Hey TA's, well as you can see I'm NOT new here lol, but I am relatively new to production, and I'd love to share with you this track I've been working on here and there for the past few months. It's not my first attempt, but it is the first full length and coherent project that I've churned out so far in my year or so of playing around.

I was going for a lighter euphoric sound here - its rainy and wintry here in Australia at the moment so I was trying to inject some sunlight into my life, haha. It's still unmastered, as my current hardware speed is limiting me a little atm, but would love to hear any comments or suggestions any of you might have =)

Cloudbreak
7:54, 192kbps 10.8mb

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]

___________________
soundcloud.com/immersiv

But when you lay still, in the fallen tides
That's where I'll be

Last edited by novastorm on Jul-12-2008 at 03:51

you should choose a different name Nic Fanciulli & Andy Chatterley are already 'Skylark'

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0729 you should choose a different name Nic Fanciulli & Andy Chatterley are already 'Skylark'

Yeah I've noticed that, will need to think of a new alias but this is just a filename for now. Did you take a listen?

___________________
soundcloud.com/immersiv

But when you lay still, in the fallen tides
That's where I'll be

Real spastic bassline we've got here. It's rather crisp and sharp at the same time.

Then the melodies come in and confirm the piece starting off in the major key.

I'll admit that I think the track is unbalance slightly in favor of treble frequencies. The bassline is starting to sound more like a mid-range fuzz with the other elements taking too high a frequency persuasion in sheer volume -- especially the buildup lead.

The breakdown was not my cup of tea, especially because of the lead that was simply too loud for a treble-range lead.

Constructively, I would mix this song again in an attempt to balance out the bass and treble equation. The song is a little too "upbeat" and "bright" for my tastes... I do have tracks that I enjoy that start off on a major key, but the chord progressions give it a more colorful mood.

However, there is obviously a lot of drive and energy in the track, which I like. Good luck and thanks for the music...

___________________
...On college-driven hiatus...

Hats seem pretty overwhelming to me at first (the percussion). I think it could be mixed down or EQ'd differently (compression). Overall I think a better mixdown with more respect to individual levels you have going on. Once that happens it would probably make a lot of these really cool sounding elements come together a lot better.

Synths are decent. Might want to try adding some texture to them. Cool strings. The breakdown kind of spends the energy reserves though. Waiting on the build-up. I sense that some synths have a much higher mixdown than the other synths (like the lead pluck vs. the pads). The lead pluck is too much imho. Other elements should make it "fit" better into a complete sound.

Overall it seems about 75% ready for the dancefloor.

Giving it a second listen...

I can hear the attempt. Mostly my complaints are that the mixdown is off. Listen to some commercial Above&Beyond or Alex morph type stuff and you'll hear what I mean... the mixdown is there.

So the schema is pretty much dead on but I would listen to your track on a few different sound systems if possible and garner some feedback if possible.

But these forums are sort of dead... I guess with the cost of gasoline rising people have fewer thoughts to offer aswell.. who knows, oh well.. Cheer m8

As already mentioned some of the levels are unbalanced with some parts being too loud. A good thing to do to avoid this is to leave the track alone for 2-3 days. Then load it up, pull all the levels right down.

Then starting with the kick at -10db to -7db (up to you where), bring each part back to what you believe sounds a good volume. I usually do bass after kick, then percs, then leads, then FX etc. You'll often find that when you do this, many of the levels will be completely different to what they were originally, often quieter. I personally believe it is better to do this first before trying compression to sort levels out as often a simple re-adjustment of the faders is all that is required.

Anyway, back to the tune, I like the melody. Progresses very nicely. The perc patterns were solid and the bass line sounded decent.

Whilst this tune doesn't break any boundaries in terms of originality, it doesn't really have any major faults either apart from the mixdown.

For your first complete track, I would say this is excellent mate and if you keep going, you will become an accomplished producer.

Well done, you should be very pleased with yourself

___________________
Listen to and download all my tracks at www.gregnicot.bandcamp.com

Overall, I agree with the others that this is a pretty solid track, composition-wise, especially considering your experience. Definitely keep at it.

The problems with the mix seem to indicate that it was mixed at too high of a volume.

quote:

Originally posted by G-Con Then starting with the kick at -10db to -7db (up to you where), bring each part back to what you believe sounds a good volume. I usually do bass after kick, then percs, then leads, then FX etc. You'll often find that when you do this, many of the levels will be completely different to what they were originally, often quieter. I personally believe it is better to do this first before trying compression to sort levels out as often a simple re-adjustment of the faders is all that is required.

