Symphonic Breakbeat. I like the concept of that. I like the theory of what is possible to do with it. I think my ideas are more grandiose than my abilities. Hybrid and Moby do a much better job of this than myself.
This song is my attempt at creating a piece of music with movement and emotion using strings, pianos and breakbeats. While I may or may not have been successful, it was enjoyable to write. Well, I guess this fills my quota of one new song per year. This is my second time using Renoise. I like it. It makes it easy to do things that used to be so hard in a tracker.
Feedback is always welcome. And if you like it, send it to other people who may like it too!
The intro reminds me of the theme from the movie Requiem For A Dream, eerie and dark string work with some minimal piano thrown in for good measure. The breaks and female vocal start to kick in at 1:30 and now it sounds more of what I would expect from you. 2:00 things start rolling, nice subs. I was expecting a huge drop at 3:00 but it goes back into melodic elements instead. 4:00 has a new hook with yet another female vocal, some band passes thrown in. Here comes the euro trance trumpets at 4:40! 5:05, finally some breaks, Was that a 5 minute intro? Really like the bass… Things keep moving from here, in an out.
Obviously a lot of work put into this from a sonic standpoint but, for me, listening to the song is very demanding. It’s not as obvious and catchy as any of your previous work (note to other readers, I was on the same BBS scene as this guy in the early 90’s so am familiar with his style), it fades in and out of a lot of different ideas and doesn’t have the simple hardcore or driving elements I expect from you. Also, not really my style as you know.
I would say this track is your most achieved work in terms of craftsmanship, but as you pointed out yourself, it may or may not have been successful. On the other hand, I think people who are into “demo scene” style or “beautiful music” should check this track out as they may have a much different opinion than mine.
Cheers.
EDIT: You should do more than 1 song a year dude! I mean you just registered last week and did this whole thing in the beta, that’s pretty sick in itself, basement forever I guess.
Hey Conner_BW - thanks for checking it out. I think you have identified what alot of people have found with this song - that it is a somewhat demanding listen.
My intention was really to try to make something that was difficult for me to write. After listening to techno for this long, alot of the techno / eletronic music out is so formulaic, and I get bored with it.
I wanted to try to see if I could concentrate on creating something with more musical elements, instead of more driving elements, (which for me at least) was more difficult to do.
I think it has my classic “2 songs in one” type of sound, so at least thats a success (at failing). =)
Maybe next year I’ll do something more “hooky”. Technically if I cut this song down from 9 minutes to 3 or 4 minutes, I think I’d have a winner of a trance track. (almost… maybe a little editing) hahaha. Oh well. Maybe next year!
Thank you for checking it out. It was a juggle to keep that many ideas balanced. The fact that you found it too easy to listen to, while I thought it was too demanding reminds me - it’s all in the mind of the listener isn’t it!! =)
I liked this stuff, specially from 7:00 and onwards, only thing to put my finger on would be the drums, i kinda think they lack “edge”, but im a beatnerd so dont put too much consideration into that. Keep chewing out those tracks. Dunno how long u’ve been making music but if u keep it up you’ll end up doing well.
In other words; a tad more producing and this tune would reach its full potential.
Hey Cyberwax, thank you for listening to the song.
Keep it up? I’m trying to wind it down!!! =) I don’t have time for this stuff anymore. If it gives you an idea of how long I’ve been writing music, I would say that about 20% of the songs I’ve done end in the extension “.st3”… or was it “s3m”. You know what… i can’t even remember anymore! =)
I realize this doesn’t have that spit-shine polish, but thats somewhat laziness and is somewhat also intentional. I didn’t want to use many ambient effects in this song to fill up “empty space”. Thats more a dnb thing to fill up air that can’t be filled with different notes or melodies. I was trying to fill up the space with melodies instead of polish and wind effects.
In terms of the breakbeats being simple. Guilty. Ahh i know… I could have put more effort into it. I barely even eq’d them. I was too busy being impressed with using a delay on a breakbeat inside a tracker. I’ve never been able to do that before! I actually purposely didn’t EQ the breaks much, and very intentionally didn’t cut them up (except at the end of a few patterns) because I still have oldskool breakbeat in my head… and I like leaving the rythm of the original drummer intact… or at least I liked it while I was working on this song.
There are things I may go back and change should I find the energy, like how the trance/techno stab is introduced. Then again… this song fits nicely into a niche that nobody cares about. It’s not really electronic, and it’s not really instrumental, and it’s not really breakbeat or techno… it’s just enough of every different style to fit nicely into no ones favorite type of music. Success! =)
Still my point stands, pour more time into your work and quit your job. Im an oldschooler aswell, first prog i ever used was whackerTracker, never really liked screamtracker so i went from whackertracker to fasttracker. (did some work on protracker aswell, but that was in my amiga500 days.)
I never said the beats were simple, just a tad more edge would have done this song justice. However relistening to the tune atm and im not really sure overlycompressed bigbeat would have been the right choice, i actually liked the tune better this time; who singing btw?
But when you find the time, try to eq this tune and repost it!!
hektic - I agree with much that was said already. This track has potential, but a lot of the intricacies of the elements are lost in the mix. For example, the vocal at around 7:05 is a little low, and after that section, the strings come in HUGE, especially at 7:35, to the point of completely obscuring the break. After that, the vocals are truly lost in those huge strings.
A bit more attention to EQ and general mixing would clear those sorts of “problems” right up, but you’ve already answered to that!
BTW - I love the guitar in the outro. I wish it was used more throughout.
cyberwax - I can’t help but notice you signed as “jel”. I did a double take when I saw that. You’re not this Jel are you?
Really like the bass… Things keep moving from here, in an out.