First of killer vocals, really nice psy feel! The dark sweep in the beginning feels totally right. As almost everyone has said, the kick and bass feels kinda weak with the rest of the track BUT at 1:59 when the kick drops in punch it would be cool to put in a nice break beat. At least I think that will give it a euphoric feel.. then build up and start the 1/4 kick with a phat psybass (with some slides)
One more thing that would be cool is if you would play more with stereo effects.

Yaye, my first reply

thanks for taking the time to listen. I appreciate it. Dropping a break over the beat seems like an interesting idea. I have been messing around with stereo effects since i put this up. I wasn't really satisfied with those either. Anyways, thanks.

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quote:

Originally posted by Idoru I'm cooler than you plus i give better head i swallow

It is easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself
than to defeat the darkness all around him
www.myspace.com/enigmaticecstasy

thanks for taking the time to listen. I appreciate it. Dropping a break over the beat seems like an interesting idea. I have been messing around with stereo effects since i put this up. I wasn't really satisfied with those either. Anyways, thanks.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Idoru I'm cooler than you plus i give better head i swallow

It is easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself
than to defeat the darkness all around him
www.myspace.com/enigmaticecstasy

Hi:

Good things:

- the vocal sample was very nice, perhaps you could have run it through some fx later on in the track
- the fx in the beginning are good. You seem to develop a nice mood with that. People often overdue it with fx. It can be like cooking: if you have too many ingredients things start to fight against each other.
- the high atmospheric pads seem to do well. This is one of the things that I have the most trouble with (since I'm too cheap to by Atmosphere) and it drives me up the wall. nice

Not-so-good:

Arrangement/Composition:
- the breakdown occurs way too early in the track. I would allow at least 32-64 bars more
- I think the track kind of drags after the 3:30 mark or so. Much of this problem can be alleviated by adding more at the beginning of the track, so you can shorten the outtro a bit.
- not too much into the lead. It sounds far too bright for psytrance.
- personally, I think you can add more notes to the bassline rhythm to give it some energy. You don't have to go kick-bass-bass-bass, kick-bass-bass-bass (etc.), necessarily. Something, like the bassline to John '00 Fleming vs. Astrix - Third Time Lucky works as well.
- if you're going for more of a proggy feel then the bpms are fine. If it's psytrance you need to increase them a bit and substitute something else for that percussion rhythm (sounds a bit like the rhythm on Solid Globe - Sahara).

Mastering/EQ'ing
- As was said before, the kick sort of just disappears after the breakdown. It seems like you want a deep sounding kick, which is fine. Make sure that the kick and the melody aren't occupying the same frequency range, else the sounds start to bleed badly. If this won't work well without changing the melody then I would make the kick a bit more punchy (shorten attack, shorten decay) and do some hard-core parametric eq'ing on the kick to decrease its frequency range.

- in general, I'm not sure the sounds are well separated in frequency space. You might want to drive some of the percs up a bit higher, the bassline a tiny bit lower (or parametric eq the mid-range out of the bassline, at least). That should help open up the mid-range frequencies.

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research webpage: www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tcurrie

Hey! Thanks a lot for your feedback. I originally had this listed as progressive, but someone told me that it sounded more like psy so i changed the title. I have no idea what it is. Its a mix of a bunch of things. I've been working with it some today and i fixed the problem with the kick. I also went through and re eq-ed some things, so that the midrange is less cluttered now. I added a short breakdown in the main section to switch it up a little bit. I'll look at what i can do to extend the intro and shorten the outro. My problem is usually the opposite, I end up with a 4 minute intro and a 45 second outro. I'm trying to find something to do with the bassline. Anyways, thanks for your feedback and suggestions. I appreciate it.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Idoru I'm cooler than you plus i give better head i swallow

It is easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself
than to defeat the darkness all around him
www.myspace.com/enigmaticecstasy

quote:

Originally posted by Enigmatic XTC Hey! Thanks a lot for your feedback. I originally had this listed as progressive, but someone told me that it sounded more like psy so i changed the title. I have no idea what it is. Its a mix of a bunch of things. I've been working with it some today and i fixed the problem with the kick. I also went through and re eq-ed some things, so that the midrange is less cluttered now. I added a short breakdown in the main section to switch it up a little bit. I'll look at what i can do to extend the intro and shorten the outro. My problem is usually the opposite, I end up with a 4 minute intro and a 45 second outro. I'm trying to find something to do with the bassline. Anyways, thanks for your feedback and suggestions. I appreciate it.

