Showcase - January 31 - February 6, 2022
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Sole Element
ILLIEN
Battle Points: 1
@2GooD Productions i really like the sounds you used this week. The drums sound good as well. The second one really grabbed my attention, the only thing I didn’t like was on certain parts you had one too many snare hits but other than that no problem. I love that shaker! Nice choruses as well, seriously.
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@Sole Element Thanks. On your track I think the sung part is out of key, the DMX parts sound good though, the vocal is a bit far back in the mix though, it should be upfront. Much prefer these drums to the washed out ones from last week, I like that kick, it has a nice thump to it. Is that a moog synth? It sounds like one
Sole Element
ILLIEN
Battle Points: 1
@2GooD Productions I wish I had a moog keyboard lol. I figured the vocals were like that, I think they were just low quality. Funny thing is This beat went really well with a mobb deep song I probably should have used that because of better quality. I don’t wanna waste this one so I may repost it on different remix
Sole Element
ILLIEN
Battle Points: 1
@2GooD Productions good looking out i had a pitch shifter on melodies and forgot to take it off making the song off key smh. Like I said don’t know if turning up volume on vocals will help it but I tried it if you could give it another listen. Hopefully vocals are not too lo loud. I can’t mix the way I want at the moment due to certain things
Hadoq
Producing weird shit since 2002
Hi, same as last time, end of the week I had to work a lot so I'll be catching up with feedback
@Zatoichis_Ears
diab low
Nice loop and drums, but I'd like more variation, maybe use filters, maybe a cut here and there, maybe remove the bass or main sample etc... I' do a cut on the small thrill in the bass at least once to kind of show it off and add dynamic motion in the track, the base blocks, loop and drum are pretty solid.
@Stoned Monk
not my ind of vibe, but it is brilliantly executed, great work on making your beat interesting and dynamic, great sounds and great groove !
@KanetheMOD
classic vibe, I think it's on its way but not quite there, some timbres sound a bit flimsy and cheap, melodies can get a little repetitive, I'd suggest you could try to have some parts doubled with either the same instrument, but different mix (eq/fx) and panned differently, or different instruments, or maybe pitched up or down versions of the same lines etc... I think this beat would benefit from a lot more layering whether it's on the drums or the instruments, the foundation is good but the execution feels rushed.
@Mono Beats
loving that classic 90s vibe, definitely my jam. Kick hits a little hard and maybe the drums sound a little bit quantized, wouldn't be as much of an issue with a more subtle kick. good dynamic arrangement to keep it interesting, overall if I had to find something to maybe improve upon, I'd have dirtied out the overall mix a little bit. definitely check out the plugin cymatics origin, it's free and pretty awesome to dirty up stuff. that and hand played drum beats would have put this track over the top for sure.
@Manfreezey
kick back to the mid 90s metal/rap collaborations, tho really not my vibe anymore. I think the foundation is good, musically, but the execution makes it feel like some sort of background music, it's quite static and sounds like loops just dropped, maybe have more intent in the transitions, highlight them a little better and you're good. maybe play by removing the main riff at times to create a little bit of space.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Now onto this week's music
@2GooD Productions
funk in the trunk
the unquantized feel really brings it together, you feel it ?
you can do quantized if you have a good reason to, it can be fun but it has to become a creative tool rather than some kind of "beat-aid"
I can tell you work on nuances too, which is great.
the issue I have with this beat now, and that's fine cause you're doing the work and I know you'll be working on that too
You start the beat at nearly 100% intensity when it comes to how powerful and in your face the sounds are, the thing with that is that this will make the beat sound more repetitive as it goes.
whay you can try to do is start maybe at 40% intensity, use filters, remove some layers, use softer sounds, then later on, you can turn the intensity up, or down, but if you start too high, the average intensity can't do anything but go down.
another thing, that is tied to intensity, that brings the beat down, is it's length. and this is a tough one cause you got all these ideas so you need time to get them all down and into the beat, so you end up with a 4+ minutes beat
being able to make shorter beats, I've learned the hard way, is a skill, being able to choose between several good ideas and keep only the best, bring them out one right after the other, and your beat will be fire in 2 minutes, more so than a collection of good enough ideas for 4.
You can spend the same time working on a 2 minutes beat than you do on a 4 minutes one, get more into details, transitions, automation, and it'll bring the quality up big time.
a new age rises
composition is good, I really have an issue with the sounds/timbres, they really sound a lot like presets (omnisphere?)
I can tell you've been working on doing better arrangements, in this area, you can now focus on transitions (they're a TON of work but also a TON of fun, if you have a wife/roommate it'll bother them to death tho, listen to the same 10secs piece of music for 4 hours)
for the instrument timbres (before mixing, mixing will come after that) this is a suggestion, maybe find less generic plugins (and I know omnisphere is a standard but if that's what you're using, put it aside for a little while), but also plugins that require you to fiddle with a little bit to sculpt your sound, so your timbres will be much more deliberate and will carry that much more meaning and power. Also by understanding a bit of sound design, you'll be able to understand how to make them evolve throughout your pieces. Have a couple of plugins for bass, a couple for keys, some for leads etc... this now sounds like you got all the sounds from one plugin, I don't know if that's the case but that's how it sounds to me.
When it comes to drums, they need to fit in better, one way you can help with that is having shorter kicks and snares and really EQ out the unused frequencies (having just a hi pass and a low pass on a track will already help a lot, an easy way to use them, at frst, you can solo a given track, put a high pass on, lower the frequency up until the point when you can hear a difference and set it just above that. Do the same operation with a low pass, only raising the frequency up until that point. Around those points, you can play with the frequency to start sculpting the sound a little more, especially for snares. Personally, on hats, I don't use a high pass filter, just a low pass one)
You can work on these points and I'm sure we'll keep hearing great improvements, I can tell you've been working hard and taking advices into consideration, which is why I spend that much time on giving you feedback specifically
@Sole Element really not my vibe here, the execution is good, no worries there, but not at all my thing.
for this week I have this remix of a tribe called quest classic
and something a bit more "psychedelic" been trying to work on very repetitive patterns lately, being inspired by "mujo" check him out if you have the opportunity, GREAT music, I love especially some of his older beat tapes like "reincarnation"
@Zatoichis_Ears
diab low
Nice loop and drums, but I'd like more variation, maybe use filters, maybe a cut here and there, maybe remove the bass or main sample etc... I' do a cut on the small thrill in the bass at least once to kind of show it off and add dynamic motion in the track, the base blocks, loop and drum are pretty solid.
@Stoned Monk
not my ind of vibe, but it is brilliantly executed, great work on making your beat interesting and dynamic, great sounds and great groove !
