Hey guys, you guys have known me for a while as I pop in and out of these forums from time to time.
I finally have a track that I am happy enough with to share…though I will admit it took a good review from an established neurofunk producer to get me to announce it(its been in my sig for a week)!!
Hope you enjoy,
Tarek 
That’s some pretty intensive stuff! Not being a connoisseur of this style, I feel you’ve struck a nice balance between being monotonous and full-on, fast-forward.
Epic breakdown at 3:00 
Awesome tune. Thanks for sharing. No download option though, right? You are shopping it around to labels I guess?
Cheers guys, thx so much for your responses…really happy to be part of this community so its a pleasure to share my work now that I finally feel like I am getting somewhere.
@ Conner, to be honest, I think I have just realised this track is good so I am not quite sure what I am doing, I may shop around or I may even start my own label who knows… however, no doubt every now and again I will release a track for free every now and again, maybe this one, maybe another, esp for my fellow Renoisers…for now I am just getting over the shock that I have finally opened the door so to speak!!
Edit: BTW Danoise. whats up with that Microtuning tool huh? J/K! I found an alternative for now, Helios(by tobybear) is a sampler that accepts tun files, I can then use the render to plug-in feature and wallah, a microtuned xrni
Hi Tarek 
I like this one! just one thing: i would like to hear some more drum variations on the main beat , beside that, the sound is realy good
neurofunk lives from a lot of variations and crazy breaks, but you are definitively on the right way. testing around with neurofunk myself for a long time now and wonder how you managed to get that typical neuro sound, any tips ? 
greets
Cheers man@KaSMO…yeah, I was thinking the same about the drums, you mean drum edits no? Your drums sound pretty good btw.
Re: How I got the sound…If I am honest, it wasn’t too complicated, I didn’t even re-sample…the initial reese yes, but then afterward it was just a matter of piling on effects and syncing the modulations to the tempo of the track, I only split it into two layers as well(sub and mid), unusual for me as I usually use three…not that you need the help because your stuff is pretty good but since you asked for tips, I guess one I could think of is that many crazy reeses have a rhythmic chaos to them I guess, so making sure your modulations sync really helps.
Hope that helps!
ps:not saying that yours don’t!!
yes i´m talking about the drum edits. thank you but i have the same problem sometimes. spending too much time on the midrange and forget to edit the drums here and there 
well, i came to the same conclusion after a lot of testing, i´ve used 3 layers/splits for a long time but looks like 2 are mostly enough. everything should be in time of course, i did´t a little mistake here, i`m talking about your overall sound/mixdown as it sound very neuro typical! i didn´t mean the single elements
greets
OOOOOOOOOOOOHH!!! Cheers mate, I didn’t get your question!!
My ideas of what the final mixdown should sound like are constantly changing as I becoming more and more aware of what I like and don’t like.
My mixdown method is similar to Foo?s triangulation which he mentioned in his In-Depth article…the difference is that I don’t have monitors…however, I have enough systems to make sure my mix translates as I know what nuero tracks that I like are supposed to sound like on all of them.
So I basically MIX the mastering and mix processes, something many engineers will tell you not to do…I just feel very confident doing it as I am getting good results and improving everyday.
I do this so I already know what my track will sound as a finished track and that it will work as I don’t have time to F%^^$ around!!
Not that this would help as I think your mixdowns sound very smooth but because I don’t know what other info to give, my mastering chain is as follows:
Electri-Q CM(EQ)>GAINER(to adjust gain going into next plug)>Tessla SE( w/ 3db coloration on and phat option engaged)>BOOTSY RESCUE(w/analog option on)>KT AUDIO HEALER>MAXIMIZER(w/ a -2db threshold to level out the peaks and NO BOOST)>W1 Limiter(2.4 db boost and 1.4ms relaease and -.4ceiling to prevent intersample peaks)
That actually was the exact chain I used for Mind Bender, the settings obviously change from track to track…I sometimes use C3 Multi-Band Compressor w the low band turned off and very mild compression on the mids and highs…a little more stern on the mids as they can get a bit crazy!! I make sure I only slightly alter the tonal balance if it all…just to smooth things out…but I left it out on this track because it sounds fine as is.
Hope that helps and thanks for your interest!
Tarek
Guess all i can add to this is maybe u can take a filter/eq set up on the snare hit(sounds like a squashed kick to me? but fits the song) somewhere dip in the low mid(try between 300-600 hz), to give it a little more room sound, but might also change the vibe too much for ur taste…Just got a old digital eq hooked up to my system somehow i think this is going to end bad for me(forget to turn it off, mess up mix etc…) 
The sounds almost there, nice job 
Cheers man!! Thanks for response/feedback! Ha ha@ squashed kick, I have done stuff like that before, however, not this time! Its one of my special inventions…I am really happy with the snare cos its sooo heavy, however, you have been making music for much longer than I, I will try notching out a little in that range and see what happens!