Your original label was much more accurate. This is definitely not psytrance. One other thing that I just thought of is that it seems like the track is trying to be either progressive or trance but can't make up its mind. In my opinion, the best parts of this track (the vocals and the beginning few bars) would seem to steer you towards progressive. If you're going to make it work you might have to make the track a bit more minimalist, especially with the lead. However, sometimes this can be very, very effective (good example: Mo-Shic - It Could be Your Time). Try listening to some stuff off of Iboga or Vibrasphere's album from this past spring.

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research webpage: www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tcurrie

Hey! I did a bunch of work on this today and yesterday. Fixed the problem with the kick. Extended the intro, shortened the outro. Did some eq work. Added a short break in the main section. Added a few extra touches and whatnot. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

New version is in the main post

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Idoru I'm cooler than you plus i give better head i swallow

It is easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself
than to defeat the darkness all around him
www.myspace.com/enigmaticecstasy

quote:

Originally posted by Enigmatic XTC Hey! I did a bunch of work on this today and yesterday. Fixed the problem with the kick. Extended the intro, shortened the outro. Did some eq work. Added a short break in the main section. Added a few extra touches and whatnot. Please let me know what you think. Thanks. New version is in the main post

Listening ...

- The kick at the beginning is definitely better. I think the bassline might be a tad bit too loud, though. It really gets to be a problem after the breakdown when the main lead comes in. Another thing ... I could be wrong, but you might be keeping in some unwanted high frequencies with the bassline. I would also see if you can take the bassline and put it an octave deeper ... either that or really keep the bassline to < 500 Hz (everything above 1500 Hz should definitely, definitely be completely cut).

- after the breakdown the kick gets much harder to hear but is still a bit better than before. I think the problem here is that you have too much overlap on the frequencies between the lead and the kick/bassline.


- watch out for the phrasing. I'm not sure you were keeping with 16,32, 64, 128 bar phrasing.
- Still think the intro is way too short. I would add another minute to the intro and hack off a minute from the outtro ...give or take (whatever it comes to with the phrasing

Other things (take with a grain of salt)
- slow the bpms down to 134-136
- track needs more development with the percs
- lead needs serious reworking. Not too much into the melody but I think you can take bits and pieces of it and make it sound fine. The lead synth definitely needs a complete rework: the sound is wrong. Needs to be much darker.
- in the previous version you had some sort of minimal thing going on in the beginning... sounded a bit like the beginning to Max Graham - Airtight KEEP THAT! Expand that out and develop it through about 32-64 bars. It went away in the newest version.
- the vocals would be better suited with a different kind of overall mood to the track. Listen to Mo-Shic - It Could be your time (sample is on beatport). That should give you some ideas.

___________________
research webpage: www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tcurrie

I keep this!

Hey guy! Thanks for your feedback.
@ DJ Kenosis-I agree that the bass is too loud. It didn't really become apparent till after i rendered it and i just havent gone back and re-rendered with it lower yet. I'm pretty sure i cut out just about everything above 1500, just left a little in the 8000 hz range to give a little bit of attack. I think most of those problems will go away when i lower the bass volume. I'll see if i can cut the overlap any more without completely thinning out the sounds of the rhythm and melody. The phrasing is in 8 bar phrases, but there are a couple times where there are 2 bars of silence in between phrases when you hear just the vocal. Thats why it might seem like its not 8 bar phrases. I'll take a look at some of the other stuff and see what happens.

@ Akia-I'm glad you like it. Maybe i can get you to do some vocals on a track at some point.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Idoru I'm cooler than you plus i give better head i swallow

It is easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself
than to defeat the darkness all around him
www.myspace.com/enigmaticecstasy