@KanetheMOD
classic vibe, I think it's on its way but not quite there, some timbres sound a bit flimsy and cheap, melodies can get a little repetitive, I'd suggest you could try to have some parts doubled with either the same instrument, but different mix (eq/fx) and panned differently, or different instruments, or maybe pitched up or down versions of the same lines etc... I think this beat would benefit from a lot more layering whether it's on the drums or the instruments, the foundation is good but the execution feels rushed.
@Mono Beats
loving that classic 90s vibe, definitely my jam. Kick hits a little hard and maybe the drums sound a little bit quantized, wouldn't be as much of an issue with a more subtle kick. good dynamic arrangement to keep it interesting, overall if I had to find something to maybe improve upon, I'd have dirtied out the overall mix a little bit. definitely check out the plugin cymatics origin, it's free and pretty awesome to dirty up stuff. that and hand played drum beats would have put this track over the top for sure.
@Manfreezey
kick back to the mid 90s metal/rap collaborations, tho really not my vibe anymore. I think the foundation is good, musically, but the execution makes it feel like some sort of background music, it's quite static and sounds like loops just dropped, maybe have more intent in the transitions, highlight them a little better and you're good. maybe play by removing the main riff at times to create a little bit of space.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Now onto this week's music
@2GooD Productions
funk in the trunk
the unquantized feel really brings it together, you feel it ?
you can do quantized if you have a good reason to, it can be fun but it has to become a creative tool rather than some kind of "beat-aid"
I can tell you work on nuances too, which is great.
the issue I have with this beat now, and that's fine cause you're doing the work and I know you'll be working on that too
You start the beat at nearly 100% intensity when it comes to how powerful and in your face the sounds are, the thing with that is that this will make the beat sound more repetitive as it goes.
whay you can try to do is start maybe at 40% intensity, use filters, remove some layers, use softer sounds, then later on, you can turn the intensity up, or down, but if you start too high, the average intensity can't do anything but go down.
another thing, that is tied to intensity, that brings the beat down, is it's length. and this is a tough one cause you got all these ideas so you need time to get them all down and into the beat, so you end up with a 4+ minutes beat
being able to make shorter beats, I've learned the hard way, is a skill, being able to choose between several good ideas and keep only the best, bring them out one right after the other, and your beat will be fire in 2 minutes, more so than a collection of good enough ideas for 4.
You can spend the same time working on a 2 minutes beat than you do on a 4 minutes one, get more into details, transitions, automation, and it'll bring the quality up big time.
a new age rises
composition is good, I really have an issue with the sounds/timbres, they really sound a lot like presets (omnisphere?)
I can tell you've been working on doing better arrangements, in this area, you can now focus on transitions (they're a TON of work but also a TON of fun, if you have a wife/roommate it'll bother them to death tho, listen to the same 10secs piece of music for 4 hours)
for the instrument timbres (before mixing, mixing will come after that) this is a suggestion, maybe find less generic plugins (and I know omnisphere is a standard but if that's what you're using, put it aside for a little while), but also plugins that require you to fiddle with a little bit to sculpt your sound, so your timbres will be much more deliberate and will carry that much more meaning and power. Also by understanding a bit of sound design, you'll be able to understand how to make them evolve throughout your pieces. Have a couple of plugins for bass, a couple for keys, some for leads etc... this now sounds like you got all the sounds from one plugin, I don't know if that's the case but that's how it sounds to me.
When it comes to drums, they need to fit in better, one way you can help with that is having shorter kicks and snares and really EQ out the unused frequencies (having just a hi pass and a low pass on a track will already help a lot, an easy way to use them, at frst, you can solo a given track, put a high pass on, lower the frequency up until the point when you can hear a difference and set it just above that. Do the same operation with a low pass, only raising the frequency up until that point. Around those points, you can play with the frequency to start sculpting the sound a little more, especially for snares. Personally, on hats, I don't use a high pass filter, just a low pass one)
You can work on these points and I'm sure we'll keep hearing great improvements, I can tell you've been working hard and taking advices into consideration, which is why I spend that much time on giving you feedback specifically
@Sole Element really not my vibe here, the execution is good, no worries there, but not at all my thing.
for this week I have this remix of a tribe called quest classic
and something a bit more "psychedelic" been trying to work on very repetitive patterns lately, being inspired by "mujo" check him out if you have the opportunity, GREAT music, I love especially some of his older beat tapes like "reincarnation"
hosie
ILLIEN
Battle Points: 9
@2GooD Productions not being lazy but I would echo pretty much everything @Hadoq said. I'd highly recommend not quantizing but don't force yourself into making it compulsory. Do whatever you think is needed for each individual beat. I prefer 'A New Age Rises' mainly because it's less busy and intense. If I had to add anything to Hadoq's critique it would be to leave a little space in your beats. Just let it breathe in places. Particularly if you're looking to have MC's rhyme over them.
@Sole Element I tip my hat at your experimentalism but I'm not sure it works. It feels a bit chaotic and mismatched. I don't think any of the vocals really sit well in the mix or musicality wise. I'd like to hear the instrumental alone. I think the snare sticks out a little too much and because it sits slightly off-beat it doesn't help. I think I'd pitch the snare down slightly and add a little bit over reverb + delay to let it roll and blend with the rest of the instrumental.
@Hadoq I actually like both of these. They're not really my style but I get the lo-fi vibe you're going for and I think you get there with them both. I don't really like the ATCQ pitched vocals on the first instrumental and again would like to hear the instrumental on it's own. I think you achieved what you wanted to with both of these but yea would love to hear the ATCQ one as just purely an instrumental. Really like the sample on that one and the drums fit nicely into it. I think if you lifted the higher frequencies slightly to make it a little less lo-fi, and brought the drums up too, I could hear Common rhyming over it.
I put a beat tape out this week. I've kept it private on SC but hopefully you should get to hear it with the link below:
EDIT: DOOM acapella now removed
Cheers
Hosie
@Sole Element I tip my hat at your experimentalism but I'm not sure it works. It feels a bit chaotic and mismatched. I don't think any of the vocals really sit well in the mix or musicality wise. I'd like to hear the instrumental alone. I think the snare sticks out a little too much and because it sits slightly off-beat it doesn't help. I think I'd pitch the snare down slightly and add a little bit over reverb + delay to let it roll and blend with the rest of the instrumental.
