kick is way too loud which makes the rest of the mix sound very muddy and dull. The claps are too quiet. The hats are lacking some transient punch. The acid line lacks a bit of top end. I like the elements, especially the pad, you just need to fix the mix.

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Prophän
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Prophän »

Thank you for your feedback, but what do you mean exactly by the hats lacks transient punch, do you mean their attack is too long ?

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Aurongroove
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Aurongroove »

This is good going for only a year in.

It follows a logic and shape that makes sense for this style, and you've jigsawed the elements together in a way that makes musical sense as well as structural sense.

In general, when things are too loud or too quite compared to others, that's considered a mixing issue.
(basically the volume of each "thing").
Your mixing abilities here sounds "sketchy and new-ish" but this is a skill that gets better and better with time, sometimes almost without consciously noticing.
One thing I wish someone did tell me to do EVERY TIME even when I though the track didn't need it, or if I suspect I wasn't good enough to tell the difference with small volume changes anyways is,

Once you've finish writing the song and your whole track laid out and sequenced start to finish and you've don't most of the major sound designing.
Turn everything down to silent on the mixing channels of your Programme. Then turn up your kick to a reasonable volume, then your bass to a nice volume to go along with the kick, then each new bit as it comes in. Even if you wind up back at the same audio levels, doing this every time will wake your ear up to concept listening to the relationships between volumes of different track elements, and that will bring your mixing on quite a bit faster.

It also helps develop a sense of writing first, and when the track is done, then mixing.

writing; mixing; mastering.
Many newcomers mush these stages, but eventually they become their own complex and individual area, each with different rules and procedures, I wasted years completely doing this wrong, and subsequently being atrociously bad at mixing for a looooong time after that.



Your ear for textures is fairly good too, the sounds you've used are mostly good strong logical sounds.
I'm not the biggest fan of that open hat, it sounds a bit clumsy and 'obviously' like a sample being slapped at different play back intensities rather then a musical element.

The way the Acid Bass swell and changes with more open filter setting toward the middle is good work.

Cant wait to hear more of your work.
I hope some of this is a help, especially the bit about mixing.
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Prophän
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Prophän »

This was a very good and beginner friendly mixing tutorial, I never tought of using that technique I will try it out thank you very much, I have to admit I did not even bother touching the volume faders on the tracks, what a true noob I am :lol:

Concerning that open hi hat , neither do I, I have to use the ableton default 909 samples which doesn't sound that good when it comes to hat, I guess creating the hihats using noise as a base could be an idea too, what do you think about that.

Thank you for your feedback, it's much appreciated

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Root
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Root »

The pad is really nice and does it's work. As said, your acid bassline needs more top end for clarity, the kick could be a bit less dull.

And who told you, you have to use live's default samples without processing them? Just put some distortion, filter, compression whatever on your hihat track and try around what happens. Finding your way to good mixing and producing is about trying out and gaining experience over time.
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Lost to the Void
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Lost to the Void »

Not too bad for being a year in.

OF course there are problems, and I could write endless anal paragraphs about the issues, but you are a little too early in for me to go in that hard, it would be unfair.

I think the important thing here is that the overall mix balance, the "shape" of the mix, is consistent.
There is no massive swing bias to one end of the mix, and nothing is poking out and blatantly saying (I`M MUCH TOO LOUD), so it seems you have a good natural ear for balancing.

It really comes down to refinements based around that overall ideal of a balanced mix. Getting better with EQ (subtractive EQ is EVERYTHING when it comes to mixing. It is the core, the centre, the spine around which everything is based, get to understand the process and how to apply it well and you will be on the yellow brick road to OZ).

Musically, well, here I think your choices need to be your choices, you have to find your own voice, and that will come in time.
At this early stage there is nothing wrong with finding tunes you like and copying them, or copying parts, it is a great way to learn, it will teach you about mixing, as well as musical methods. Just don`t go down the road of copying and fooling yourself that you came up with those ideas. Copy the techniques and apply them to your own artistic creations as you find your voice.

Tips specific to this tune....

For the 303, a good and commonly used trick to give the sound more roundness and presence is a nice vintage chorus. Place a chorus on the 303 and then a little saturation/overdrive/distortion and it will open out the sound, and also as the filter sweeps around the harmonics will sing out a little more, and the distortion/saturation will pick out the harmonics, and you`ll get little hidden chords appearing inside the sound.

Bassline... A bassline would be nice sitting under that kick, either that or extend the kick so it becomes it`s own bassline (either by relaxing the attack or using reverb). It will help drive the tune along.

The open hats are a little soft in attack compared to the very hard punchy attack of the kick, so they don`t sit well together. You could find a better more attacky hat sample, or ghost in a closed hat alongside the open hat, and clip it right down with decay so it just gives a little attack phase addition to the open hat.

Beyond that, just keep practicing, reading, experimenting, it seems you are heading somewhere, and there is nothing here saying "this guy has no musical bones in his body".

Not bad for a year in.
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Prophän
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Prophän »

Thank for the very detailed and precise feedback, very helpful on the directions to take for further improvements, I started initially with a reverbed kick then I got advised to get rid of it because I was obviously using the wrong technique(any advice on that subject is welcome again), and I tought the 303 would do the job as a bassline (which doesn't seem to be the case). and thank you again for the kind words, this is really motivating coming from one of my preferred techno producers

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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Kromasome »

Here's my confusing feedback, and something I'm still trying to learn.

It all seems like it's well constructed and there are no really offensive sounds but something seems to be missing. Of course we are all told that less is more in most cases, but I can't help but feel that the whole thing is a little bit too sparse. Allowing a track room to breathe is very important, but if things are too sparse it just sounds a bit empty overall.

I don't know how to fix it, and I'm no expert by any stretch, just providing feedback from a listener's point of view.

Sorry for not providing more constructive input, but as has been said before I think it's a great effort so early on in your production career so well done.

Good luck in your journey down the rabbit hole...

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Prophän
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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by Prophän »

It's very welcome no matter how confusing you think it is, it actually makes quite a sense, I have the feeling it misses some elements too will try to fix it in the future

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Re: Alftænd - No tomorrow

Post by bioniceye »

kick seems too loud compared too the rest of your percussion elements
like your clap its very quiet
the hats are nice for the intro but later in the track i want more in your face hats
esp with this kind of kick


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