No Phone Calls

Hi there everyone,

I’m working on a few backing tracks at present and I’m keen to hear other people’s opinions to sharpen up the songs as much as possible before I take them to another studio to record the vocals. I’m thinking of focusing down on an album’s worth of dark-glitch-ambient-pop, with some edgy rock bits and some arc too.

So if you’ve any constructive criticism on this track I’m up for hearing what you’ve got to say:

http://www.thequietrevolution.net/mark/mp3…calls(demo).mp3

Thanks guys :)

I like it, great stereo and good ideas. I´d like to have some more often so good choirs like those in my songs. Good percusive samples from different styles… :drummer:
original song. ;)

My favorite part is from the begining till the synth guitar part, very good ambient for the pleasure of my ears. Good ending also.

Perhaps you can try the guitar of your avatar instead a synth one? :rolleyes:

Un saludooooo

  • Klez

Ahoy Foo :)
Listening right now.
Ok (take into consideration that I don’t know how you’re going to place lyrics on this…so everything might change, I don’t know)

First thing that comes up to my mind is that the beat
“Ka-thump-ba-ka-thump”
just repeats itself too long in the first building part. I would rather try to add some changes to that while it flows… more than adding stuff I would rather “remove” some of the notes… xpecially snares, to leave bdrums marking the beat…
imagine to just set to zero volume the part of the beat that is not showing here:
thump - thump
thump-ka-thump
ka-thump-thump
ka-thump-ba-ka-thump
and repeat. Hope you see what I mean :P :)

At the end of the first part, at 2:04, when the “real” drums are coming in… this is something that leaves me doubts.
That should be an “Opening”… a movement in the track where finally all that was “preparing” behind the courtains of the initial build… now opens up, exploding in all its rage and vigour. The bassdrum and that guitarlike distorted synth are building quite a strong and dynamic situation while the rest just vanishes. Even the very epic choir that should really be there when the song is opening up… All it remains is a thin vibe setting in some shy ambient mood on the background of a fast and violent action. :blink:

In the beginning I have even thought that it was a new build that would have lead to an even heavier movement… but it lasted a bit too long to be another build… and in the end it presented with a bridge/variation instead of an opening… so it’s a part that I don’t really understand.

What comes after that… makes much more senseto me.
The same theme now comes back with reinforced drums and choirs… it doesn’t really “explode” but it helps in opening the song till the end… (even if this part is very long and repete itself a bit too much)

As for the sound, it creates its own, fine dimension in the beginning and in the end of the song… but in the mid part there is something that just makes it sound slightly “fake”…

I think you should try to make the drums (playing quite a prominent part here) more “human”… just to name one nice thing… take the 4 bassdrum notes: they come out like bullets out of a machinegun with 4 identical samples one after the other… try instead changing the volume… you can have effects like “backward play” if you set the volume of the bdrums to increase rapidly from zero… ( 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 )… in this small example I applied a simply faded (in) every small piece of rolling b-drum… ( vol from 0 to full ) check it out…
check this small snippet it’s a little primitive but I think it gives the idea…

Other prominent instrument here is the distorted one behaving like an heavy-metal rhythmic guitar… there is something weak on this one that I can’t really figure out but I suspect this adds to the “fake” feeling in this part… :unsure:

Generally speaking, I think that all hats/crashes and snares would use some more brightness/volume… and a more appropriate compression over it all.
Most of the snares have also a slightly synthetic feeling that makes contrast with the “human/acoustic” touch you seem to want in the main part…

The good point is that you don’t need a perfect base to record good vocals :) so you can hopefully adjust the track -after- you have recorded vocals… and eventually even adjust the track while the vocals are playing too, in order to have a better idea of what to do with the base to better go with the singer.

Hope it helps :)

Great track, but could use a lot more variation within the sections themselves The breaks from one to another are okay though, just there is a lot of repeatitive material or actually bald sections not having those nice tiny little details that make em different from the other. Try adding some vocal Sfx here and there.

Thanks guys, lovely feedback :)

Parsec: Good point about the drum variation, I shall hack some hits out to give it a bit more of a build as the song grows. I take your point about the transition to the rock bit loosing the energy of the song, I think I may tighten that up a bit to keep the energy flowing. I think I will overdub some real electric guitars over the synth guitars to give them some more grunt, though I am a fan of the robotic sound this song has and might not go too organic to ruin that.

Vvoois: Yep, some tweaks and notes here and there may help the drones.

Anyone else with other perspectives are welcome to share their views…

That track sounds awesome already…
I’ve gotten very interested in creating this style of music like in the first minute. Lovely choirs .