pselodux
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Melbourne

http://soundcloud.com/pselodux/starshell

it's almost done, gotta mix up those arpeggios at the end of the first section, i think.. and maybe add some sampled guitar at some point.

this was a mishmash of inspiration, taking my love of portamentos/pitch bend/modulation and mixing it with some dnb and i dunno, is that dubstep at the end? i don't listen to dubstep really. the middle section was highly inspired by michiel van den bos' soundtrack pieces for unreal.

this is a bit of a new direction for me, i'm not used to mixing dance music so it might be a bit muddy but this is about as good as i could get it in buzz!

Frostbyte
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My thoughts in chronological order:

1. You could use some fatter drum samples, just some that are more hard hitting or whatever.
2. A little faster, maybe 20 bpm?
3. Nice ideas as far as melody goes, and I like the mix of your ambient sound and style with the DnB beat.
4. Just hit the middle section, everything slowed down...liking it, tension's building a bit. Taking a while, I'm kinda missing the feel of a drum beat. Liking the lead with the reverb though, sounds good.
5. Now the bass came in again, nice and dirty. Feels good man
6. Same thing with the drums here, I believe. Not huge on dubstep, so I'm not sure the style you're going for exactly, but at first glance it sounds great.

Great job for a new direction!

pselodux
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Melbourne

yeah i might add some light drums in the middle section - i've been listening to the unreal soundtrack a lot lately and notice quite a few of the ambient passages do have some almost marching style drums here and there.

as for fattening, i've tried all i can to make the drums sound as big as possible, maybe i'll add a slight overdrive or something? hmm.

and as for the bpm, i think it's already at 180 in the dnb section, i think that's about as fast as i've ever gone! but i'll have a listen and see how it sounds a bit faster!

thanks!

Frostbyte
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That was 180? Hmm, odd. Anyway, for the fattness, it's probably just the samples you're using. When I send you those files I was talking about before, I'll include a few kicks and snares for you.

µB
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A gray world of dread

Nice, I'm currently trying to go in a similar direction. I'm mainly struggeling with mix and arrangement, and you have some nice ideas in there. I like your choice of instruments, love that sweeping pad in the middle section. It's a bit long for a breakdown.. the switch to wubstep could work right after the DnB section, so maybe use the ambient-ish part as intro and make a return for the DnB feel for the finale? Can't say anything about the mix right now, the speakers I have at work cut off anything below 220Hz neutral

Jellica
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England

i think the mix is quite bassey, it sounds a little muddy down there.

µB
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A gray world of dread

Dubstep bass + DnB is tasty though. I also like DnB with shuffle feel (which should be compatible with dubstep).

pselodux
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Melbourne

i'm not a big fan of shuffly rhythms really, i'd rather just get to the point and do something with a triplet rhythm if anything. gonna write a few of those tracks for this new release actually. kinda gives things a lutz rahn / jean michel jarre vibe, or something.

Jellica wrote:

i think the mix is quite bassey, it sounds a little muddy down there.

yeah, most of my stuff lately has been pretty muddy. for previous work it's been intentional (a cloudy, psychedelic sound) but i've gotta try to shake that somehow.

think i need to take some of the low frequencies out of the bass synths maybe? i listened to empire of the sun on the way to work today (shut up tongue) and realised most of the bass comes from the bassdrum, while the bassline is a bit more subdued.. i guess that makes sense, since the drums are what would propel the song on a dancefloor. so i'll give that a try.

as for the sequence, it's been through a few iterations, i like the way it sounds going into the ambient section at the moment, that chord change is pretty dramatic, haha. but yeah, i'm thinking of having it go back into the chords of the first section at the end, to tie it together instead of being super progressive. and i'll probably add some drums in the ambient section as well.

Last edited by pselodux (Mar 30, 2011 11:28 pm)