Another track (this time 100% renoise) from my modlys project (a few might remember “fodspor” from a couple of weeks back). This one is more active, drum’n’bass-ish, although also with vocals. In the context of the project, which is laidback, slower and moodier, this is intended as a contrasting relief.
For those of you not fluent in Danish, it’s about living life while you
have it, doing the important things, and not waste your time on things
that doesn’t matter in the end.
I trying to catch up, working my way through electronic music. For me it’s like one, big grabbag. I don’t know much about the electonic genres, I just try to do something that works.
USB-2200A USB → edirol FA66.
The quality of the build-in soundcard of the mic is rather poor, so I avoid the usb connection.
That’s perfectly allright with me. Some poppy listeners think I lost my mind with the backwards vocals and stuff. Might be a bad thing, but it’s somewhere in between, I guess
Do you think the compression on the lead vocals is over the top (the backing is un-compressed)? Or are you talking about the reverse, delay, filter stuff?
The reverse effect, but it’s just a detail. When I said “throws me off”, what I mean is that it’s a bit like someone having hypnoticed you, and then clap. Perhaps that’s the point?
The second one (the one with the filter leading into second chorus) is supposed to fit with the lyrics “rundt i ring… i ring… i ring” (Means in round in circles… in circles… in circles).
That’s come up a few times by now, not sure if it’s a good thing Not even sure what anime sounds like…
As mentioned in the first post:
“For those of you not fluent in Danish, it’s about living life while you
have it, doing the important things, and not waste your time on things
that doesn’t matter in the end”
I find the short chords in the refrain should be played with a brighter and more notable sound. Just a little bit. I get the contrast feeling of warm & cold that the song might want to deliver and wouldn’t want to spoil it. But right now one can barely note the existence of your chords. They shouldn’t be hidden so much, it won’t make the song cheesier.
The drums are very well made and mixed but only reach the state of textures in the whole mix. As a standalone element the drums are very well programmed but in the total mix within the song, they’re not very present.
In both cases I think the song is lacking some high mids. Though I find it dangerous to turn them up in general, because they easily make a mix sound harsh and unenjoyable, I find the drums & chords need this.
Maybe Olive’s Love Affair can serve as a reference a little bit. Not to be entirely compared though. Your song has its calm mood and it’s great that way.
I like the “rundt i ring… i ring… i ring” part btw but I’d try to remove the click (De-Clicker DSPs will help here).
I think the vocals need a bit of a stronger compression (check 1:16). But only about a detailed amount, not much.
Actually everything here only needs to be improved about a detailed amount. One can easily hear that you come along with some solid production skills already.
Strange thing, I’ve been to Denmark a couple of times but wouldn’t think that I really like the Danish phonetics unless I got to know your productions.
Thanks for the very contructive and precise critique, I really appreciate it! I think you’re mostly right, that said I think it’s important to hear this in the context of the other tracks (which you didn’t have a chance to). They are floaty, mediative, ambient stuff, sometimes without any pulse. “Det nu” is clearly the collections departure and a break from all the fluffyness sourounding it.
As mentioned, it’s no excuse, I think your points are stille valid!
I put a new version next to the old one, with the changes here http://modlys.dk/mp3/det_nu2.mp3. If you could be convinced to give the new version a listen and comment if it was something like that you had in mind, I’d be really happy!
I tried a 5db boost at 1365 hz, also added stereo expander to have it stick out in the mix.
Instead of eq’ing I mixed them a bit higher, both the funky-drummer-filter-lfo thingy and the sd, hh and bd of the beat (there’s also a larger bd and a brighter hh, didn’t touch them)
I don’t know the song, and youtube’s audio quality means I can’t really compare…
I fixed that up with a more carefull ping-pong delay (the old version was B0/B1).
Not sure what you mean (so didn’t touch the vocals). Are you suggesting a compression ratio of 16:1 or talking about 1minute 16seconds into the track? Currently I have a Bus Compressor with ratio 2:1, attack 0.12ms and release 50ms.
Are you suggesting that I should compress harder? Note that the backing is uncompressed…
After I had heard fodspor, I tracked your songs a bit, also saw the video and I’m quite happy you guys are doing some harmonic electronic jazzy stuff.
Heard it and I felt like having a go on the given master track. Had done this with the second version of fodspor, too btw but I didn’t mention it. More about that below.
Very clear now. For the first time I can notice that there’s something like a distortion on the short chords.
The stereo expander didn’t do any bad, the boost is clearly notable but now it is a little bit too much to stand alone without the vocals, maybe. I guess I’d fade them out earlier…with a filter cutoff maybe to have an interesting effect at the same time, too. Besides, do you want to try to cut off the bass before you feed the distortion?
The drums are very good now. You have the right feeling to not spoil the sound when you’re working on the dangerous bands.
I think the larger bd is the one you play twice together with the supersaw (00:24). Maybe you should exchange the soft bd with this one for the other moments, too. But that’s rather my subjective perception.
