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-- Nick Cenik - Calling in Sick [techno]

Nick Cenik - Calling in Sick [techno]

Hey folks!

Here is my latest original production, a techno tune.



I'd really appreciate some feedback!

Cheers

< jade >

Congratulations you're the first person ever to use side-chained white noise in your track. Also I've never head that atonal pitch-bending synth lead before. Way to push the envelope.

< /jade >


Excellent track btw.

I like this. I've only heard a few of your tracks, but then keep sounding more and more pro. This track is definitely pro. Good job.

What reverb vst you use for the th vocal stab? What synth for the bass/lead? What synth for the white noise?

Really enjoined quality of this track, well done man.
Solid idea with deep and strong kick and bass - I like it.

Cheers.

Really like the track, but I hate the choice of hihats... but I suppose they fit the track. Sounds great when the filter opens up on the bass.

Quality bit of mixing.

I don't really get the more minimal style of House but that doens't mean I can't appreciate what you've accomplished here.

Shweet

I've never liked very sharp open hats in this style of music. I don't think they work with the mood.

This style isn't exactly up my alley, but I can see a lot of others on these boards appreciating it.

Excellent track so far I do agree the hats arent too appealing. but lol @ meriter all those elements you talked about I hear all the time in productions

Hey guys. Thank you very much for taking the time to listen and leave feedback--I really appreciate the responses

I used to hate the sound of open hi-hats as well but I've been hearing them a lot more in tracks these days. I'm happy with the hi-hats in this tune but I understand where some of you are coming from.

The white noise is a patch I created in NI Massive. The bass-line and pitch-bending lead are patches I tweaked in Sylenth1. All the reverb in the tune is accomplished via use of Ableton Live 8's True Stereo Verb on various Send/AUX channels.

I've been shopping around the track and have received mostly very positive responses; it's just a matter of finding a label that feels the song is a good fit for its particular sound.

Nice fullsome mixing. Like the bass synth. its simple and maybe a bit dry for my tastes but it gives the track a strong dance floor appeal.
percs work well but again don't have anything that jumps out to me.
Snare is grubby and nice.

Overall I think this works well. Unfortunately it sounds like you have taken a trance track and removed any reverb from the percs and muted the main trance melody. it is not something that would work in a techno set of any real progression, but more of a quick get the dancefloor going type of set.

Towards the end it starts to sound more cohesive. i think with this track you may have applied too much progression for the type of track it is. It would be interesting to hear a re edit where the track gets going more quickly.

Overall a great sounding track tho.

On a production level, this is very good, you skills in this department are getting better and better so well done on that side of things.

The tune itself, for me, suffers from the same thing all the other tunes I've heard from you suffer from. LACK OF GROOVE!!

All the percs and bass patterns are too rigid, too marching in rhythm. I feel this is the one area you really need to work on. Get that right and your stuff will get snapped up by labels every time.

Other than that, it all sounds good but the lack of groove is what seperates your tunes from the pro's....IMO!

Hey Greg

Thanks very much for taking the time to listen and leave your expert opinion.

In terms of groove, you're talking about 1) swing and 2) the actual percussion sounds, with more of an emphasis on the latter I assume, right? The drums do have some swing applied to them (minus the kick), i.e., 16-35, but I don't want to have too much because this isn't meant to be a bouncy track. As for the percussion sounds, I agree that more could be happening in that area. I always seem to struggle with my percs. Although I quite like the hi-hats (both the open and the shaker type), especially since I put together the loops from individual hits (nothing special, but they sound good to me).

I've grown very tired of the samples I have; it's time to get some new ones I'd say.

Cheers again

lol, mate, I'm certainly no expert. not even close. Unless you were being sarcastic?

By groove, I'm talking mainly about the swing and general rhythm of the track. The sounds of the percs I dont have an issue with. But the bassline is on the offbeat. The lead synths follow a similar pattern. This in itself isnt an issue if that is what you are going for. But when the perc patterns are also on the 8ths as well, it all becomes very monotonous and almost drags the track along rather than inject energy into it.

Try playing around with applying groove/swing (whatever your daw calls it) on different percs to see what happens.

Try adding single one hit percs in certain places in your loop. What I mean by this is you may have for example - 3 or 4 different perc sounds that each only hit once over a bar but if placed correctly, they will together add a new dimension to your loop. Have your existing loop playing as you add each one hit perc and often with a bit of shifting around, you'll suddently hear where they need to be.

Don't forget to mess with velocity levels for each perc hit as well as accentuating certain hits and leaving others quieter can give a different feel to the loop.

Hope this helps, apologies if you know all this already.

Incidentally I haven't done anything since May last year due to a bad back not allowing me to sit at the computer for any significant length of time

Good luck with it!

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