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I dont want to make you feel down, but I want to be honest about your track.
Firstly let me preface with this. In the past when I've had negative feedback I feel down for a while - how could that 'immense' track have gone down so badly, how??? A little while later I get a fire in my belly to do a lot better and through this process I'm hopefuly improving, so DONT GET DOWN, or if you do, dont let it take your soul, grow from the experience.
FEEDBACK;
Essentially it sound like a track from circa 1994. I dont mean just the mix, I'm really talking about sound choices here. In a world cluttered with demos, you can't get away with chosing 'ok' sounds, you need to really listen much more closely to the pro tracks you like and transfer these lessons to your work - not copy them exactly though.
I see so many people, myself included at times, rushing things. I know myself if I want a decent lead it could take days of work, not an hour or so. Now people might counter this with 'x producer made a whole track in an hour', but thats the exception I'd say and also it might be a pro with 15 years under thier belts. I watch all the FM visdoes and nearly always pros talk in terms of spending a lot of time on tracks.
I think of the michelin stared chef trying to create the perfect dish - YOU HAVE TO USE THE BEST INGREDIENTS and it takes years to learn. Essentialy thier output is an excericse in immensely small details and I see music production as requiring this same attention to every tiny detail.
Take your opening few bars, those syncy sounds. They are just inredibly basic, and wont catch the ear as people are being served up something very ordinary.
Also you perhaps would benefit from more of a groove which is about timing, quatusation, keeping some live played parts, and that ethereal phantom funkiness we all seek which I find is very dependant on things like the compression of the kik and bass - again something that can take me endless hours.
In summary mate you need to immerse yourself in the sonics. Bare in mind thousands of releases each month die a quick death so think about that - do you want to present something a memorable or just ok?
A label guy said to me recently that very very few tracks stand out from the 1000 or so he gets each week.
Maybe you are happy with 'ok', in which case I would never critiscise such, but I suspect deep down if we are honest we all want a bit of appreciation and with luck to make something vaguely original and that just doesn't happen without a lot of effort, sometimes almost insanse amounts.
Please don't get down mate, know that being good at anything, ANYTHING tends to be largely down to putting in out of the ordinary effort.
No one has some God given right to be good at this just because they've spent a few years in it. I notice on forum demos people that put up stuff they've worked on a few hours is nearly always throwaway and interchangable. Why should they be able to catch your ears with just 8 hours in a work? With luck maybe they will, but not normally.
A painter needs hundreds of days on a really decent work - why shoud making music be any different? Timbaland said he can spend weeks on just the drums for a track.
I've found the journey immensely difficult and often wanted to give up, but sowly I'm getting there I think. I have to say to improve means for me 30 to 40 hours in the studio per week every week, and even mad things like going in there after arriving home at 10pm after a holiday!
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https://soundcloud.com/butlerrichard
Last edited by Richard Butler on Mar-23-2010 at 14:47
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So I am not giving up.
