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Seandroid - Trapped (Progressive/Tech House) (pg. 2)
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| Chaz Cunningham |
| If this track were a bowl of soup, it would be a damn good bowl of soup. Nice subtle track, probably a great transitional work. The hater(s) are great. Perhaps jealous that your production is better than their's, you have a larger audience, you make money with your tracks, and your dabblings in other genres are still awesome. Sure, it's not your greatest track ever, but it's not your specialty. You're not getting worse, you're branching out and people aren't used to that I guess. Funny what jealousy can do haha. |
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| Evolve140 |
| Well if you know EDM, you know it has groove. Some of us have been listening to EDM for over a decade. It never sounded like this. It was soulful, organic. The audience these days are a bunch of ADHD wobble-loving brostep fiends. He is exploring a little, so I give him kudos. You can reach more people with a more accessible sound, but you are sacrificing soul, and me for saying this, but house music (incase you don't know, which most new comers to the scene ing do not know) is about GROOVE and SOUL and FEELING. The robotic vibe of the bass oriented music these days is horrible, god awful. Brad made his point. Sean does his own thing at the same time. Obviously a conflict exists. If you want to know how people who actually deeply care about dance music feel about what you're producing, and who have history, you should be prepared to hear what he has said about this production. This isn't something we picked up as a fad the last couple years. We were here first, and you shouldn't think we're jealous. It's an inappropriate word. |
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| Joe_N |
Kicks in the intro sound a bit distorted but sound fine when the real kick comes in.
Good intro, builds a good amount of tension. Bass seems a bit far back in the mix and seems very central on my monitors.
When the bass note changes it gets a bit messy during the build up.
Cool sounding bass (1:23 onwards). I feel the mix is a little crushed though, might have been a bit too heavy handed compression wise, it doesn't breathe.
I felt something different had to happen at 2:08, just having the bass synth change didn't do it enough for me. Maybe add a new instrument or two or another layer to the bass and really change the sound.
Clap sounds weird during the second build up, too artificial.
I think the bass could be even thicker and crunchier. Maybe add another layer and bitcrush it...
Much better when the higher layer comes in. Overall it is a real cool track man, very refreshing style and sounds. But the mix needs some work, first thing I would do is pull back on the compression because the mix really sounds constrained to me. Then I would look at beefing up the bassline and getting it perfect. It is the backbone of the track and takes centre stage so it needs to be epic to pull it off. Hope that helps, keep it up :) |
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| Evolve140 |
This mother ****** has had his coffee! yeah!
edit: Seandroid. MAKE YOUR MASTER FLAT BEFORE POSTING MUSIC HERE PLEASE. As if we have to beg anymore for this... |
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| Seandroid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Evolve140
This mother ****** has had his coffee! yeah!
edit: Seandroid. MAKE YOUR MASTER FLAT BEFORE POSTING MUSIC HERE PLEASE. As if we have to beg anymore for this... |
It's not mastered... I put a limiter and a compressor on it just to make it a decent volume... And frankly your own tunes have had issues with mix & master, I think it's a bit ridiculous for that to be something you expect when people are posting works in progress.
What I think is a bit absurd is people insinuating that there's "no groove." The percussion is pretty damn funky and it's got a nice swing to it.
And I feel like the tune does have emotion... it's intentionally got a mysterious and cold vibe to it, hence the title.
With that said, I don't think it's perfect and I certainly expected some more negative reactions because it's nothing like what I usually do. I imagine most of the trance guys here attempting something electro would be pretty hilarious too. :p I just wanted to try to make a hybridish sort of thing, combining a few of the things I like about electro with the percussion of a tech house/progressive house tune. If it didn't work it didn't work :)
@Joe N, I definitely could have made the bass more ridiculous and vocal and phrasey and tough and electro, but I was intentionally trying not to make it too hardcore, because my tunes are always complextro craziness. I just wanted to do something different.
| quote: | | It was soulful, organic. |
Oh no it wasn't. Come on, man. You're being all "grass is greener." Go listen to some old EDM. It's not all soulful, in fact, half of it is boring drum loops, muddy mixes and mediocre chord progressions that weren't created that way intentionally, but simply because of limitations of the technology. For christ's sake, look at acid house. It's an entire genre made out of a single synth noise.
Hell, you can even hear it in ATB's 9PM Til' I Come. That's a good tune but just listen to the mix and how simplistic the whole thing is.
People like to lie to themselves. Dance music was never "deep and soulful," if you want deep and soulful listen to some R&B... Even deep house music today seems to equate soul with low-passed chord stabs and having nothing go on for 10 minutes.
