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Guest stripey

By Guest stripey
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Guest stripey

Guest stripey

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Ok straight up this is not my kind of thing, but being honest (honesty is the best policy when it comes to production im sure u will agree) :

In the track NME the drums sound out of time and a bit naff - they let down the rest of the track. The production quality on this one is great however. Its cool when the chorus kicks, sounds very real. The singer almost reminds me of crowded house a little!

In "storyteller" the production sounds a little more flat - maybe too much cmpression killing the dynamics? - when the open hats come in around 1:20 they sound kinda distorted and distract from the vocal. Its a very muddy mix with wooly vocals. Did you master this in a different studio from NME?

Artistically i think its nothing new, the whiney nihilistic rock thing is very 20th century and a bit american. But thats just my personal view ;)

All in all cool stuff tho, keep it up.

Stripey

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Guest stripey

Guest stripey

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If you wanna give me your opinions on what im doing I'm really open to and welcome criticism -

http://totally.kicks-ass.net/stripey/stripey--lacka.mp3

is my latest track...kinda ruff i knocked it up in one night and kinda of half assed mastered it the next day - u will get the idea tho. What sort of rate do you guys make tunes at? I'm doing 2 or 3 a month at the moment. I'd like to see some technical minded reviews going on, production quality etc...is there anyone doing stuff that doesnt involve guitars?

Stripey

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spellchecker Mentor

spellchecker

Posted
Posted
Originally posted by stripey

If you wanna give me your opinions on what im doing I'm really open to and welcome criticism -

http://totally.kicks-ass.net/stripey/stripey--lacka.mp3

is my latest track...kinda ruff i knocked it up in one night and kinda of half assed mastered it the next day - u will get the idea tho. What sort of rate do you guys make tunes at? I'm doing 2 or 3 a month at the moment. I'd like to see some technical minded reviews going on, production quality etc...is there anyone doing stuff that doesnt involve guitars?

Stripey

I'm lucky if I write a song every 2-3 months.

Listening to your song, I feel like it's missing some high end. Even the high end pitch-shifted vocals don't seem to add what I'm looking for. I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's because the bass sound is so low.

The drums seem very high in the mix to me, and their lo-fi sound would suit being quiter in my opinion, as they take away focus from the layering and dynamic you create with the synth sounds / vocals / bubbly bell noises. However, who knows, it's hard to know what it would sound like if you did turn the mix of the drums down, without playing about with it.

Overall, I find the pace of the song a bit slow. Or maybe it just doesn't change fast enough for me. However, I really like the part about 58 seconds in, where it changes. Could maybe do with adding a few more random atmospheric noises as one-offs, either on their own or layered on top of some of the other samples you re-use throughout the song.

Listening to the song it reminds me of Portishead, Blue Lines era Massive Attack, The Prodigy Experience era Prodigy, Tricky, etc.

Have you any other stuff online?

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Guest stripey

Guest stripey

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Posted
Originally posted by spellchecker

I'm lucky if I write a song every 2-3 months.

Listening to your song, I feel like it's missing some high end. Even the high end pitch-shifted vocals don't seem to add what I'm looking for. I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's because the bass sound is so low.

The drums seem very high in the mix to me, and their lo-fi sound would suit being quiter in my opinion, as they take away focus from the layering and dynamic you create with the synth sounds / vocals / bubbly bell noises. However, who knows, it's hard to know what it would sound like if you did turn the mix of the drums down, without playing about with it.

Overall, I find the pace of the song a bit slow. Or maybe it just doesn't change fast enough for me. However, I really like the part about 58 seconds in, where it changes. Could maybe do with adding a few more random atmospheric noises as one-offs, either on their own or layered on top of some of the other samples you re-use throughout the song.

Listening to the song it reminds me of Portishead, Blue Lines era Massive Attack, The Prodigy Experience era Prodigy, Tricky, etc.

Have you any other stuff online?

Thanks dude, some useful opinion at last! I think u are right about the drums, monitoring on headphones a lot of my tracks the drums seem to dominate them, when i hear it on actual speakers.

