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Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 3:19 am
by The_G
Been messing with 303 squelch, came up with this. Going for a sort of throwback, lo-fi production aesthetic. Nothing on the master channel except some glue compression and tape saturation.

Any thoughts, advice, etc. welcome.

https://soundcloud.com/the-g-music/conc ... id/s-UVScz

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:11 pm
by kostas
Hi G,
you know I liked Cosmopolis it got nostalgic like a proper synthwave must be imo!
this specific track is melting enough as acid should be.
so yeah I think you know what you doing!

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:55 pm
by SHIDZO
This has a lot of potential in my opinion. It already sounds really good and like it has purpose. I'm not really keen on the amount of panning going on. I am also waiting for something to happen. I like the double kick and the drums you chose. Honestly, you can take that one to another level. Maybe throw a vocal on it or bring in another element and then it's rollercoaster time. I like it a lot! Cheers

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:40 pm
by tsaro
The 303 sound is a bit overused ( :lol: ), not really groundbreaking stuff but it's a well made track.

I think it's missing some extra percussion, and maybe some accents.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 5:33 pm
by bioniceye
the kick sounds a bit too clicky / high passed for this kind of tune in my opinion especially when you hear the kick solo without the hat
i think you need to work on the transitions aswell.
the tune sounds good but i think it needs another sound, the acid line isnt enough to carry the track
why dont you play the pad when the kick is kicking as well

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:06 pm
by dubdub
The mix is very empty sounding, the kick lacks boom in the subs and then there's almost nothing in the high bass and low mid area, which is where the warmth sits. It sounds very over-EQd to my ears. With so few elements, you barely need to EQ anything at all. Maybe add a nice warm, subby bassline and some tape hiss, the mix would sound much more complete.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:10 pm
by The_G
bioniceye wrote:the kick sounds a bit too clicky / high passed for this kind of tune in my opinion especially when you hear the kick solo without the hat
i think you need to work on the transitions aswell.
the tune sounds good but i think it needs another sound, the acid line isnt enough to carry the track
why dont you play the pad when the kick is kicking as well
Yeah, it does lack accents on transition...I'll work on that.

As for the kick being too high passed...not sure why that is. I only have a 20hz HPF on there. Beyond that it's a straight-up 808 sample.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:13 pm
by The_G
dubdub wrote:It sounds very over-EQd to my ears. With so few elements, you barely need to EQ anything at all.
There's almost no EQ at all on the track. One on the drum bus (20hz HPF, gentle boost at 50-8-hz and another at 7.1khz; no cuts). The other tracks only have 20hz HPFs--no other EQ at all. So not really sure what you're picking up on.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:57 am
by jordanneke
I like it.

There seems to be a little too much attack on the kick, but that's only noticeable when it's playing alone.

When the pads come in it's a bit of a welcome break from the cold, but they are also cold synthy chords, so it stays cold! Maybe having something warmer (chord wise) as a balance? By 4.20 I was a bit bored if I'm honest. Just too sparse and introspective.

As for the mix and the technicality, I can't offer any help there. Sounds great to me

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:56 pm
by dubdub
The_G wrote:
dubdub wrote:It sounds very over-EQd to my ears. With so few elements, you barely need to EQ anything at all.
There's almost no EQ at all on the track. One on the drum bus (20hz HPF, gentle boost at 50-8-hz and another at 7.1khz; no cuts). The other tracks only have 20hz HPFs--no other EQ at all. So not really sure what you're picking up on.
Is there really no high pass on the delay? Sounds like at least.

Anyways, thinking about it, I think the "over EQd" feeling comes the fact that all the sounds in the track are sounds that occupy a very specific frequency range. The kick has little going on in the subs and little punch in the mids, the 303 is very high mid centric, the drums are 808ish sit mostly in the upper highs, the pad sits pretty high aswell. Nothing wrong with sounds sits that sit in a specific spot of course but when you have a track only made up of these kinda sounds, you have little frequency overlap filling out the mix, which makes it feel a bit cold and empty.

If you listen to old Plastikman, he has a similiar kind of sound palette with the 808 and 303 but there's a good amount of juicy harmonic distortion and a shit ton of reverb and delay tails going on to fill out that negative space a bit. He also tends to add some warm sub bass in addition to the 808 quick and have two 303s for the low mids and high mids going, which helps to fill out the frequency reange.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:23 pm
by The_G
jordanneke wrote:I like it.

