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Need a favor

I'm only posting here because I'm not looking for comments, I'm looking for crticism. I feel like even if I ask for it at the promotion forum I'm still going to get generic feedback, or not much at all.

This is a reworked version of a song I put on SC called Dream Machine, I don't want the compression to get in the way so I used Tindeck to upload it. I changed a lot of the elements and EQ based on the advice you guys gave me, but I really want to make sure it sounds good when it's a 320 MP3 instead of a compressed upload on Soundcloud.

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/cbhv
EDIT: http://www.tindeck.com/listen/mbzl -- re-edited version, fixed a lot of the brightness issues here.

Like tehlord said a while back, tear this apart for me. Anything bad or good related to the music or the production, let me know. I wouldn't normally do this but I'm really very proud of how this track turned out and I just want to make sure it's as good as I can make it, and my ears are beyond fatigued from listening to this over and over again looking for flaws.

Thanks guys.

Really very cool track.

There was a couple of things that bothered me a bit :-

It becomes fatiguing fairly quickly. I did a quick EQ check through Ozone and a small 2.5db cut at 166hz and a high shelf cut at 6600hz cut by 2b made it much easier to listen to. I A/B'd your version against my EQ and to begin with it sounds dulled down, but in isolation I think the cuts create a more rounded mix.

I'd also say the piano under the big lead after the break maybe too much information.

Brilliant track though. A keeper for me as you've set it for download

Does it sound fatiguing to anyone else? I'll give it a shot if it does, thanks buddy.

tend to agree with Tehlord, also clap a bit on the loud side
currenly the high is like metal on my teeth fillings. but indeed a great track.

if you made this in fl then fuck man it would pointless making any harsh comments as its such a cool tune.

Yeah this was made in FL, I'd still like to make it as good as possible haha. Thank you though

Alright I'll try a high cut at the frequencies tehlord mentioned and see what it does to the track, any other complaints?

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora Yeah this was made in FL, I'd still like to make it as good as possible haha. Thank you though Alright I'll try a high cut at the frequencies tehlord mentioned and see what it does to the track, any other complaints?

Highs, definitely a little too bright. I love some of the resonance in there, though - just very bright.

Lovely song.

Sorry you didn't get a response in the musician's promotion forum. Most people who know anything about musical engineering don't listen there, though. No point because 99% of it is awful.

Sorry, but this track sucks. Every aspect is just lame, stupid, and a bore to listen. It hurts my ears to just try because the whole thing is too bright.

Composition aside, it's not interesting.

Engineering aside, the composition isn't interesting.

Keep trying, I guess. It's really not hard to make cool music. I don't know what to tell you, but it's nothing I would put in my set if I were a DJ, that's for damn sure.

quote:

Originally posted by alanzo I don't know what to tell you, but it's nothing I would put in my set if I were a DJ, that's for damn sure.

Thanks for the criticism I suppose, though calling every element lame and stupid is kind of a bold claim, I really don't know why you feel that way. Is it genre bias? Do you just not like this kind of music? I always figured you've been active in EDM long enough to see past that, but I know how ridiculous people get over uplifting trance around here. And you're saying you wouldn't play it if you were a DJ as if it were a bad thing.. if I were a DJ neither would I. That's not really my target audience.

But, yeah, thanks for the criticism then. If you've got nothing against uplifting trance and just genuinely don't like this, then hopefully you like whatever I do in the future more.

I'm EQing it in oZone right now, so if any of you want to check out the comparison and let me know if it sounds better, please do so. Thanks.

edit: Did the cuts tehlord suggested along with a few small tweaks, it already sounds a LOT better. I think there was something wrong with the volume when I exported the last version, too, now that I listen to it on headphones it's a lot louder than it should be.. that might be causing a lot of the brightness problems. If you guys could just skim through it again once it's uploaded to hear the difference and let me know if it's a good change I'd really appreciate it.

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora Thanks for the criticism I suppose, though calling every element lame and stupid is kind of a bold claim, I really don't know why you feel that way. Is it genre bias? Do you just not like this kind of music? I always figured you've been active in EDM long enough to see past that, but I know how ridiculous people get over uplifting trance around here. And you're saying you wouldn't play it if you were a DJ as if it were a bad thing.. if I were a DJ neither would I. That's not really my target audience. But, yeah, thanks for the criticism then. If you've got nothing against uplifting trance and just genuinely don't like this, then hopefully you like whatever I do in the future more. I'm EQing it in oZone right now, so if any of you want to check out the comparison and let me know if it sounds better, please do so. Thanks. edit: Did the cuts tehlord suggested along with a few small tweaks, it already sounds a LOT better. I think there was something wrong with the volume when I exported the last version, too, now that I listen to it on headphones it's a lot louder than it should be.. that might be causing a lot of the brightness problems. If you guys could just skim through it again once it's uploaded to hear the difference and let me know if it's a good change I'd really appreciate it.

