I/o - Frequencies

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i/o - frequencies

ok this is my first official song finished with renoise. it’s called “Frequencies”, and yes, i know there are a lot of strange things about it, but it’s really just a learning experience for me and not a serious musical endeavor. and yet i’ve still managed to spend more time on it than i ever have on any other song.

so, a little bit of background on it…

a few weeks ago i asked my friend, " give me an idea for a song"…
so he says, “a breakbeat track that transitions into airy trance and ends in a funky house beat”…

well i figured i would give it a go, even though the genres don’t really mix well together. in the final cut i decided not to do the house part @ the end because the track is already REALLY out there as it is. it’s also the first song i’ve ever done that has proper verses and choruses… i’m just trying really hard to work on improving my songwriting skills, both with complexity of chord progressions and also song structures.
amount of time spent on this… more than i’d care to admit. estimated 10-12 hours. but i have learned SO much about renoise and about motivation, so it has helped me tons.

also i am not a vocalist, but i can hold a pitch so i wanted to throw some vox in there.
the vocals in the verses are sort of abstract/personal concepts. the vocals in the chorus are… political. a
nti george w bush to be specific. anti bush trance? ahaha

i tried to mix it and get all the volume levels and stuff just right but i’m still not 100% sure of myself on my skills , but that is why i am learning obviously. also i haven’t registered renoise yet so i had to record the whole thing in a .wav recorder instead of rendering directly to file, so there has been some fidelity loss there, but hopefully not too much. i will re-render it in a few weeks when i can scrap up the cash to buy renoise.

edit: i know some of the transitions between parts are kind of rough. that’s because i’m inexperienced at songs with this many different kind of parts and also because the parts are SO different. but next song i will be better :)

so. any comments? constructive criticism? like it? hate it? think i am completely wacko? :walkman:

thanks for listening :) i/o - frequencies

I can advice you to add some reverb and a delay at 2/3 of the tempo, with little feedback to the vocals, to try to let them emerge, because they are quite confused into the other sounds.

I’m really not into this kind of music, so I can’t help/judge you on the rest

Hi dj io, just had a couple of listens to this one,

To my ears I don`t think you have too much to worry about production wise barring the vocals, that is with my amateur production ears but it sounds fine to me.

Nice idea to mix up some styles, trance is not really my style but you seem to have got the right synth sounds for the job there.
I personally would have had the BPM a little slower but that is just my taste :)

Agree with It-Alien about the vocals needing to emerge and the reverb idea sounds like it may help, maybe also with a bit of extra EQ to clear any muddy frequencies in the vocal. At the moment i am having trouble making out most of your lyrics in this.
I can also imagine some female vocals on this one as the higher pitch would cut through the mix more, aswell as adding contrast to your original vocal takes.

For this style I think that the break down works and introduces the change in beat well. I think the end of the tune could be better to go out with a bit more of a bang though. I find the fade out a little dissapointing as it is.

Like the Bush Sample, made me laugh!
:D

Overall nice production and ideas, think it may be worth going back to in while with a fresh pair of ears as I think it would be worth adding to the obvious hard work you have put in.

keep it the good work!

Ledger

breakbeat and trance goes well together. Very good idea to do that. This is definatly a song that needs vocals, you could make the vocals be more powerfull (strong) + the stuff It-alien and Ledger said. Good work

wow, thanks for all the positive responses … pretty much everybody (my real life friends too) has told me to make the vox louder… so i guess i will try to do that. i just didn’t want them to be too loud and overpowering and then show (even more) the obvious flaws in my singing ability :) but i will cut a new mix of it this weekend and see how it sounds. i think i’m also going to turn the hihats down a little bit (during the break sections) because when i listened to it in my mom’s car that is all i could hear and nothing else

i’ll post up a new version in a day or two :)

the remaster is up with fixed vocal levels and some EQ over the whole track, i think it sounds a lot better now. same url as before,

i/o - frequencies

Much better vocal mix!

I like the vocals and the breakbeat best. The vocals reminded me kind of Belle & Sebastian, before “Bush”.
Though boring with the fade out ending. :)
Are you using compressor on the vox?? It doesn’t seem like it…?

Henric

wow thanks , i think you are the first person who actually LIKES the vocals part

i didn’t use a compressor on the vox during recording but i did compress the vocal tracks afterwards with the built in renoise compressor

i thought they came out ok but i should really learn how to sing before i do any more vocal tracks :ph34r:

Haha, you should do more vocal tracks to learn how to sing :)

i think i might do that, and also autotune my voice from now on