A hastily thrown together cacophony of mud, ugly bass and sloppy guitar, with a nice vocal

I was going through my sample drive and came across this ancient vocal sample I quite liked and thought what the heck, let's get it grooving with a nasty lo-fi beat and some reverb, and then before you know it I'd added some other lo-fi synth parts and a truly nasty bass part and topped it all off by playing some sloppy guitar at the end, all the while ignoring all of my usual mix sensibilities and embracing lo-fidelity, mud and a low end so heinous and evil it ought to be taken around back and shot. Oh and there was a couple of Soundtoys plugins on it so it ended up being called Soundtoys Nite. Doesn't get much worse really. A little light compression on the master bus, no attention to loudness so crank up. I had my fun, and that's all that matters. 
 
https://soundcloud.com/sharke-1/soundtoys-nite

Thanks Lynn, I wasn't expecting many positive comments about this one tbh, the dark muddy and boomy sound isn't for everyone. Personally it kind of reminds me of the vibe of some of the tracks going around in the early 90's, and while I constantly strive to strip away mud and boominess from my mixes, with this track I found that just letting myself go to it actually gave a sound that is pleasing to me, almost like a guilty pleasure. And I guess it's a nice contrast against the vocal, which wasn't that good quality a sample to start with - I had to dress it up lots, and against the dark background it kind of stands out. 

Nice..got a bit of an 'Air - Moon Safari'' vibe after 3:50. You have a lovely voice James

Beagle
Hey James - 
 
don't take this wrong, but this is not my favorite kind of thing.  the vocal is really good and some parts of the song are really nice, like the guitar at the end.  but I'm not fond of the muddy drums and the whole song is kind of "slow" to me.
 
that's really just my personal preferences, tho.  thanks for sharing!

Hi Beagle,

Funny thing, my neighbors aren't a fan of the muddy drums either ;)

The lazy tempo is totally intentional though. I guess a lot of my tracks are kinda slow in feel....

eph221
Song needs to start at 3:27.  I'm not really sure what the stuff before it is spose to represent.  It needs more cowbell!

It's called a long drawn out into, all the cool kidz are doing it these days!

stevec
The intro was a bit long for me with just the sparse beat and vocal samples, but that's subjective of course.   The actual "sound" of the drums reminded me a little of In the Air Tonight.   But when the pads started coming in around 2:00 and began slowly building up it had enough to keep me interested, through the "breakdown" around 5:00 and of course the clean guitar during the end section.

Believe it or not In The Air Tonight was my justification for using such a simple, repetitive beat (or perhaps Mama?) with such a lo-fi sound! I may shortern the intro though.

Fun!

My daughter said it's like abstract art.

I liked the vocal/intro build. Cool the way you brought her voice from back to front. I also liked how the vocals atmosphere seemed to narrow and widen when brought up front. after the intro, it kinda started to wonder off looking for a place to go, but then started to collect when the the guitar come in. Interesting and enjoyable post.
 
Best regards,
Dean. 

gswitz
Fun!

My daughter said it's like abstract art.

That's one way of putting it! 

FreeEarCandy
I liked the vocal/intro build. Cool the way you brought her voice from back to front. I also liked how the vocals atmosphere seemed to narrow and widen when brought up front. after the intro, it kinda started to wonder off looking for a place to go, but then started to collect when the the guitar come in. Interesting and enjoyable post.
 
Best regards,
Dean. 

Thanks Dean, glad someone noticed the up-front-widening effect! I enjoyed doing that. 

Strangely hypnotic bits & bobs, I liked it (I think) unsettlingly abstract and thought provoking .. so thanks