For now I will leave it alone, working on an ep at the moment so i need to let it go for now!
Just curious, what do you mean by room sound? I know what room sound is, I just didn’t know that notching out frequencies can give you that!!
anyways, cheers again and BTW The link in your sig is screwed up!! It says soundould as opposed to soundcloud!!! it took me to one of these weird marketing websites…luckily I was smart enough to enter the correct spelling!! Nice work btw…you have got a clean separated sound 
Yes it’s important to keep going if you catch some vibe and not get caught in forever changing the details, that is too true then you (well,exactly i) lose the inspriation just as fast as it popped up 
It’s more of a artistic thing i guess, Because i thought it was a little rough i turned the eq, and the snare seemed to sound more…like a snare maybe 
Maybe its just in my mind but it made me think it sounds like a lightly reverbed acustic snare(maybe layered?) with the eq scoop…
I will change the sig thing, sorry to anyone who now has some crappy spyware or something, i didnt ment to do that really 
Thanks for comment 
Yeah, I think its just an artistic thing…I have snares that i use when i want more of an “acoustic” sound, was going for rough n heavy with this one!! Still will try your suggestion just to see…or hear rather
BTW, 4got to ask you…old digital eq unit?? Now that sounds sexy…too young productionwise to have developed a hardware fetish but old enough that I grew up when tapes and hi-fi were all the rage so i can always appreciate a bit of hardware.
But digital though…i am really curious, as analog is supposed to be all the rage, however, old is better no?
I am being tongue in cheek of course, but almost sounds more interesting that it is digital!!
Yeah al though nothing designed for audio work(philips home system thing build in the 80’s…) it really has a nice digital crunch to it when i want to sound digital i always resample through that…
No seriously i did put it to use when resampling thru microphone,
easy to remove some unwanted freqs fast and clean…Have done some resampling sounds with a mic and thought this could be interesting to add.
Because the method itself can introduce interesting diferrence/movement
to the sound really doesnt need analog eq… I guess it works so good because using it with a cheap usb mic that i will trust to pick up the nice analog sound waves… 
(yes i do think some people overdo it with the gear thing really…but thats also because i might be a little jealous still having to work with this )
Its is also fun making your own “filters” for example sometimes putting a sweater or something over the speaker, or hold a metal bowl or bucket/tube next to the speaker for
nice effect(but you do have to experiment where to hold the mic…) 
Also have a old(cyrus one)amp, reacts really nice to some sounds, old gear
(if still working like it should…sort of…)is the best to me…Was also really sad when my TEAC tape deck died…
I guess with vst/fx it can also be done just as well, but this is half the fun…
btw it is a Philips FV930:
edit:sorry to take over your thread like that…got a little carried away there
HA HA!!! No worries!! Interesting stuff!!..I thought it was cool that you took the time to ecplain some of your tricks and even to put that pic up!!
You are totally right, You can do a lot of quality processing w vsts, however, I am just beginning to understand that adding some hardware to the equation would be fun!!
I am a guitar player and teacher so I should have known that!! Oh man, nothing like a sexy piece of hardware, I have developed a fetish for the amtec eq,
Its one of the best pultec clones out there…however, the price is a couple thousand or so!! Geez…you would only be able to use it on 1 channel!
My dream would be to get a dedicated quality hardware eq that I could run on every channel(that’s called a console you penis!!)
I am very happy with my vst compressors, limiters etc…I just love how a charcter eq can impart lovely sound, esp ones w/boost/cut designs…
I defintiely get why vintage gear and even some emulations sound great, however, beginning to realise I am going for a more modern sound…I think thats why I got excited when you said digital! If I was gonna spend the money it would defo be a tube eq though, maybe I will start holding a sign, “WILL WORK FOR AMTEC EQ!!” until save up the money!
I definitely don’t need a hardware eq, but boy would I love one!!
Yeah better start to save up then
Don’t ask me because i am no specialist on this but i think its true that with some gear your sound comes alive even just running it through…Also dreaming of tubes here, am thinking of building something myself even have some components…nothing started yet though it just too much all at once to understand…but maybe…i will slowly get there
Some nice tip maybe(if iu don’t know this), using ferox vst lately to exite some sounds, can give nice weight at almost no cpu(at least, here…) You can download here: http://vstplanet.com/Effects/Bundle2.htm (Jeroen Breebaart bundle)
Now often use that instead of comp/maximizer, or i can turn those down a lot…
edit:its a tape plug…most tube vst i tried don’t really do as i expected(it seems they can make nice dist but its not much like tube to me…)
Cheers man, thanks for tip! I have heard so much fuss made over tape that I searched the internet for days in search of good freeware tape plugs, ferox is one of them.