My neighbours are touchy psychos and i got thin walls so i dont often get the chance to listen to the stuff properly at volume and pick out probs like that.

I hear what u are saying about adding some incidental sounds, thats my lazyness coming into play there :p The way im working at the moment i just try to get the guts of the track laid down, and if im still feeling it a few days later then i will go back and add more depth. U are quite right.

Those artists u named are definately some of my favourites.

other tracks i have on line include

http://totally.kicks-ass.net/music/stripey--unix_intrusionist.mp3

its kinda "minimalist" and the intro is a bit weak but i was realy focusing on getting a funky bline going.

http://totally.kicks-ass.net/stripey/stripey--latest.mp3

is 180bpm drumnbass, again the intro is dodgy but it gets going...its got a bit of a trancey flavour dunno if u will be into it

none of my stuff i really consider finished, its more like all practice sessions :p

Thanks for the feedback its very helpful.

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spellchecker Mentor

spellchecker

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Well a song called unix intrusionist is always going to have kudos with a linux nerd like me... but it's quite a cool track anyway. i like the bass line and the flangey synths at the start / continuing through. if you hadn't mentioned the minimalistic aspect i would have noted the linear nature and/or focus on one sound at a time that the song builds with, but from about 2:30 that seems to improve anyway.

the other song isn't my cup of tea, correct. however, it has some nice sounds and has some great intensity around the 2:30 mark. great sound.

can I ask what sort of software / hardware you are using to make some of this? My music has traditionally taken a guitar rock style of recording, however i've recently bought a midi controller and have a copy of reason to play about with, so it's an area i'm going to be exploring in the coming months.

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Guest stripey

Guest stripey

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Posted
Originally posted by spellchecker

Well a song called unix intrusionist is always going to have kudos with a linux nerd like me... but it's quite a cool track anyway. i like the bass line and the flangey synths at the start / continuing through. if you hadn't mentioned the minimalistic aspect i would have noted the linear nature and/or focus on one sound at a time that the song builds with, but from about 2:30 that seems to improve anyway.

the other song isn't my cup of tea, correct. however, it has some nice sounds and has some great intensity around the 2:30 mark. great sound.

can I ask what sort of software / hardware you are using to make some of this? My music has traditionally taken a guitar rock style of recording, however i've recently bought a midi controller and have a copy of reason to play about with, so it's an area i'm going to be exploring in the coming months.

Heheh I am well into unix and computer security, I spent the last year doing vuln-dev for a company called idefense, you may have read some advisories with my name on em. My house is full of alpha parisc and sparc boxes :D

I'm using fruityloops to sequence drums and make synth phrases, and slowly getting into using cubase SX for arrangement/mastering. I know quite a few people who use reason, they all complain that it uses proprietary sample types (.rex) which gives you some compatibiltiy problems - however its a good app and full featured and certainly not a toy, u can make great tracks with it. The key with these sequencers is getting good VST synths and FX so you can get decent sounds and good mastering. Good luck with it, its a lot of fun.

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spellchecker Mentor

spellchecker

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Hmmm, just took a wonder to the iDefense website, must take a look at the whitepapers on the JDK exploits, considering it's the foundation of the software I write at work! Unix security was always something I was interested in around 95/96 when I was cruising BBSs before the internet was so widely available. It's basically what got me into Linux.

I got Reason to learn how to use the MIDI stuff first. The plan is to write my own software with Linux/ALSA to do some interesting stuff with controllers for live use.

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Guest stripey

Guest stripey

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Posted
Originally posted by spellchecker

Hmmm, just took a wonder to the iDefense website, must take a look at the whitepapers on the JDK exploits, considering it's the foundation of the software I write at work! Unix security was always something I was interested in around 95/96 when I was cruising BBSs before the internet was so widely available. It's basically what got me into Linux.

I got Reason to learn how to use the MIDI stuff first. The plan is to write my own software with Linux/ALSA to do some interesting stuff with controllers for live use.