@Hadoq I actually like both of these. They're not really my style but I get the lo-fi vibe you're going for and I think you get there with them both. I don't really like the ATCQ pitched vocals on the first instrumental and again would like to hear the instrumental on it's own. I think you achieved what you wanted to with both of these but yea would love to hear the ATCQ one as just purely an instrumental. Really like the sample on that one and the drums fit nicely into it. I think if you lifted the higher frequencies slightly to make it a little less lo-fi, and brought the drums up too, I could hear Common rhyming over it.
I put a beat tape out this week. I've kept it private on SC but hopefully you should get to hear it with the link below:
EDIT: DOOM acapella now removed
Cheers
Hosie
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Otaavetti
Newbie
Wasn't very active last week but trying to make up for it this week!
@2GooD Productions i believe as many already mentioned the first is a lil intense from the get-go but I'm liking that 2nd one a lot, good drums and feel. Sounding good man.
@Sole Element Not particluarly my thing but sounds good regardless!
@Hadoq I like the lo-fi feel both tracks have, nice execution, was a fun listen.
@hosie Beat behind the vocals sounds bouncy man but i feel like the MF doom vocals are a bit too harsh, really in your ear. if balanced more think it'd sound a lil better.
I put a lil freestyle out today, quite a short one but i think it's quite chill. Any feeback is appreciated.
@2GooD Productions i believe as many already mentioned the first is a lil intense from the get-go but I'm liking that 2nd one a lot, good drums and feel. Sounding good man.
@Sole Element Not particluarly my thing but sounds good regardless!
@Hadoq I like the lo-fi feel both tracks have, nice execution, was a fun listen.
@hosie Beat behind the vocals sounds bouncy man but i feel like the MF doom vocals are a bit too harsh, really in your ear. if balanced more think it'd sound a lil better.
I put a lil freestyle out today, quite a short one but i think it's quite chill. Any feeback is appreciated.
Hi, same as last time, end of the week I had to work a lot so I'll be catching up with feedback
@Zatoichis_Ears
diab low
Nice loop and drums, but I'd like more variation, maybe use filters, maybe a cut here and there, maybe remove the bass or main sample etc... I' do a cut on the small thrill in the bass at least once to kind of show it off and add dynamic motion in the track, the base blocks, loop and drum are pretty solid.
@Stoned Monk
not my ind of vibe, but it is brilliantly executed, great work on making your beat interesting and dynamic, great sounds and great groove !
@KanetheMOD
classic vibe, I think it's on its way but not quite there, some timbres sound a bit flimsy and cheap, melodies can get a little repetitive, I'd suggest you could try to have some parts doubled with either the same instrument, but different mix (eq/fx) and panned differently, or different instruments, or maybe pitched up or down versions of the same lines etc... I think this beat would benefit from a lot more layering whether it's on the drums or the instruments, the foundation is good but the execution feels rushed.
@Mono Beats
loving that classic 90s vibe, definitely my jam. Kick hits a little hard and maybe the drums sound a little bit quantized, wouldn't be as much of an issue with a more subtle kick. good dynamic arrangement to keep it interesting, overall if I had to find something to maybe improve upon, I'd have dirtied out the overall mix a little bit. definitely check out the plugin cymatics origin, it's free and pretty awesome to dirty up stuff. that and hand played drum beats would have put this track over the top for sure.
@Manfreezey
kick back to the mid 90s metal/rap collaborations, tho really not my vibe anymore. I think the foundation is good, musically, but the execution makes it feel like some sort of background music, it's quite static and sounds like loops just dropped, maybe have more intent in the transitions, highlight them a little better and you're good. maybe play by removing the main riff at times to create a little bit of space.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Now onto this week's music
@2GooD Productions
funk in the trunk
the unquantized feel really brings it together, you feel it ?
you can do quantized if you have a good reason to, it can be fun but it has to become a creative tool rather than some kind of "beat-aid"
I can tell you work on nuances too, which is great.
the issue I have with this beat now, and that's fine cause you're doing the work and I know you'll be working on that too
You start the beat at nearly 100% intensity when it comes to how powerful and in your face the sounds are, the thing with that is that this will make the beat sound more repetitive as it goes.
whay you can try to do is start maybe at 40% intensity, use filters, remove some layers, use softer sounds, then later on, you can turn the intensity up, or down, but if you start too high, the average intensity can't do anything but go down.
another thing, that is tied to intensity, that brings the beat down, is it's length. and this is a tough one cause you got all these ideas so you need time to get them all down and into the beat, so you end up with a 4+ minutes beat
being able to make shorter beats, I've learned the hard way, is a skill, being able to choose between several good ideas and keep only the best, bring them out one right after the other, and your beat will be fire in 2 minutes, more so than a collection of good enough ideas for 4.
You can spend the same time working on a 2 minutes beat than you do on a 4 minutes one, get more into details, transitions, automation, and it'll bring the quality up big time.
a new age rises
composition is good, I really have an issue with the sounds/timbres, they really sound a lot like presets (omnisphere?)
I can tell you've been working on doing better arrangements, in this area, you can now focus on transitions (they're a TON of work but also a TON of fun, if you have a wife/roommate it'll bother them to death tho, listen to the same 10secs piece of music for 4 hours)
for the instrument timbres (before mixing, mixing will come after that) this is a suggestion, maybe find less generic plugins (and I know omnisphere is a standard but if that's what you're using, put it aside for a little while), but also plugins that require you to fiddle with a little bit to sculpt your sound, so your timbres will be much more deliberate and will carry that much more meaning and power. Also by understanding a bit of sound design, you'll be able to understand how to make them evolve throughout your pieces. Have a couple of plugins for bass, a couple for keys, some for leads etc... this now sounds like you got all the sounds from one plugin, I don't know if that's the case but that's how it sounds to me.
When it comes to drums, they need to fit in better, one way you can help with that is having shorter kicks and snares and really EQ out the unused frequencies (having just a hi pass and a low pass on a track will already help a lot, an easy way to use them, at frst, you can solo a given track, put a high pass on, lower the frequency up until the point when you can hear a difference and set it just above that. Do the same operation with a low pass, only raising the frequency up until that point. Around those points, you can play with the frequency to start sculpting the sound a little more, especially for snares. Personally, on hats, I don't use a high pass filter, just a low pass one)
You can work on these points and I'm sure we'll keep hearing great improvements, I can tell you've been working hard and taking advices into consideration, which is why I spend that much time on giving you feedback specifically
@Sole Element really not my vibe here, the execution is good, no worries there, but not at all my thing.
for this week I have this remix of a tribe called quest classic
and something a bit more "psychedelic" been trying to work on very repetitive patterns lately, being inspired by "mujo" check him out if you have the opportunity, GREAT music, I love especially some of his older beat tapes like "reincarnation"
I really appreciate the feedback man, you nail it with your critiques which is why I take your advice pretty seriously. You mention a few things I already do, but you pick up on my little lazinesses, or shortcuts. Great ears man. I dont exclusively use Omnisphere, I have trillian, subboombass, dune3, kontakt, I have the full fl studio, but dont really use it now I have cubase 11. I have quite a few plugins and dont just stick with omnisphere, but I do use a lot of presets, I find sound design time consuming to the point I lose my train of thought and forget what I was doing in the first place. Using presets I can get the meat and potatoes of a beat together pretty quick, and then tune later.
