oh dear venturing into electronic music...

hi again

had this tune in my head for about a year, finally got round to doing something with it, but, oh my it's turned out to be an electronica stylee...not something i'm overtly familiar with...if it ain't got guitars i'm stuffed...so looking for some help please from you gurus of the dance floor (or even you non-gurus!). this is a first rough mix, there's no vox yet, and i should get my new monitors friday...yay! need some help with levels, eq so the mix ain't too dense, and also any suggestions such as if there's too much of one sound, need an alternative etc...

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=725243&content=music and choose 'untitled'.


thanks in advance.

(if it's poo tell me, i've got the guitar amp switched on...)

With a solid mix, this could be a sweet thing. This mix overmodulated my speakers at ~ 150-300hz. The beats are way in the back and completely overwhelmed. The synth sweeps need an eq job and some db cut.

The introduction had me totally faked out. Then, things took off, and I thought it all sounded pretty cool. Some parts do sound a tad hot, but all of the right ingredients are there. I'd like to hear more like this.

oh dear venturing into electronic music...

Mark, you almost make it sound like that's a bad thing...

More importantly that ghastly old avatar of yours has gone........you see it's all progress.

well thanks everyone so far

Frank - thanks to frank! this should be filed under...it shouldn't happen in music, i feel!

James - yep i agree there are lots of frequency overlaps,in particular the high mids, and the drums need to cut thru more. as i said,this is a first mix and i need constructive criticism like yours!! many thanks!!

Doug - everything is very centred, although some of the fx do pan,yep i need to get a serious knife in on this one. thanks!

Russell- yep, unlike working with real instruments, the relative volumes of different softsynths makes it hard to get all the elements placed, so the mix is too hot,plus i just strapped ozone across the master buss before getrting the mp3, just so i could tame it a little...cheers for the listen.

Philip - un-oh, does this mean my previous stuff is pants? cosi'm the other way round!!! just so you know, the pads are 3 different sounds - from Pentagon, from DropZone and from....erm is it Sun-Ra? some kinda free atmosphere vsti. the drums are ersdrum, with a doubled kick in some sections, the bass and little motif sound are from z3ta+, and the piano/harpsichord are,erm, my digital piano on piano and harpsichord sound, giving a little mangling through an mda plug...
glad you like it,i do plan on adding vox, just not siure whether to go for singing or a Faithless style Sprechgesang thing...many thnaks for your kind words.

Jon - the avatar may be resurrected when the Liverpool bubble works...well electronica isn't a bad thing, but it's normally used to add a nice flavouring to my meat and 2 veg guitars and drums, not as the whole thing...i got a lot to learn but this past few months almost everything i write is on piano - i've got a piano ballad and a Keane type piece also written which just needs recording...so i figured i need to use all this stuff more...any help gratefully accepted!

Larry - don't onow how to break it to ya...but this ain't gonna have any guitar on it (runs away and hides....) it might work but i have so much stuff in it already! can't mix it now!!! cheers for listening dude!!

Dang, Mark - cool track! This one has a lot of potential, but as you mentioned, definitely needs help with the mix.

In order to make it more dancefloor-friendly, I think you need to get the kick drum up considerably, but right now, there are too many other instruments occupying those lower frequencies. So, I'd start by high-pass filtering pretty much every synth part to get rid of any unnecessary mud, pan them apart to reduce the clutter in the center of the mix and then bring the kick drum (and other drums) up in the mix. Better yet, drop all the levels to zero and bring up the drums - EQ, pan, and level them where you want them, then bring the remaining synths in one at a time -hi-pass filtering, panning, and setting the levels as you go. That should get you mostly there, then it's time to get surgical with the EQ and effects and dial it in.

I really like this track - it has a nice dark, future-pop sound reminiscent of some of the earlier VNV Nation stuff, if you're familiar with them. I can't wait to hear the final (or interim) mix!

Mark

Perhaps a bit of eq and lighten up some of the lower freaks?

For electro it sounds pretty good.

Ron

It sounds fantastic to me up to about 2:20 and then things get a bit noisy as mentioned.

If you are new to synths, the fix may be in the synth itself as opposed to the track. Check the levels and filters on whatever synth program you are using as a lot are "hot out of the box" and even turning down the tracks does not fix it properly I have discovered. Sometimes it just one effect that's really killing the sound outside the DAW (in sonar often sounds fine).

Be careful with using the track effects bin on most synths... they are already well treated and effecting it as you would vox or guitar will make it worse not better. Use the synths effects.

Great first dab at keyboard driven music. I am impressed. You had far more success with your first dab into keys than I had into guitars.

Cheers
Shad

LOL! You're putting words in my mouth!!!

Hey Mark

That's cool mate - I'm liking this an awful lot.

The chord progression works a treat - but it's far too musical to be a 'dance' song

Cracking stuff

Steve

I hate the term electronica. It means absolutely nothing.
Your track was OK, a bit formulaic and I really think a case of less is more would definitely apply here.

Some minor timing anomalies in the intro between the guitar and piano. But it's pretty small.

I listened to this once already, and thought I posted on it, but I don't see it so.

A beautiful and compelling song... So sad. Very well written, it's so poignant and so touching that it is difficult for me to listen to. I hear the emotion in your voice. Good job, there are some things you can touch up, but it’s really just a really good song, almost made me cry…