Their whitepapers arent really up to much, i quit working for them because they are more interested in fear and hype than making computers secure. E.G I sent them a remote exploit affecting every linux distro which I discovered back in march - and they are STILL sitting on it, waiting for the most profitable time to release it. So everyone is still vulnerable. I quit out of disgust :p

I code perl myself, its like embedded in my brain. Haven't really had much experience with java. When u get something knocked up for audio under linux id like to check it out, ill be a beta tester if u like :D Linux is just crying out for some good audio apps.

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chris h Collaborator

chris h

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Posted
Originally posted by stripey

Ok straight up this is not my kind of thing, but being honest (honesty is the best policy when it comes to production im sure u will agree) :

In the track NME the drums sound out of time and a bit naff - they let down the rest of the track. The production quality on this one is great however. Its cool when the chorus kicks, sounds very real. The singer almost reminds me of crowded house a little!

In "storyteller" the production sounds a little more flat - maybe too much cmpression killing the dynamics? - when the open hats come in around 1:20 they sound kinda distorted and distract from the vocal. Its a very muddy mix with wooly vocals. Did you master this in a different studio from NME?

Artistically i think its nothing new, the whiney nihilistic rock thing is very 20th century and a bit american. But thats just my personal view ;)

All in all cool stuff tho, keep it up.

Stripey

cool, thanks for that.

right, about the drums, you're actually the second person to point that out. haven't actually noticed myself, apart from maybe the roll going into the solo, but we have a new drummer now anyway who plays it quite differently.

the two songs were indeed produced in different studios; NME in Split Level and Storyteller in Chambers (both in edinburgh). The guy that did the Chambers recording actually said that he thought NME was too muddy! I am of the opinion that he's a bit of a twat to be honest. Chambers was more expensive, less friendly and inferior.

as for your opinion on the music, that's up to you of course :)

i don't get the american thing to be honest. to me the singing totally avoids that whiny yank accent that so many local bands go for. i must tell jon (the singer) about the crowded house comparison though. he'd be delighted.

i didn't write the lyrics but to me they are more artistically interesting than the standard nihilistic rock rant. musically i guess it borrows a bit from the old quiet loud college rock thing, i dunno. we've always been careful to avoid americanisms, apart from our guitarist who sometimes wears a lynrd skynrd t-shirt on stage. but he's a little silly.

well, if i get onto a computer with an mp3 player i'll have a listen to your stuff and let you know what i think

chris

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craig deadenstereo Proficient

craig deadenstereo

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Plus, as for it being nothing new musically, we do have other more complex tracks, but due to monetary pressures can't record them all. So we had to pick our most immediate tracks to record as they are "demo" recordings. Just the way it goes.

We're playing Drakes a week on Wednesday (see my signature) if you fancy watching a whole set.

The other bands we're playing with are damn good as well

Craig

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jon Grand Master

jon

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Sorry I'm coming to this a bit late, but I'm not often on the computer these days.

It's interesting what you say about the American thing. The songs itself is at least in part about nationality, where national identity comes from and the problems with that. I could go for years about the topic, but maybe I was a bit obtuse in the song. I'm not keen on obvious lyrics, I find them boring. Except the Manics up to 1995 natch.

What the guys say about the studios and the rest is all true too. Personally, I get a bit scared about all these uber-technical approaches to listening to music. It's kind of like concentrating on he typeset when reading a book. Obviously everyone want their stuff to sound good, but it's a song, a collective thing, and it's about capturing a moment/feeling/emoion etc etc etc. To me, it shouldn't be physics.

Although you have made me the happiest man in the world with the Crowded House comment...

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Guest absolute zero

Guest absolute zero

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absolute zero

We are a band that are not exactly the local scene as we are from livingston and thats a good 120 miles away but we are interested in branching out from edinburgh and glasgow.check out the website www.absolutezero.ontheweb.com and let us know what you think there is a tune to download and if u want demos contact us on the guestbook.we spend at least a few days in aberdeen every month and are currently looking for gigs so if u can help sign the guest book or email myself.

As for the scene in aberdeen i dont know much myself but if any bands can help us out we shall get you gigs in edinburgh no problem

Cheers Craig

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