Hadoq
Producing weird shit since 2002
@hosie thanks for the feedback, I'm actually collaborating with a rapper that kind sounds pretty common-ish, having a blast, maybe I'll post one of the tracks later on I thought about having the ATCQ beat as a pure instrumental, tho I would have to rearrange it entirely as it would probably be too long as is. no sampling going on there tho mostly plugins (imagiro piano, ample sound upright bass, ample sound jaco fretless and lofi panda) and libraries (spitfire brass, berlin strings & woodwinds on kontakt)
when it comes to your beat, that's pretty much the stuff I'm trying to achieve, have a loop that goes on and keeps you with it throughout, this is such an art form, like a japanese garden.
@Otaavetti smooth work here, I absolutely LOVE all the stuff in the background, it really makes the whole thing that much deeper. loving the cutting action too, nothing to say here, really nice beat and track all together.
@Manfreezey 2005 eh ? my son was 3 then, he's in college now, part of me would love to go back to the stuff I did back then, part of me just wants to keep moving on, it was so long ago, I'm barely the same person, props for looking back at your old music tho, I'm sure there's plenty gold to find there for those willing to take the chance.
"tender roomie", very nice groove, I'd ease off on the reverb, personally, and also make it much shorter, but I do like the individual elements and what you make of them, all the variations do still keep it interesting.
"last will" not my thing, the sounds are too "in yo face" all the time, compression feels weird, the thing feels very full and would benefit from a little bit of space. remember, silence can be written into music, silence is also music
@2GooD Productions I feel in music, there can be a lot of nuance, whether it's in the music itself or in the approach. there's nothing really wrong with using presets, I do it all the time.
when it comes to sound design, if you have very powerful tools, it can be very overwhelming to get started on modifying a preset or creating a sound, which is why I suggested different, maybe more simple plugins.
I had a run with omnisphere a while back and it's such a powerful tool, but I found it far too powerful for what I want to do, too much of a good thing isn't necessarily better.
You can take simple instruments, and in terms of sound design, there's a couple of things you can do that are easy and won't take much time or effort for a potentially big difference.
1. play with filter (low pass is the obvious here, but band pass or high pass can also be very useful)
2. layer your sounds, use the same midi track but with a different plugin, or maybe the same plugin but filtered. Or maybe replay the same part over with a different sound, then within your track, play with removing on or the other depending on what kind of energy you want at a given moment.
3. a neat trick that I like doing, is to record an octave higher at twice the speed and then slow it/pitch it back down, it'll make for a slightly lighter sound as it'll have less harmonic content. Or you can do the reverse if you want a higher pitched sound with a fuller harmonic content, you can record at half the speed, an octave down, and then pitch/speed it back up, and you can of course layer all that.
A lot of things will take time and effort to do right now, but eventually they'll become second nature and new and effective tools for you to use whenever you need them.
I think at this point, what you might want isn't more features and possibilities, but maybe limit the amount and power of the tools you're using, go back to more basic tools and work on really refining all the small details there, it'll open up everything else once you get it down on more basic and straightforward instruments.
Especially when it comes to more orchestral sounding instruments, personally, I think they require the most amount of extremely minute detail work to get them right (listening to orchestral/classical music will help a great bunch, if you're not familiar with it, I'd recommend either going into it through movies soundtracks, or late 19th through mid 20th century, can't go wrong with Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner -very dramatic-, Ravel, Satie, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Liszt or Chopin, if you want to really learn about nuance, composition, energy management, this is where it's at, and these aren't more difficult to listen to than Soundtrack music -they basically inspired what soundtrack music is today)
it doesn't touch to that directly, but you could take the time to check out Leonard Bernstein Harvard lectures on youtube (6 long lectures but you will NOT see music the same ever again after that, and I mean it in a good way)
the reason why I can pick these things up is that I went through that, and there are still things I'm lazy at today. and one reliable way to improve is to start improving on what you already know you can improve upon, spend more time on smaller details, that's all gonna add up in the end and create better, deeper music. there'll always be a point where you just want to move on with the track, that's a good point to take a break, maybe start working on something else and get back to your track the next day with fresher ears (very important on some tracks)
Maybe dial down the number of tracks/elements you have in a beat, I know I used to have 50+, sometimes up to more than 100 different audio tracks on a production, now I'm somewhere between 4 and maybe 10-15 (the ATCQ has something like 7 or 8 orchestral tracks, piano, bass, drums and 3 tracks for the solo at the end), but with more work to each
Being on ableton, I don't really know the FL workflow but I do have experience with Cubase (actually started on cubase 3 audio back in the days, I think it was the first that featured audio tracks)
Ableton has a pretty good workflow for me, I can use clips and arrange very easily, and the latest versions have very good plugins and instruments.
Most importantly, and this is again personal, music isn't just about the notes, the chords and the instruments. There has to be intent, a message, a feeling, some intangibles. making music isn't a mechanical or technical process (although mechanics and technique do play a role in realizing it).
You can look at it like that
Music is about establishing balance between chaos and order.
Chaos is all that goes into creating the music in your mind, your inspiration, your life experience, your feelings, all that confusing and sometimes frightening stuff
Order is your mastery of tools, techniques and theory
Music is when you bring about both order and chaos in order to create a meaningful piece.
Meaning is the keyword here, everything else is secondary to that, even important things, everything takes a back seat to the meaning of your piece and how you go about making it meaningful by properly balancing muse (chaos) and mastery (order)
Here, we talk a lot about the "order" part, cause that's the easiest thing to point at and dissect, the mix, the plugins, sound design, music theory etc... but it's only half of the equation.
but meaning is what we're after, meaningful music.
