|
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm trying to come up with two possibilities for why you've included such poor beats and bass. One is that you weren't really interested in how danceable this track is, which is where the Poe would come in. Because if this isn't really about being danceable, why is the kick drum the first, last and most prominent sound on the track? How does the percussion in this track accentuate the overall effect? Is the percussion really interesting and engaging enough to justify its constant presence in the track?
The other possibility is you just can't really put together a funky groove. Just turn it up nice and loud and consider whether it makes you want to dance. There's a complete lack of bassline, which sucks the energy out of the track (meaning it lacks aforementioned drive) and denies you a key musical element the dancer responds to. I can sort of hearing it coming through early on in the track but it's still not any kind of bassline that makes me want to bob my head. I don't think you're so completely lacking in da funk that you'd seriously think this is an acceptable dancefloor bottom end.
I had a similar issue with Superstition. I was going to ask why you'd bothered putting a constant bassline in, when the bass was so perfunctory and secondary. You seem to have a taste for tracks that comprise shuffly, vague breakbeat patterns and muddy or extremely uninteresting basslines, above which you have many more subtle elements trickling past, generating muted atmospheres that slowly evolve over the course of the track. I'm just struggling to figure out whether you just don't have any intrinsic sense of rhythm or whether you're putting these pointless rhythmic elements in for their own sake. |
My intention with my bass lines, perhaps mistakenly as I understand the convention which places them more prominently in the mix and arrangement in dance music, is to provide a supporting strata to carry the rest of the elements. Even in songs, like "Tapestry" where the bass-line is clearly present (albeit minimalistic), my favorite dwelling space, creatively, resides in the upper mids to highs and it's typically where I begin work on the track. The ultimate goal is to have a perfectly balanced track where parts fit like a glove, the low-end drives the song, but the high end also carries a significant burden and keep things interesting.
I'll submit that it's not a failure of rhythmic sense but a failure to properly work a decent bass-line out of the corner I box myself into by doing a top down design. I'll still argue that it's wrong-headed of any producer to always start from the bottom up (or from any particular place, as a rule) but I think your perceptions of this are spot on and my next three songs, at least, will start from the bottom with particular emphasis on creating a better syncopation between the kick and the bass, which will be more noticeable in both presence and quantity, and then moving up to arrange the rest of the elements around those.
Another aspect of my producing, which is playing into your observations, is that I'm working out a methodology that allows me to make up for short-comings in processing power of my computer by offsetting the workload the CPU is put under by converting synthesizer and sampler phrases into samples and then importing those samples into Reason 3, where they're placed into more elaborate arrangements and put through additional processing. It's actually become more of than a simple work-around, as the process also offers some creative ability to trigger complete chords and phrases with infinite possibilities and flexibility. An example of this can be heard in the chord progression, first heard at the beginning of "Tapestry" which is played throughout the entire song. That's not me hitting the keys repeatedly, throughout the piece, but more, a method by which phrases are stacked.
That necessitated some working out, ahead of time, in order to achieve a coherent result with the chord progression. The downside of the new technique is that it's a new learning curve which requires a little technical mastery in order to achieve an artistic result. Hence, when you're remarking that I seem to be playing around in structure rather than with an intent, again, I concede, you're spot-fucking-on.
You caught me, dead to rights, in the middle of a learning curve, already neglecting some other important features.
Thank you, Jack.
EDIT to add, already.
| quote: | Originally posted by Raphie
but the percussion loop was in a different tempo AND sample rate than the vocals, so they could never be aligned one to the other, without time stretching (i also thought the loop sucked big time, as did the guitar)
to make it even more interesting the midi have been exported in yet another different tempo.
I'm merely saying that people who are used to just dragging loops and expect there DAW to sort it all out for them tempo wise, will have a tough one with this pack  |
I had to truncate the percussion loop to get it seated correctly.
But, man, I couldn't stand it or the other loops, either.
___________________
Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
Last edited by EddieZilker on Jan-14-2011 at 17:26
|