There seems to be a little too much attack on the kick, but that's only noticeable when it's playing alone.

When the pads come in it's a bit of a welcome break from the cold, but they are also cold synthy chords, so it stays cold! Maybe having something warmer (chord wise) as a balance? By 4.20 I was a bit bored if I'm honest. Just too sparse and introspective.

As for the mix and the technicality, I can't offer any help there. Sounds great to me
Thanks man! Yeah, sparse and introspective was the mood I was going for. I was listening to a bunch of old K. Alexi and Plastikman records before I made this. But I'll play around with things and see what happens. I agree the track could use another element.

Could I ask you for a bit more info on the kick? You're not the first to mention it, but I have hardly any EQ on it, so I'm trying to understand what the issue is (so I can fix it). Maybe an issue with the drum bus compression? That's the best I can come up with. I'll try switching that out, or maybe replacing the kick sample.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:28 pm
by The_G
dubdub wrote:
The_G wrote:
dubdub wrote:It sounds very over-EQd to my ears. With so few elements, you barely need to EQ anything at all.
There's almost no EQ at all on the track. One on the drum bus (20hz HPF, gentle boost at 50-8-hz and another at 7.1khz; no cuts). The other tracks only have 20hz HPFs--no other EQ at all. So not really sure what you're picking up on.
Is there really no high pass on the delay? Sounds like at least.

Anyways, thinking about it, I think the "over EQd" feeling comes the fact that all the sounds in the track are sounds that occupy a very specific frequency range. The kick has little going on in the subs and little punch in the mids, the 303 is very high mid centric, the drums are 808ish sit mostly in the upper highs, the pad sits pretty high aswell. Nothing wrong with sounds sits that sit in a specific spot of course but when you have a track only made up of these kinda sounds, you have little frequency overlap filling out the mix, which makes it feel a bit cold and empty.

If you listen to old Plastikman, he has a similiar kind of sound palette with the 808 and 303 but there's a good amount of juicy harmonic distortion and a shit ton of reverb and delay tails going on to fill out that negative space a bit. He also tends to add some warm sub bass in addition to the 808 quick and have two 303s for the low mids and high mids going, which helps to fill out the frequency reange.
No, but I'm using UVI BeatBox Anthology for the drums--which I don't normally use--so I'm wondering if maybe it's something in the 808 kit *before* I process stuff. I'll go in and take a look. I have a shit ton of 808 samples (who doesn't) so maybe I could switch that out and see if it fixes things. My goal was to do the whole lo-fi approach, and be really light on EQ and compression, then add tape saturation and compression at the bus level.

I'll try out adding a sub under the bass 303.

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:41 am
by bioniceye
The_G wrote:
bioniceye wrote:the kick sounds a bit too clicky / high passed for this kind of tune in my opinion especially when you hear the kick solo without the hat
i think you need to work on the transitions aswell.
the tune sounds good but i think it needs another sound, the acid line isnt enough to carry the track
why dont you play the pad when the kick is kicking as well
Yeah, it does lack accents on transition...I'll work on that.

As for the kick being too high passed...not sure why that is. I only have a 20hz HPF on there. Beyond that it's a straight-up 808 sample.
mayb there is too much attack on the kick or there is something wrong with your compressor settings
you can make the 808 really subby with the asdr settings only

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:18 am
by TomasHD
I really like it, it me remind of a function track somehow, i think is called "against the wall".

I would love that you could edit more those acid sequences by using some delay automations with reverb to create some sort of drone in the background. (My opinion)

pd: I can't enough of that track "shadows in the neon rain", those melodies ughh

Re: Concrete Island - Galactic Acid

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:05 am
by The_G
TomasHD wrote:I really like it, it me remind of a function track somehow, i think is called "against the wall".

I would love that you could edit more those acid sequences by using some delay automations with reverb to create some sort of drone in the background. (My opinion)

pd: I can't enough of that track "shadows in the neon rain", those melodies ughh
Thank you very much! Also interesting idea on automating delay and reverb...I'll try that out...could be a solution to the transitions issue.