So always take a step back and listen to what you're doing, take a break, go back to it after a while and listen to your work as if it were someone else's. What would you do better ? different ? what would you like to hear ? what bothers you ? what is useful to carry meaning and what isn't ?
as a side note, you can apply the chaos/order/meaning paradigm to pretty much everything in life
and as a different side note, this paradigm is actually built in the way music actually works, physically speaking, through the harmonic series. First you have the fundamental, the "note" if you will, then in the harmonic series, you have the octave, same note, only higher, that's the expression of order.
chaos is when things change, and it's brought about by the 3rd harmonic in the series, which happens to be the 5th. Which is why the 5/1 relationship is so fundamental in 99.99% of music, one way or another.
next up is the major 3rd, completing the major triad, that chord that sounds "happy", because of how well it's balanced with the first 3 harmonics being in one single chord.
I could go on, but I won't here.
just know that this seemingly limited concept opens the door to a virtually unlimited amount of musical possibilities, going through mechanisms such as circle of 5ths (or circle of 4th when you take it backwards), tritone substitutions, melodies and chord voicings.
the catch is to know about it, but not think about it when you make music (same way you don't think about grammar when you speak or write, you just understand it and it makes your discourse of better quality)
I guess where I'm going with this is that while it's important to have a good understanding of the tools you're using, it's equally as important not to forget that you're making music, and most important quality in music is its meaningfulness, and that requires both a technical but also a deeply personal and humane approach to making it.
I challenge you to find anything more meaningful that you could do in your life, than music is Personally, I think the only thing that comes close to that is raising a child.
sorry didn't mean to go on for that long but I got carried away. I just love it when people grow and make progress, had to leard a lot of this by myself, the hard way, so if I can save any of you some time and pain, I'd be glad to help
more better music makes for a better world, we need tons of great music !
I thought about having the ATCQ beat as a pure instrumental, tho I would have to rearrange it entirely as it would probably be too long as is. no sampling going on there tho mostly plugins (imagiro piano, ample sound upright bass, ample sound jaco fretless and lofi panda) and libraries (spitfire brass, berlin strings & woodwinds on kontakt)when it comes to your beat, that's pretty much the stuff I'm trying to achieve, have a loop that goes on and keeps you with it throughout, this is such an art form, like a japanese garden.
@Otaavetti smooth work here, I absolutely LOVE all the stuff in the background, it really makes the whole thing that much deeper. loving the cutting action too, nothing to say here, really nice beat and track all together.
@Manfreezey 2005 eh ? my son was 3 then, he's in college now, part of me would love to go back to the stuff I did back then, part of me just wants to keep moving on, it was so long ago, I'm barely the same person, props for looking back at your old music tho, I'm sure there's plenty gold to find there for those willing to take the chance.
"tender roomie", very nice groove, I'd ease off on the reverb, personally, and also make it much shorter, but I do like the individual elements and what you make of them, all the variations do still keep it interesting.
"last will" not my thing, the sounds are too "in yo face" all the time, compression feels weird, the thing feels very full and would benefit from a little bit of space. remember, silence can be written into music, silence is also music
@2GooD Productions I feel in music, there can be a lot of nuance, whether it's in the music itself or in the approach. there's nothing really wrong with using presets, I do it all the time.
when it comes to sound design, if you have very powerful tools, it can be very overwhelming to get started on modifying a preset or creating a sound, which is why I suggested different, maybe more simple plugins.
I had a run with omnisphere a while back and it's such a powerful tool, but I found it far too powerful for what I want to do, too much of a good thing isn't necessarily better.
You can take simple instruments, and in terms of sound design, there's a couple of things you can do that are easy and won't take much time or effort for a potentially big difference.
1. play with filter (low pass is the obvious here, but band pass or high pass can also be very useful)
2. layer your sounds, use the same midi track but with a different plugin, or maybe the same plugin but filtered. Or maybe replay the same part over with a different sound, then within your track, play with removing on or the other depending on what kind of energy you want at a given moment.
3. a neat trick that I like doing, is to record an octave higher at twice the speed and then slow it/pitch it back down, it'll make for a slightly lighter sound as it'll have less harmonic content. Or you can do the reverse if you want a higher pitched sound with a fuller harmonic content, you can record at half the speed, an octave down, and then pitch/speed it back up, and you can of course layer all that.
A lot of things will take time and effort to do right now, but eventually they'll become second nature and new and effective tools for you to use whenever you need them.
I think at this point, what you might want isn't more features and possibilities, but maybe limit the amount and power of the tools you're using, go back to more basic tools and work on really refining all the small details there, it'll open up everything else once you get it down on more basic and straightforward instruments.
Especially when it comes to more orchestral sounding instruments, personally, I think they require the most amount of extremely minute detail work to get them right (listening to orchestral/classical music will help a great bunch, if you're not familiar with it, I'd recommend either going into it through movies soundtracks, or late 19th through mid 20th century, can't go wrong with Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner -very dramatic-, Ravel, Satie, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Liszt or Chopin, if you want to really learn about nuance, composition, energy management, this is where it's at, and these aren't more difficult to listen to than Soundtrack music -they basically inspired what soundtrack music is today)
it doesn't touch to that directly, but you could take the time to check out Leonard Bernstein Harvard lectures on youtube (6 long lectures but you will NOT see music the same ever again after that, and I mean it in a good way)
the reason why I can pick these things up is that I went through that, and there are still things I'm lazy at today. and one reliable way to improve is to start improving on what you already know you can improve upon, spend more time on smaller details, that's all gonna add up in the end and create better, deeper music. there'll always be a point where you just want to move on with the track, that's a good point to take a break, maybe start working on something else and get back to your track the next day with fresher ears (very important on some tracks)
Maybe dial down the number of tracks/elements you have in a beat, I know I used to have 50+, sometimes up to more than 100 different audio tracks on a production, now I'm somewhere between 4 and maybe 10-15 (the ATCQ has something like 7 or 8 orchestral tracks, piano, bass, drums and 3 tracks for the solo at the end), but with more work to each
Being on ableton, I don't really know the FL workflow but I do have experience with Cubase (actually started on cubase 3 audio back in the days, I think it was the first that featured audio tracks)
Ableton has a pretty good workflow for me, I can use clips and arrange very easily, and the latest versions have very good plugins and instruments.
Most importantly, and this is again personal, music isn't just about the notes, the chords and the instruments. There has to be intent, a message, a feeling, some intangibles. making music isn't a mechanical or technical process (although mechanics and technique do play a role in realizing it).
You can look at it like that
Music is about establishing balance between chaos and order.
Chaos is all that goes into creating the music in your mind, your inspiration, your life experience, your feelings, all that confusing and sometimes frightening stuff
Order is your mastery of tools, techniques and theory
Music is when you bring about both order and chaos in order to create a meaningful piece.