Nahh, I love uplifting when it's done well. Daniel Kandi (uplifting star) is just about the only Anjuna artist who does no-wrong these days with my ears.

There were a few redeeming elemetns, sure. If you want a confidence boost, I guess I could go through and name each one. They were all minor aspects of the track, though.

I think the big thing is that I *generally* get what you were going for, but it was a poor attempt at that. Again, I don't know what to tell you other than to keep at it.

If I tell you to raise the clap, reduce the brightness, put in more ear candy, etc... they're all useless comments that you can't fully understand until you know what makes enjoyable music. Enjoyable. That's the key word. Make something that's a joy to listen to. At that point, you won't even need comments anymore.

I wasn't fishing for a confidence boost, I'm happy enough with the track myself, I was just trying to see where you were coming from when you just outright say the track sucks. I don't know if you just meant that personally or if you think on a subjective level this track doesn't hold a candle to even a mediocre track, I dunno. I guess I see where you're coming from though. Plenty of people seem to have enjoyed it so far though and I've never been one to add "ear candy" to anything to make it more appealing to someone else, what's there is there and I'm pretty proud of it personally. Sorry you don't enjoy it, though, I'll try harder to impress you next time around.

Speaking of which, here's the updated track. I don't expect anyone to sit through all 9 minutes of it again but if you guys can just skim it and let me know if this is better/worse/the same that'd be great:

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/mbzl

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora Sorry you don't enjoy it, though, I'll try harder to impress you next time around.

Instead, try to impress yourself. I won't care about your music until it's worth listening to. That's the feeling of the general public.

I'm basically just saying I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully you'll like whatever comes of that later on -- I impress myself with every song I make, I just wish you felt the same way. If you don't I won't lose any sleep over it though. I don't think I can do much of anything else as a songwriter beyond that.

I don't want to get too off-topic though, thanks for the criticism.

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora I'm basically just saying I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully you'll like whatever comes of that later on -- I impress myself with every song I make, I just wish you felt the same way. If you don't I won't lose any sleep over it though. I don't think I can do much of anything else as a songwriter beyond that. I don't want to get too off-topic though, thanks for the criticism.

Every man loves the smell of his own farts. It's difficult to know when you've created a pile of shit if you're in love with that pile. When you feel you're complete with a peace, put it down for three months, DO NOT LISTEN TO IT, and then come back. Until you're consistently making enjoyable music, I'm sure you'll hear several major aspects of the three month old peace that need improvement.

Learn to use your own ears.

I've been at that point for 8 months now, haven't made a disappointment since then. I'm still relatively new, and still improving with each track but I'm genuinely happy with how my music has been turning out for a while now. 8 months might not seem like a lot to those of you who've been at this for 20+ years but since I've been doing this for 3 years it's a pretty long time to me.

I don't really know why you're trying to convince me that my works are piles of shit left undiscovered and I'll see them the way you see them now in a few months, as if anything other than that is ignorance. That's a really bold claim, especially when all the other criticism I've gotten about this has been positive. It doesn't make them right and you wrong, but I really need to weigh all of that together.

I'm happy with the track, you're not, I can live with that. I don't know why you can't.

Not really what i listen to but i thought the track was quite good, production was very good too, i thought the original link sounded better maybe it was just louder??

Just when it comes in after the break tho with that ping-pong delayed (or autopanned) lead i thought that was a bit weak and maybe slightly too much going on in the track then...

anyways, just my 2c

I also thought the track has potential and is enjoyable, so I guess taste is a personal thing.

Though i would suggest to fix the EQ in the mix rather than the mixdown. I guess you've put some severe additive EQ and processing in your mix, start removing that and only work with low cuts, you might notice that you want to reset some of your faders

having an overprocessed mix and recorrect that again in the mixdown will basically leave you with a bunch of processed slammed harmonics rather than a nice clean track.

From a musical standpoint, I thought this was pretty brilliant - you really have a great sense for composing memorable melodies and I really like the blend of sounds. And, to me, that's the most important, and hardest, part of music production.