Worked out very well. Cool to see you used the Bx effect, though
My bad, I can see that “1:16” is not very clear here. Yes, I meant the timeline. You can hear how the voice is almost going under there. Still it’s not “much too quiet” but it has a bit too much of the dynamics.
The backings are just great. As mentioned before you’re doing a great job on the stereo image for the polyphonic parts. Yes, the lead vocal should be compressed stronger. Currently, at times she’s getting louder than the instrumentation, at other times she gets quieter. It’s not very bad though because she seems to have a very strong voice anyway but there’s still some room for improvement.
However, after having compressed the lead vocal stronger, you might need to do this with the backings, too.
And there’s one more things. De-Essing. You’ll notice that the sibilants get harsh after you’ve compressed the vocals stronger. So you’ll have to compress the S’es separately. You can do this either by using a multiband compressor or by routing the vocal’s high-mid range to a send track in Renoise.
Vocaltrack → SendDevice (keep source) → Filter (band shelve [BS], butterworth, wide 6khz range) → Master
Sendtrack → Filter (band pass [BP], butterworth, wide 6khz range) → Compressor → Master
That’s actually a selfmade multiband compressor then, only considering one band.
Will need some tweaking until it sounds balanced to you but it solves exactly this problem. Harsh sibilants.
So, I’ve reworked your second version as much as I found it possible. There’s always the personal taste affecting the sound, so I’ll mention a couple of things about my invasion here.
The highs
Though I like the LoFi filter you put on the sine bells and the choir, I feel that the very formants require some patience during listening. As for the electronic open hiHat on the drums. It sounds bright and brilliant but a bit apart from the rest, because it’s too high in the frequency range. So I softened the highs above 10 KHz with a soft curve. Beside that I tried to limit exceeding high mids by limiting this band. You might have the impression that the highs become quite in loud parts. This is because the compressor is considering a wide range of the highs and limits the percussions together with the S’es and everything that might appear in this band.
The mids
The only thing I tried here is to do the stronger compression on the vocals for you. It’s clear that this is almost impossible since I’m working on the master. Beside that I also damped the low mids to make the vocals appear clearer. Compare it to your version and see if you like to keep the bass in the voice.
The bass
Just like fodspor this one still suffered a little bit from the dry and loud low mids on the bass drum. I tried to soften this a bit while keeping the rhythmic accent. Thus the compressor has an attack time of ~100ms here.
The bassline has some enjoyable subs that I wanted to come out a bit more, thus I boosted the range of 50Hz- 60Hz a bit. Now I can also hear in the first bridge, that you stay on the same bass note (I think it’s the dominant) and don’t follow the vocal chords. I guess you ignore general bass on purpose here
Another thing I did is to monofy the bass. Just to make sure there won’t be ugly interferences on big systems.
And the infra cut is done, too. Starting at 50Hz already because the song doesn’t miss it the lower frequencies anyway. But still the subs might be too loud on very bassy systems. I’m not sure. On my big speakers and my monitor headphones they sound well.
The mix
I didn’t do a too strong limiting. It’s not K-20 but it’s neither K-10. I consider this song rather Pop because it’s uptempo and electronic. Let’s say it hits a good average within other pop songs and still has its dynamic surprises preserved.
If you work on a Mac or Linux, let me know, so I can send you the configuration I made with JAMin.
First, thanks alot for showing interest in my music, thanks for taking the time to listen, comment, even work on a master. I’m totally overwhelmed. And I really appreciate your feedback, this kind of detailed, contructive feedback is very, very hard to find.
I listened intensively to my first version, my second version and your version. And I’m sorry to say I have some problems with all three.
I think the distorted chords are mixed too high in the track in my second version, they are really supposed to sit in the mix as a background thing. The louder drums (as you suggested) works well though, and of course the click at “i iring… i ring” shouldn’t have been there in the first place, let’s blame it on my lazy butt.
I appreciate the boost you gave the track, several places (like the 1-2 hits on the first verse) are much punchier now. I have a difficult time with the general gut feel of it though. I’m no expert in these areas, but two times mp3 encoding might have something to do with it. Theres “something nasty” going on in the midrange, 1500-3000hz or so.
I also have very mixed feelings regarding this whole loudness-war-thing. I might shoot myself in the foot (or even head), and maybe it’s just because I haven’t heard it enough, but I really like modlys better without master compression. I had a Maximixer going on the master on several tracks (including “det nu”) and after a few weeks I had to take it out. Again it might just be me, but this is how I feel.
That would be just swell (I’m on linux). Actually could you contact me off list, I would to talk “buisness” with you, if you’re interested… You can find my contact info here http://atte.dk/kontakt/
, vocals sound very polished, what mic did you use? Track is a little to poppy and sweet for my liking but I dug.
, but next time, I’d try a bit more subtle voice processing. The reverse effect on the vocal kind of throw me off.
Not even sure what anime sounds like…