Meaning is the keyword here, everything else is secondary to that, even important things, everything takes a back seat to the meaning of your piece and how you go about making it meaningful by properly balancing muse (chaos) and mastery (order)
Here, we talk a lot about the "order" part, cause that's the easiest thing to point at and dissect, the mix, the plugins, sound design, music theory etc... but it's only half of the equation.
but meaning is what we're after, meaningful music.
So always take a step back and listen to what you're doing, take a break, go back to it after a while and listen to your work as if it were someone else's. What would you do better ? different ? what would you like to hear ? what bothers you ? what is useful to carry meaning and what isn't ?
as a side note, you can apply the chaos/order/meaning paradigm to pretty much everything in life
and as a different side note, this paradigm is actually built in the way music actually works, physically speaking, through the harmonic series. First you have the fundamental, the "note" if you will, then in the harmonic series, you have the octave, same note, only higher, that's the expression of order.
chaos is when things change, and it's brought about by the 3rd harmonic in the series, which happens to be the 5th. Which is why the 5/1 relationship is so fundamental in 99.99% of music, one way or another.
next up is the major 3rd, completing the major triad, that chord that sounds "happy", because of how well it's balanced with the first 3 harmonics being in one single chord.
I could go on, but I won't here.
just know that this seemingly limited concept opens the door to a virtually unlimited amount of musical possibilities, going through mechanisms such as circle of 5ths (or circle of 4th when you take it backwards), tritone substitutions, melodies and chord voicings.
the catch is to know about it, but not think about it when you make music (same way you don't think about grammar when you speak or write, you just understand it and it makes your discourse of better quality)
I guess where I'm going with this is that while it's important to have a good understanding of the tools you're using, it's equally as important not to forget that you're making music, and most important quality in music is its meaningfulness, and that requires both a technical but also a deeply personal and humane approach to making it.
I challenge you to find anything more meaningful that you could do in your life, than music is
Personally, I think the only thing that comes close to that is raising a child.sorry didn't mean to go on for that long but I got carried away. I just love it when people grow and make progress, had to leard a lot of this by myself, the hard way, so if I can save any of you some time and pain, I'd be glad to help
more better music makes for a better world, we need tons of great music !
thanks, for me the chaos/order thing I explain like this.. a balance between repetitive hypnotic(order) vs unexpected changes(chaos)@hosie thanks for the feedback, I'm actually collaborating with a rapper that kind sounds pretty common-ish, having a blast, maybe I'll post one of the tracks later on
when it comes to your beat, that's pretty much the stuff I'm trying to achieve, have a loop that goes on and keeps you with it throughout, this is such an art form, like a japanese garden.
@Otaavetti smooth work here, I absolutely LOVE all the stuff in the background, it really makes the whole thing that much deeper. loving the cutting action too, nothing to say here, really nice beat and track all together.
@Manfreezey 2005 eh ? my son was 3 then, he's in college now, part of me would love to go back to the stuff I did back then, part of me just wants to keep moving on, it was so long ago, I'm barely the same person, props for looking back at your old music tho, I'm sure there's plenty gold to find there for those willing to take the chance.
"tender roomie", very nice groove, I'd ease off on the reverb, personally, and also make it much shorter, but I do like the individual elements and what you make of them, all the variations do still keep it interesting.
"last will" not my thing, the sounds are too "in yo face" all the time, compression feels weird, the thing feels very full and would benefit from a little bit of space. remember, silence can be written into music, silence is also music
@2GooD Productions I feel in music, there can be a lot of nuance, whether it's in the music itself or in the approach. there's nothing really wrong with using presets, I do it all the time.
when it comes to sound design, if you have very powerful tools, it can be very overwhelming to get started on modifying a preset or creating a sound, which is why I suggested different, maybe more simple plugins.
I had a run with omnisphere a while back and it's such a powerful tool, but I found it far too powerful for what I want to do, too much of a good thing isn't necessarily better.
You can take simple instruments, and in terms of sound design, there's a couple of things you can do that are easy and won't take much time or effort for a potentially big difference.
1. play with filter (low pass is the obvious here, but band pass or high pass can also be very useful)
2. layer your sounds, use the same midi track but with a different plugin, or maybe the same plugin but filtered. Or maybe replay the same part over with a different sound, then within your track, play with removing on or the other depending on what kind of energy you want at a given moment.
3. a neat trick that I like doing, is to record an octave higher at twice the speed and then slow it/pitch it back down, it'll make for a slightly lighter sound as it'll have less harmonic content. Or you can do the reverse if you want a higher pitched sound with a fuller harmonic content, you can record at half the speed, an octave down, and then pitch/speed it back up, and you can of course layer all that.
A lot of things will take time and effort to do right now, but eventually they'll become second nature and new and effective tools for you to use whenever you need them.
I think at this point, what you might want isn't more features and possibilities, but maybe limit the amount and power of the tools you're using, go back to more basic tools and work on really refining all the small details there, it'll open up everything else once you get it down on more basic and straightforward instruments.
Especially when it comes to more orchestral sounding instruments, personally, I think they require the most amount of extremely minute detail work to get them right (listening to orchestral/classical music will help a great bunch, if you're not familiar with it, I'd recommend either going into it through movies soundtracks, or late 19th through mid 20th century, can't go wrong with Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner -very dramatic-, Ravel, Satie, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Liszt or Chopin, if you want to really learn about nuance, composition, energy management, this is where it's at, and these aren't more difficult to listen to than Soundtrack music -they basically inspired what soundtrack music is today)
it doesn't touch to that directly, but you could take the time to check out Leonard Bernstein Harvard lectures on youtube (6 long lectures but you will NOT see music the same ever again after that, and I mean it in a good way)
the reason why I can pick these things up is that I went through that, and there are still things I'm lazy at today. and one reliable way to improve is to start improving on what you already know you can improve upon, spend more time on smaller details, that's all gonna add up in the end and create better, deeper music. there'll always be a point where you just want to move on with the track, that's a good point to take a break, maybe start working on something else and get back to your track the next day with fresher ears (very important on some tracks)
Maybe dial down the number of tracks/elements you have in a beat, I know I used to have 50+, sometimes up to more than 100 different audio tracks on a production, now I'm somewhere between 4 and maybe 10-15 (the ATCQ has something like 7 or 8 orchestral tracks, piano, bass, drums and 3 tracks for the solo at the end), but with more work to each
Being on ableton, I don't really know the FL workflow but I do have experience with Cubase (actually started on cubase 3 audio back in the days, I think it was the first that featured audio tracks)
Ableton has a pretty good workflow for me, I can use clips and arrange very easily, and the latest versions have very good plugins and instruments.