People here seem to despise having fun and jumping and enjoying yourself in a club. Is there seriously something wrong with that? Deep "soulful" house music can be great but the amount of fun it induces is pretty close to zero. Listening to deep house is better enjoyed while sipping a fine cognac and cleaning your monocle... |
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| Evolve140 |
"Go listen to some old EDM. It's not all soulful, in fact, half of it is boring drum loops, muddy mixes and mediocre chord progressions that weren't created that way intentionally, but simply because of limitations of the technology""
Okie dokie bro. Enjoy your ing computer and your pristine mix down.
edit: no respect for the roots, maybe that's why brostep is brostep and house is house, and your electro only appeals to the attention deficit crowd that has embraced the bass music culture and masquering it as electro, house, whatever the hell you want to call it. you sound like some newbie jumping on the ing EDM bandwagon. house music is soul. your statement, what you said, you're the perfect antithesis of actual dance music. too young, too disinterested, whatever combination of amazing feats of ignorance you exhibit, only trying to scoop the cream off the brew without analyzing the body. technological limitations? are you ing kidding me? somebody school this mother ******. House music never hit you, you'll never understand the saying, "House music is a feeling", because you don't make house music. It has nothing to do with the fact that you were not around when this feeling became known to so many people, but that you are so detached from the actual foundation of dance music. A billion ing tracks own your from back in the day, and a whole international culture evolved from what you deem a result of insufficient technology, where an abundance of technology has left us with a dime a dozen electro producers such as yourself. Bland. Soulless. Computerized. |
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| Chaz Cunningham |
| I produce all kinds of electronic music. I'm probably best at progressive trance/house. Whenever I have attempted dubstep or electro it has been significantly more intensive and far harder to produce. Seandroid's tracks are produced beautifully. He, therefore, is a very talented producer, in my humble opinion. Telling him his production sucks seems like a jab from a jealous wannabe. That's all. My own music is probably what you would consider "soulful" for the most part, yet I draw my inspiration from well-produced modern electro, house, and dubstep. It's inspiring because of the skill, complexity, and the originality of the way it's written. Modern trance all sounds the same now, and the old stuff had some pretty lame production. Just embrace the change and try to see the good. Brostep is pretty annoying though, I must admit. |
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| Seandroid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Evolve140
"Go listen to some old EDM. It's not all soulful, in fact, half of it is boring drum loops, muddy mixes and mediocre chord progressions that weren't created that way intentionally, but simply because of limitations of the technology""
Okie dokie bro. Enjoy your ing computer and your pristine mix down.
edit: no respect for the roots, maybe that's why brostep is brostep and house is house, and your electro only appeals to the attention deficit crowd that has embraced the bass music culture and masquering it as electro, house, whatever the hell you want to call it. you sound like some newbie jumping on the ing EDM bandwagon. house music is soul. your statement, what you said, you're the perfect antithesis of actual dance music. too young, too disinterested, whatever combination of amazing feats of ignorance you exhibit, only trying to scoop the cream off the brew without analyzing the body. technological limitations? are you ing kidding me? somebody school this mother ******. House music never hit you, you'll never understand the saying, "House music is a feeling", because you don't make house music. It has nothing to do with the fact that you were not around when this feeling became known to so many people, but that you are so detached from the actual foundation of dance music. A billion ing tracks own your from back in the day, and a whole international culture evolved from what you deem a result of insufficient technology, where an abundance of technology has left us with a dime a dozen electro producers such as yourself. Bland. Soulless. Computerized. |
You need to calm down! I didn't start swearing at you. Yeesh.
I didn't say house music was created out of technical limitations, I'm not sure how you even got that out of my statement. I was saying that the drawn out, "nothing happening for 10 minutes" feel in older house music was simply because people didn't have the luxury of having 56 tracks and 37 busses like we do in todays DAWs.
I also don't know where you got this idea that I only listen to electro and "brostep." I have music from all genres of dance music in my library and I enjoy lots of it, but I think electro is fun to produce and fun to listen to. I don't think electro house music is "deep" and "soulful." I think it's fun, and as I said before, I don't get why people seem to think listening to music to enjoy yourself is so bad.
It's not that I'm "disrespecting" house music's roots, it's that I think people look at the past with rose tinted glasses.
You probably don't think highly of techno either, do you? Techno lacks the swing & "soul" of house music, but it's still very interesting to listen to for different reasons, it has a different kind of atmosphere. It's darker, mysterious, trippy, hypnotic... Hell, trance music even lacks the shake and funkiness of house music, and obviously you like trance. Not all dance music has to sound like deep house, if it did, how ing boring would dance music be?
You sound like an old fart complaining about current pop music. Pop music has always been about being fun and not challenging the listener but people seem convinced that it's somehow the epitome of bad now, but when they were kids, oh man! Everyone *respected* the lyrics and they had so much *emotion* and *power.* But KIDZ THEEZ DAYS....
And I find it amusing that you think I'm young and "disinterested." I've been producing for years now and practically all I listen to is dance music, and I quite enjoy reading on the history of the genres I listen to. That doesn't mean I have to feel the same way about older house music that you do.