Good advice. A few tips that I would add are:

1) Don't mix too loud - hearing fatigue sets in quicker at loud levels and will cause you to overemphasize some frequencies, particularly the high ones. A good general guideline is to mix right around or just below normal conversation level. Your ears are used to this level and your hearing will be more "accurate" for a longer period. Crank it up occasionally to make sure that it sounds good loud, then bring it back down to continue mixing.

2) Take frequent breaks while mixing. Mix for 15-20 minutes or so, then take a few minutes to rest your ears. Step outside for some air, hit the head, grab something to eat/drink, etc. That little break can do wonders for your hearing and you may be surprised how different your track can sound each time you come back to it after a break.

3) Listen to reference tracks occasionally while mixing to keep your hearing in perspective. Find a song or two that has a similar overall balance of instruments and frequencies and listen to it on occasion at approximately the same level as you are mixing. Try not to listen to it through WMP, iTunes player, etc. as they usually have EQs that change the frequency balance of the songs. Sometimes I'll load a reference song right into a track in my DAW (Sonar). I keep it muted while mixing and just solo it when I want to check my reference signal. If you do this, just make sure that it's routed directly out to your sound card (i.e, not through any busses, effects, limiters/compressors, etc.)

4) Stop mixing if you're tired. In my experience, those mixes that I forced myself to finish at 3am almost always end up sounding terrible the next day and I have to redo them.

HTH

___________________
cryophonik.com | facebook | soundcloud

Sonar Platinum | Ableton Live 9 | Logic Pro X | Access Virus TI2 Keyboard | Kurzweil PC3X | Nord Lead 4R | NI Maschine

Many thanks guys, that sort of advice is exactly what I was after.

As i say, it is unmastered and I still need to listen to it on speakers other than my own 5.1 surrounds, but its good to know that there's a general consensus among all of you that its too loud in the high-end. Too loud in general, in fact! I'm going to take every element down to about half its present volume and do a complete re-level.

You'll probably be appalled to hear this, but my "trusty" iMac is so slow that halfway into the track with all the layering and automation I had going, I came to a point where I couldn't even play all my elements at once to hear everything in the context of everything else. I had to tweak individual elements with pretty much everything else muted, then export small mp3 samples to hear how it all sounds when playing together .. Clearly this leads to f*cked up levelling haha! Very frustrating, but I made do and powered through because I'm thoroughly addicted to producing and couldn't let that stop me.

Thanks again people back to the drawing board until the new generation of mac pro's come out later this year...

___________________
soundcloud.com/immersiv

But when you lay still, in the fallen tides
That's where I'll be

quote:

Originally posted by novastorm Hey TA's, well as you can see I'm NOT new here lol, but I am relatively new to production, and I'd love to share with you this track I've been working on here and there for the past few months. It's not my first attempt, but it is the first full length and coherent project that I've churned out so far in my year or so of playing around. I was going for a lighter euphoric sound here - its rainy and wintry here in Australia at the moment so I was trying to inject some sunlight into my life, haha. It's still unmastered, as my current hardware speed is limiting me a little atm, but would love to hear any comments or suggestions any of you might have =) Cloudbreak 7:54, 192kbps 10.8mb [[ LINK REMOVED ]]

hey mate, i must say i love this tune.. though it gets a bit repetitive in the beginning to the pad part.. i like the breakdown its a bit to long though.. maybe try and add some time stretched uplifter fx's to where the qlimax is coming in. also play a bit with the low filters on the main melody.. the structure and melodic wise the track is very cool! but it needs some more work with filters and fx's imo. keep up the good work man, liking it!.


Rinster.

___________________
www.soundcloud.com/rinster

Well not much I can give here in terms of advice here because:

1. Your better than me
2. I'm quite new to producing myself
3. I'm shit at giving advice anyway...

Although one thing I think you should do is to add more FX (Possibly big Sweeps?) to where the qlimax is approaching just as Rinster said. As for the mixdown, just go with what everyone else has said, especially Cryophoniks advice. Overall a very nice melody though!. Good job, keep it up!

Many thanks Rinster matey, and Owsey .. Its nice to hear that the tune is worth pursuing Its funny that more than one of you say that the breakdown is too long, normally i hate making breakdowns and I make it short but decided this time to allocate more time to it haha, guess I should cut back again! :P

___________________
soundcloud.com/immersiv

But when you lay still, in the fallen tides
That's where I'll be