Most importantly, and this is again personal, music isn't just about the notes, the chords and the instruments. There has to be intent, a message, a feeling, some intangibles. making music isn't a mechanical or technical process (although mechanics and technique do play a role in realizing it).
You can look at it like that
Music is about establishing balance between chaos and order.
Chaos is all that goes into creating the music in your mind, your inspiration, your life experience, your feelings, all that confusing and sometimes frightening stuff
Order is your mastery of tools, techniques and theory
Music is when you bring about both order and chaos in order to create a meaningful piece.
Meaning is the keyword here, everything else is secondary to that, even important things, everything takes a back seat to the meaning of your piece and how you go about making it meaningful by properly balancing muse (chaos) and mastery (order)
Here, we talk a lot about the "order" part, cause that's the easiest thing to point at and dissect, the mix, the plugins, sound design, music theory etc... but it's only half of the equation.
but meaning is what we're after, meaningful music.
So always take a step back and listen to what you're doing, take a break, go back to it after a while and listen to your work as if it were someone else's. What would you do better ? different ? what would you like to hear ? what bothers you ? what is useful to carry meaning and what isn't ?
as a side note, you can apply the chaos/order/meaning paradigm to pretty much everything in life
and as a different side note, this paradigm is actually built in the way music actually works, physically speaking, through the harmonic series. First you have the fundamental, the "note" if you will, then in the harmonic series, you have the octave, same note, only higher, that's the expression of order.
chaos is when things change, and it's brought about by the 3rd harmonic in the series, which happens to be the 5th. Which is why the 5/1 relationship is so fundamental in 99.99% of music, one way or another.
next up is the major 3rd, completing the major triad, that chord that sounds "happy", because of how well it's balanced with the first 3 harmonics being in one single chord.
I could go on, but I won't here.
just know that this seemingly limited concept opens the door to a virtually unlimited amount of musical possibilities, going through mechanisms such as circle of 5ths (or circle of 4th when you take it backwards), tritone substitutions, melodies and chord voicings.
the catch is to know about it, but not think about it when you make music (same way you don't think about grammar when you speak or write, you just understand it and it makes your discourse of better quality)
I guess where I'm going with this is that while it's important to have a good understanding of the tools you're using, it's equally as important not to forget that you're making music, and most important quality in music is its meaningfulness, and that requires both a technical but also a deeply personal and humane approach to making it.
I challenge you to find anything more meaningful that you could do in your life, than music is
sorry didn't mean to go on for that long but I got carried away. I just love it when people grow and make progress, had to leard a lot of this by myself, the hard way, so if I can save any of you some time and pain, I'd be glad to help
more better music makes for a better world, we need tons of great music !
the order provides the nod factor, it gets people dancing, the chaos stops them from getting bored.
I have had an interest in classical composition for many years, but never really pursued it as I always come back to hip hop, even my classical attempts sound like hip hop lol. Im a huge fan of John Williams, and Hans Zimmer, even John Carpenter. I follow Guy Michelmore on YT.
I just never really went down that rabbit hole as much as Id like to, Im getting on a bit now, and between work and life and other interests, my time available for such endeavours has its limits. Ive been doing this for over 20 years myself, all self taught, learned by trial and error at first, then slowly it all started to make sense. Once I find my chords I just improv staying within the chord progression.
The more I practice the better I get, but I have so so far to go.
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that sounds so much better, both key and levelwise.
@Hadoq 1nce again - this is one of my favourite tribe joints, the beat is dope, really like the bass, but I dont think the hook is finished, it seems missing something to make it gel. The verses sound really dope, love the static. Outro is really dope. The hook just doesnt feel comfortable to me.
the other track, I see you really like your upright bass, I really like your upright bass too. Drums are dope, you are 100% on the groove thing, thats why for boom bap, quantization is no longer an option, unless its just sequencing the unquantized loops I create. I love the way you layer the needle crackle and hiss, makes it really sound sampled. The composition is just next level.
@hosie Sonically this sounds good, drums sound good, sample sounds good, its just very repetitive. I would try doing more with that sample to add some variation. Even if its just doing something subtly different at the end of each 8 bars. I like to compose because of the limits often imposed by samples, but if you get creative and think out the box, maybe using some filtering, sample reversing or pitchshifting, chopping and repeating a certain note, are all ways of making a simple loop have some variation and not just repeat over and over, the more subtle the variation you can maintain the hypnotic groove without throwing it off.
@Otaavetti This is dope. Nice freestyle, sits nicely on that beat. Nice flow.
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Hadoq
Producing weird shit since 2002
@2GooD Productions
I know how it feels not to have enough time, being in my 40s, I own a business that takes up most of my time (between 50 and 70 hours/week, 0-1 day off/week, very rare vacations) I have a girlfriend, a kid in college.
thankfully I have a supportive girlfriend, and while music is the most important thing I can do with my life, there's always the bills to pay, work to be done that isn't music related. growing older, I started noticing all the distractions and cutting them off, video games, TV shows, too much time on forums/social media and I find myself getting up as early as I can (could be 7, 6, 5, 4 at times) just to get the music done, every single day without fail.
the life of a musician is a difficult thing to balance and often conflicts with the most mundane of things, every minute I make music, it has to be worth it, the best I can, and it's never at that point, but it gets better every single time.
being surrounded with supportive, hard working, and extremely talented and dedicated musicians has made a great deal of a difference in the end result as well as the reach. can't say I'm there yet, but that's besides the point as music isn't about the musician, it's about itself, we're just vehicles for it, best we can do is ensure we're the best possible vehicle for its message, submit and embrace chaos, while at the same time mastering orders so that we can create as much meaning as we possibly can.
and if you ask me, yea, that's the best I can hope to achieve with my life, nothing -short of being a parent- comes close to that.
cause when you look at the journey music puts you though, it's damn nice of a journey. even tho it's tough as f**k at times and can bring you down big time, it's still worth it.
I know I treat every time making music as doing something that's deeply sacred, I feel privileged to be able to do that, it's an honor and it's humbling to be able to serve the deepest of meaning and mystery in human existence. I wouldn't ask anyone else to do that, but to any musician on the fence of committing, I would say go for it and never look back, if you have that itch, and if you know you got something special cause you feel it, and I know you feel that, commit, become the best student of the craft that you can and have as much as an impact on the world as you can, God knows the world needs it now more than ever.
lol getting carried away with ableton looping in the background, I think I got my track, beautiful loop
maybe focus a bit more on the right now, as you're making the track, right now at that very moment, are you doing your best ? and if the answer is "no" (btw it always is "no") spend more time on it, if you hear something in your mind that would sound great and if you don't know how to do it, approximate it as best you can and see what comes up, that's better than just leaving it untouched.