But, from a mix standpoint, I can only agree with the others. I only listened to the second version, but the mix is definitely fatiguing. It sounds like everything is slammed and I suspect that the waveform looks like a brick. I would also echo Raphie's suggestion above to fix the individual elements in the mix, rather than use a band-aid approach after the mixdown (assuming that's actually the case here). But, I think that with a little more attention to the overall and relative track levels and cleaning up the track with a little more EQ, the quality of the final mixdown will be on par with the quality of the music. It's really a cool song IMO!

One other tip: in stats, we have often have outliers (data that are so far out of the norm that they are suspect). We usually throw them out/ignore them altogether in order to minimize bias. One thing I've learned over many decades of being a musician and composer is that there will also always be outliers in the critiques of your musical output - it's usually best to just acknowledge them with a "thanks for listening", and toss them out as not being representative of the "population" as a whole.

Just listened to it on the laptop and it sounds kind of old fashion and there is a "been there, heard that" kind of feeling for me.

6.5/10

I listened to it (the first link), and I must say I really like it. Cool melody, perfect buildup. However, after the break, it does sound like there is too much going on. I'm not exactly sure on how you can fix that, since I have that problem in my tracks a lot as well. If you find out how, let me know

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik One other tip: in stats, we have often have outliers (data that are so far out of the norm that they are suspect). We usually throw them out/ignore them altogether in order to minimize bias. One thing I've learned over many decades of being a musician and composer is that there will also always be outliers in the critiques of your musical output - it's usually best to just acknowledge them with a "thanks for listening", and toss them out as not being representative of the "population" as a whole.

Excellent point well made Ambassador

I like it, it's at a stage where you can say that it's from a technical standpoint ready to be released, but does it have what it takes to become memorable?

It certainly sounds like today's trance, so mission accomplished there. Now, personally, that doesn't always have to be only a good thing. Your kick/bass mix sounds tight, but my personal opinion is that keeping the ducking for too long in a breakdown without the kick kind of fatigues the ear. But since everyone does that nowadays, you should try and create some musical dynamics by controling the volume. So really the best tip I can give you against ear fatigue is automating a Volume control on the master (I use GFader for this) and automate only the upper 10th of the volume to get the intro and breakdowns a few dBs lower than your climax (it really helps, you'll see). It has to be very subtle, so the listener doesn't really realise the fade down at all, but the climax will sound louder eventhough you don't squash it more and eventhough some elements in your breakdown may be compressed, the overall volume goes down more to create a more dynamic feeling and thus more musicality.


Now, there are two major musical points that I think you definitely should do something about before you release it:


1. Buildup tension towards the Climax.
Maybe you really wanted it the way it is right now, but I think that the buildup to the Climax is lacking some tension that builds up and releases into the climax. You could introduce rhythmical elements or switch up some stuff.
It already creates some tension, but you could always do more, you know, make those people long for the Climax even more. Sometimes adding some hats that progress into a faster and faster rhythm can be the key for creating that tension.

e.g. here's a buildup (not mastered of course, so turn up the volume) I made for the Sunshine project that I'm working on with Stephen (didn't have much time lately though) that shows just that. It's pretty much 2 minutes of constant buildup and you should really feel that tension building up (I'll probably have to work a bit on the end)





2. Variety in the Climax.
It could really do with a synth-switch/added melody on an instrument. I think that would instantly become the most memorable part of the track. Something that cuts through the rest, so it should be something short that comes up either at downbeats or syncopated.

The track definitely has potential, but going that last step is the one that will make or break your song.

just as alanzo said, this track suuccccksssssss. no wonder nobody replied to this in the producers promotion page, just delete this and get it over with. Or learn how to make real music

quote:

Originally posted by alanzo Daniel Kandi (uplifting star) is just about the only Anjuna artist who does no-wrong these days with my ears.

Just say you hate Kysora lol

Alanzo mentioned the only uplifting he could stand was Daniel Kandi, well, the sounds and the technical stuff in this track is awesome and actually a lot better than in most Daniel Kandi's recent tracks. But I think what makes Kandi's tracks so great is his interesting and very inventive melodies that always grabs my ears attention. This track has a very cheesy main melody, that contains something so sickening sugary, I really cant get through the whole thing without feeling a bit like vomiting. I would really really like to hear this track again, but I seriously need another melody to enjoy it... it is the only thing not positive I can say about it, the rest is good.

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