Bootsy Ferric TDS is another, it won KVR developers challenge…its a little too subtle for my taste…but maybe thats means its better for mastering purposes, its got all sorts of controls and stuff, for dynamics stc…
I hear what you mean about most tube vst adding more in the way of “grit” as opposed to smooth saturation. have you ever tried Bootsy’s Tessla SE or Tessla PRO? both freeware, really creamy saturation, maybe more of what you are looking for…I slap Tessla SE on my master sometimes, Tessla PRO is better for mastering as it has a transients knob which allows transients to come through unsaturated…it doesn’t play nicely w/ my computer though so I deleted it.
Again, I have never used hardware outside of my guitar amps and even then they were solid state so I don’t completely know what to listen for, my guess though is creamy smoothness…do you think Ferox does more of that? I hadn’t touched it for a while.
I have two plug in folders, one with all my plug ins, another with 1/3 of them, which I now default to…much better for workflow…so based on your advice I put Ferox back in! I threw it one of my guitar tracks and it adds a nice thickness to it…I dig it…cheers again for tip…Nebula does convolution based processing of analog hardware so its pretty authentic, they have a wide range of tape based programs…you can even try nebula out for free with the free version.(they have free tape programs too)
IMO, the technology is still in its infancy as it eats up a lot of cpu and is not very effecient, but you can get some nice sounds out of that thing!
They have impulses of everything from consoles to compressors, mic pre-amps, tape decks, reverb…even fx like vintage phasers…good stuff, however, i am gonna sit tight til they improve the technology…and if I am dead honest, I am getting a pretty wicked sound with what I have and its getter better by the day…A lot of is just about your early mix and sound choices…anyway rambling on now!! Hope you got some useful info!!
Yeah also use ferric some times on the master channel, it’s pretty subtle.You have to try it on diferrent materials maybe, sometimes it seems not to do much and other times it can really round of the sound(i think, for time i used it i thought it was a joke )…Can have something to do with how hard you drive the sound into it(like with real tape, make sense when i think about it 
) I know have tessla vst somewhere in my folder…will try it again, thx for the tip
Btw i think ferox is one of the best fake “analog” plugins i tried, it really has some of the vibe of the real thing(imo)… try putting ferox 2 times on a track, with maybe some filters in between or other fx u want to use,set it up how u like the sound, volume you want and turn the knobs (sat/hyst/feedback) a little…or stacking different saturation/tape/vintage emulation plugin with small values(but listen what it does in the mix, when muted the rest you just might think…ok is that it…but when you hear the context it works “magic”… 
(but i am sure u know this )
Downloaded free nebula a while ago, but havn’t really used it yet, have so much stuff to learn it just stays at the bottom of the pile…And when i see people talk that its so slow, i think, ok i’ll wait until i can’t do what i want with the technic i know…
Oh and don’t worry if u don’t know what to listen for in hardware, if u have acces to it,take the time to try it good, you will be hooked i am sure
Just like u said u can also just wait it out until they can put nebula in a vst or something 
edit:btw…feedback knob on ferox cause ringing at halfway-3/4 of max setting…can get nasty…
Cheers man, thx for the advice! Let me know how you get on w/ tessla…same like what you were saying w/ ferric…u may have to abuse it a bit to hear it working(plus of course try to make sure to level the output so it is the same rms as b4, so u can actually hear what it is doing to the sound).
I find the coloration(db) options quite useful and noticeable to add some color to the sound as well as the phat option, though i am not always sure I hear if it is doing anything!
I am already finding ferox quite useful so thx again!
Just tried tessla SE, the saturation gives the sound nice presence, nice one
Guess i have to try the pro version too now
edit: guess i’m too tired or not using it right or something, tessla pro does’nt seem to do anything… 
Btw using nasty series from bootsy too…great saturation…still have the old ones, don’t know about vcs, too many plugins to try
Yeah, I had the same experience…(would have to jack the gain up real high to hear it working) plus renoise would get real buggy with it for me so i deleted it…yeah, nasty series is great.
i have tried all of his plug ins except for density as it crashes renoise the minute I open it…
I feel as if I am a recovering plugaholic…to be honest you only ned a few good plug ins…ones with specific job…not millions of saturation plugs like I used to have…
I am getting far much more work done with my new srteamlined plug folder, think I only have like 25 in there…
Don’t get lost in the plug ins man!!