I know how it feels not to have enough time, being in my 40s, I own a business that takes up most of my time (between 50 and 70 hours/week, 0-1 day off/week, very rare vacations) I have a girlfriend, a kid in college.
thankfully I have a supportive girlfriend, and while music is the most important thing I can do with my life, there's always the bills to pay, work to be done that isn't music related. growing older, I started noticing all the distractions and cutting them off, video games, TV shows, too much time on forums/social media and I find myself getting up as early as I can (could be 7, 6, 5, 4 at times) just to get the music done, every single day without fail.
the life of a musician is a difficult thing to balance and often conflicts with the most mundane of things, every minute I make music, it has to be worth it, the best I can, and it's never at that point, but it gets better every single time.
being surrounded with supportive, hard working, and extremely talented and dedicated musicians has made a great deal of a difference in the end result as well as the reach. can't say I'm there yet, but that's besides the point as music isn't about the musician, it's about itself, we're just vehicles for it, best we can do is ensure we're the best possible vehicle for its message, submit and embrace chaos, while at the same time mastering orders so that we can create as much meaning as we possibly can.
and if you ask me, yea, that's the best I can hope to achieve with my life, nothing -short of being a parent- comes close to that.
cause when you look at the journey music puts you though, it's damn nice of a journey. even tho it's tough as f**k at times and can bring you down big time, it's still worth it.
I know I treat every time making music as doing something that's deeply sacred, I feel privileged to be able to do that, it's an honor and it's humbling to be able to serve the deepest of meaning and mystery in human existence. I wouldn't ask anyone else to do that, but to any musician on the fence of committing, I would say go for it and never look back, if you have that itch, and if you know you got something special cause you feel it, and I know you feel that, commit, become the best student of the craft that you can and have as much as an impact on the world as you can, God knows the world needs it now more than ever.
lol getting carried away with ableton looping in the background, I think I got my track, beautiful loop
fucking a!!!
hosie
ILLIEN
Battle Points: 9
I relate to this on so many levels. Very close to my own situation.
This is the thing, for many many years I made beats for rappers, hundreds and hundreds of them and they are all sitting on my harddrive without rappers on them. So after my heart attack I decided fuck it, I would just make what I wanted to make, I make my beats full like that mainly because its a challenge to mix them, I also feel that they stand on their own without a rapper on them. So to be honest, I dont make beats specifically for a rapper unless Im composing to an acapella or working in the studio with an artist and we make something right there and then. Im more worried about capturing emotions and feelings than rappers on my beats and practicing my mixing. This is all selfish, yes, because ultimately I make music for my soul, if anybody else likes it, great, if not, great, thats the nature of art, I can live with that. That said, I recognize good technical advice when I see it, and I have so much more to learn, this year for me is just about getting to the next level, and then the next level after that, to keep progressing and not stagnate.
Hadoq
Producing weird shit since 2002
sounds like you're on the right track, as you said, the more you do, the better you get at it
and there's no limit on how good it can get, it's just a matter of doing it often enough so that it gets to a point where it starts to matter (whatever that means)
side note: very happy on how my track is turning out very introspective ! made the arrangement and now is the work on the details and transitions, I used to dread that tedious work tbh, but now it's becoming my favorite part, this feels like this is where the music actually comes together
tho I hear everyday the most amazing tracks with little to no detail work in them
go figure
and there's no limit on how good it can get, it's just a matter of doing it often enough so that it gets to a point where it starts to matter (whatever that means)
side note: very happy on how my track is turning out
very introspective ! made the arrangement and now is the work on the details and transitions, I used to dread that tedious work tbh, but now it's becoming my favorite part, this feels like this is where the music actually comes together tho I hear everyday the most amazing tracks with little to no detail work in them
go figure
the loudness war sucks out a lot of the detail when its sucks out the dynamics, and to mix competitively you have to mix loud, despite what they say about mixing to -12 average lufs, if you mix to -12db in a bass heavy genre like hip hop, you will not be competitive as your mix will sound weak next to commercially mixed and mastered tracks.sounds like you're on the right track, as you said, the more you do, the better you get at it
and there's no limit on how good it can get, it's just a matter of doing it often enough so that it gets to a point where it starts to matter (whatever that means)
side note: very happy on how my track is turning out
tho I hear everyday the most amazing tracks with little to no detail work in them
go figure
You are right about the details being fun, the devil is indeed in the detail, sometimes though you can get lost in the details and forget the plot lol.
Hadoq
Producing weird shit since 2002
I don't know about loudness war, it used to be an issue that my tracks weren't loud enough compared to others, but lately, they seem to be loud enough just fine.
I think the idea is to not have sounds competing too much at the same moments, then they can still occupy close frequencies.
also when I talk about details, it's less about detailed sounds and bells and whistles and more about automation, cuts etc... more details within the arrangement than the composition itself. stuff like transitions, turning on and off plugins, automating parameters, filters etc...
it's actually a lot about removing stuff and pulling stuff back and forth throughout the track than it is about small elements. I usually get these down before I start arranging for the most part, and then maybe add a couple if need be, to smooth out transitions.
so most definitely more about detailing the arrangement than adding elements here.
sorry I wasn't all that clear.
today's track is pretty much done, even tho I might get back to it with fresh ears in a couple of days and tweak a few things.
I made a screenshot of the automation tracks with a quick breakdown of what is what. Nothing really fancy going on and you can go much much much deeper, but this beat was a quickie, very few tracks, the only added details are the cymbal rolls and the voice at the cut, everything else is basically loops and there's a filtered cracking fire for ambient noise. I put the limiter window in for reference, but I don't know the first thing about mastering and technical stuff, so this limiter is pretty nice, you just set it on spotify, select a genre, tweak a few knobs and you're good to go.
I just forgot the automation lines for the vocal effect/cut, which is basically a delay time, feedback, and mix automation along with auto panning toggle
the main piano sounds vary a little bit, some filtering (not exactly but close enough), stereo width and stereo position
the melodic piano is a little bit dramatized in the intro and I've varied the filter on the fire crackle to change the mood throughout the track (from a low rumble, to a mid noise, to almost some sort of shakers with the high pass on)
then the regular cuts and removal of drum elements.
it's very easy to break down, not much is happening, but it can be enough and it's better than nothing at all. As said, you could go much much deeper into that, depending on the track, it's not a ton of work, but it's very fun and still a little bit time consuming (similar amount of time as composing+arranging on average because you keep having to listen to all the changes in context over and over again)
I hope this helps.
I put the track for reference, not necessarily for feedback but do feel free
and for reference, here's the track
- Status