And as I said in my last sentence. There is some great deep & soulful house, but I don't think it's fun to listen to in a club, it's what you enjoy while sitting back and drinking some wine or something. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Evolve140
Well if you know EDM, you know it has groove. Some of us have been listening to EDM for over a decade. It never sounded like this. It was soulful, organic. The audience these days are a bunch of ADHD wobble-loving brostep fiends. He is exploring a little, so I give him kudos. You can reach more people with a more accessible sound, but you are sacrificing soul, and me for saying this, but house music (incase you don't know, which most new comers to the scene ing do not know) is about GROOVE and SOUL and FEELING. The robotic vibe of the bass oriented music these days is horrible, god awful. |
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...=1&pagenumber=1
The thread in Music Discussion, above, speaks to what you're trying to get at - particularly in the latter pages. Honestly, I don't think House has a monopoly on groove and dubstep/brostep have actually been known to force a groove, timing-wise, onto their sequences, if not completely abandoning quantization, altogether. But all this begs the larger question of what, exactly, constitutes groove, in the first place.
Is it merely timing the beginnings of notes to be offset or can groove be imparted by other means? I've had the same said about my music - that it's essentially grooveless, but that's a big word, covering a lot of ground and without specificity, it comes off as a sarcastic taunt meant to ridicule something the critic doesn't have the technical ability to be ridiculing in the first place.
Also, understand, I'm not picking on you, trying to defend my own work, and I'm not trying to defend Sean's, either. I'm actually legitimately interested in what constitutes "groove". Personally, I think it comes down to a combination of factors. I don't think that you can just offset timing to obtain a shuffle to then be able to call that, groovy. If you're going to throw out an ostensibly loaded term into the critique of someone else's work, at least give that word some eloquence that allows the reader to come to a better conclusion than "soulless". Even if that's how you really feel, it doesn't do anyone any good without the benefit of knowing exactly what it would take to make it soulful.
Finally, when coming from a fellow producer, such a criticism relies on an assumption that the critic's own work can be objectively evaluated to have groove. I've listened to your work and while I legitimately enjoyed it, perhaps remarking that it had a groove to it, I can't ever think to a time when I thought, now that's groovy - as though it were of huge importance or virtue. I'm not saying your work doesn't have groove, but rather asking, what specifically about the music you produce makes it groovy. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
it isn't some magical thing.
You can easily listen to old school funk, insert into a daw, and find out where the hitpoints are. Musicians learn this and know how to do it some by pure practice not really knowing what it is they are doing that is making it groove, others , are clearly aware of what they do.
The problem with too many people in the EDM scene is that they are not musicians therefore lack many skills one of them being an ear. Many have never listened to real music. Many have never heard real music live.
If you've listened to quantized music your whole life , the you will never get it. And this is unfortunately the case. I think the fact that alot of people that produce don't dance makes a difference.
When I say something doesn't groove. I'm not being a dick. I was a studio musician at the age of 16. I recorded everything from jazz to reggae where I was the only white person. It isn't some intangible thing. Groove is rhythmical tension. Just like harmony but with rhythm. When you don't have it , it sounds lifeless.
The thing that bothers me is that you don't need to be able to play a groove these days. Load a groove template. Analyze a song that ing grooves and steal the template. If you can't tell between say the ohio players and some modern quantized rnb auto tune bull, you need to listen to more music and train your ears. |
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| tehlord |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
The problem with too many people in the EDM scene is that they are not musicians therefore lack many skills one of them being an ear.
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This is the truest thing you've ever said. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
it isn't some magical thing. |
Personally, I don't think it is, either. Furthermore, while I disagree with your sentiments regarding this song, I'm not questioning your credentials. It just seems like there are too many times that people who lack the technical language skills to put into words, their dissatisfaction with a tune, resort to calling it soulless, funkless, or grooveless. Then, they use this generally undistinguished qualifier to disqualify the sum of a work.
I remember working in the studio, back in the early nineties, with a producer who would quantize just about everything he could. Back then there were limitations to the technology that simply did not allow for groove. The limitations to sequencers and MIDI were so glaring that Vince Clark, for Erasure's Circus album, did all of his sequencing using Controlled Voltage gear. While Sequencer developers would try and implement groove functions, it still sounded very awkward.
Studio technology has evolved but it's still based, for the most part, on technology preceding it. There are other elements of rhythm, apart from groove, that need developing in a producer's skill set. I'm not making excuses for anyone, but it's easy to lose perspective. For all of your natural musical brilliance, you sometimes seem to forget that other people aren't going to have an understanding for what you're getting at when you say some of the things you say.
Just to pick your brain a bit, in addition to timing, aren't there other factors which constitute groove, like emphasizing certain notes, the length of notes, et al? In essence, that it's not just relegated to when notes begin?
EDIT: Just to add that I've listened to a LOT of '70's music, lately, and there are very clear distinctions between that and the One-Hit-Wonder Years of the '80's. It's not that I'm having difficulty "hearing" what groove is. |
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