Guest Aces Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 I would love to see what you make of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Sprigg Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 I would love to see what you make of this. Oh, wow. This is great, man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swerm Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 I would love to see what you make of this. You made this album in a month?? This is honestly the best shit I've heard in ages Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aces Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Oh, wow. This is great, man. You made this album in a month?? This is honestly the best shit I've heard in ages Thanks guys! It was indeed made in a month. I set myself a challenge to write a track everyday and much to my surprise I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptowen Posted June 12, 2011 Author Share Posted June 12, 2011 Sorry peoples, been busy all weekend. Will get back on this tonight/tomorrow. I do believe the current order is Gocab arbee Sprigg (will probably do that paired with someone else's) Warhk (will probably do each release separately) Tamas Aces Hope I'm not missing any Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swerm Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Oh, wow. This is great, man. You made this album in a month?? This is honestly the best shit I've heard in ages Thanks guys! It was indeed made in a month. I set myself a challenge to write a track everyday and much to my surprise I did. Very impressive, some of the tracks seem really well thought out, wish I had this kind of discipline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxus Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 great thread, i like the way you write your reviews. i have an album i hope to finish this month; if you aren't too inundated with requests by then i'll definitely post it here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Promo Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Sorry peoples, been busy all weekend. Will get back on this tonight/tomorrow. I do believe the current order is Gocab arbee Sprigg (will probably do that paired with someone else's) Warhk (will probably do each release separately) Tamas Aces Hope I'm not missing any Yeah ya missed me out! :( Check my Soundcloud for my current uploaded tunes. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCM Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptowen Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 Yeah ya missed me out! :( Check my Soundcloud for my current uploaded tunes. ;-) Check the bottom of the first page Although I only did those two tracks you had embedded. I could have a peek at the rest of your SC page if you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptowen Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 Okay, Gocab time First off, let me say that I was fairly impressed with how well each track on this album blended into the next. So well, in fact, that I didn't even notice the transitions when I wasn't watching the playlist timer. For that reason, I think I'll eschew individual track reviews, like I did for Tontonz, and just focus on the bigger picture. What struck me most here was the persistent "back of your mind" feeling. Most of the tracks on this album, rather than follow any sort of traditional song structure, seem to consist almost entirely of interesting atmospheric elements, fragments of melody, and micro-rhythms that drift into existence for a short time & then drift out in a soup of light reverberation, never becoming more than a few layers deep at any one time. This makes for some unexpected transitions. The 7th track, as the name implies, consists mainly of bubbling oceanic tones which become slightly more ominous as we cross into track 8, before suddenly jumping into a (surprisingly catchy) drum break manipulation that disappears as quickly as it entered. This, for me, is one of the more memorable sequences on the album. But on many tracks, and on the album in general, I felt a lack of clear direction or momentum, stemming in large part from this constantly shifting structure. To me a lot of parts felt like they were lacking a theme or defining sound, with none of the individual elements clashing with each other but few working together to build a strong atmosphere. It almost felt as if some lead instrument was missing, and I was instead listening to some (well done) backing tracks. There was always something interesting to listen to, but I found myself struggling to remember details from most tracks. Take for example the first piece. We have some drifting noisy elements, what might be a field recording, some pads that sneak in mid-way through, some nice almost-loungey sounding synth chords that pop in after that. It's all very subtle and would probably make a nice little ambient opening - were it a minute or two in length. Instead at nearly eight minutes I was left waiting for things to kick off. This feeling continues on the second track. There is a nice sort of innocent melody that comes in around 2:40 that could have been the defining sound on the track, but was prevented by being surrounded by several seemingly unrelated sections of breakcore & ambiance, so again I was left wondering what the driving force was supposed to be. Eventually I was able to get into the smaller details (switching over to headphones helped a lot with the "buncha things drifting over you" angle), but I never did shake the feeling that something was missing. It always felt like some big, loud, memorable...thing was about to drop, but rarely did (with exceptions, like the drums on track 8). The production and variety of sounds suggested that lead element could easily have been there, it just wasn't (for me anyway). If every track had one (or more) distinct hook(s) I think they would have stuck in my mind more. A hook could be a lot of things, of course - a repeating melodic motif, a memorable beat (which you did have sometimes), a unique instrument or sound element made use of throughout the track, or even lyrics if you swing that way. That one thing, I think, would push these from "interesting collection of sounds & musical bits" to memorable tracks. To put it another way, you've got a bunch of Frankenstein monsters mostly built, and you just need to go digging for heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Member Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Ah, nice! I think you're right for the most part. A lot of these "tracks" did have distinct hooks and headnodding bits when I started working on them, but as time went on I got tired of the hooks, and they're now only mirrored in the surrounding framework. It's supposed to be a floaty but dark ambient thing so I don't know how well more "obtrusive" melodic elements would work in that context. There's lots of little things going on that work for me, but I don't think they're really that apparent on the first few listens (there's a ton of layers on these things) + I made that stuff so I'm probably not very objective. Interesting feedback, I will take this into consideration for future projects. Thank you for listening! *goes looking for heads* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Promo Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Yeah ya missed me out! :( Check my Soundcloud for my current uploaded tunes. ;-) Check the bottom of the first page Although I only did those two tracks you had embedded. I could have a peek at the rest of your SC page if you like. Just read it. Cheers mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan C Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 http://danielclough.bandcamp.com/album/ramparts lolz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hahathhat Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 this plz: http://www.ricedoutrecords.com/trax/nevenen/ambientdisco/ thx ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hautlle Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Shit, might as well throw this in here http://www.soundsagacity.com/006hautlle.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kineaesth Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Hit me with it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modey Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 haven't put out an album in a while, but here's my latest full-length: http://pselodux.bandcamp.com/album/city-fighter-jacky-in-poke-world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkaholic Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Still sketchy, need to play round dem chords more: http://soundcloud.com/vigeoh/strung-sketch fucking hell, its 5 minutes, too long Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkaholic Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 edit: thought i'd add two more http://soundcloud.com/vigeoh/some-other-time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root5 Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 http://soundcloud.com/mostly-ambient/tay-x-ou-ur-x-1-4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptowen Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Apologies to Arbee, still having a busy week & have only been able to listen to your album once. Hopefully I'll be able to listen to it a few times this weekend & do something up then. In the meantime I thought I'd review all the people who just posted a few tracks. So... Sprigg - It's hard for me to imagine exactly how the finished product would sound, because as you said this is just a sketch, but in its current form the frequent transitions feel rather awkward. For example, how the kick suddenly drops out after 14 seconds. Of course that would probably sound better if we had a little more time with the initial beat first. And then at 0:35 when the kick triples up (followed in a similar fashion by the snare a few seconds later) - that feels unnatural to me (rapid kick bursts like that usually do to me). I think some sort of pronounced transition would help, as opposed to jumping straight from beat A to beat B. And also the snare seems too quiet. To be honest the beat isn't doing much for me. I do like the tone of the synth, though, especially the way it gets a bit stuttery towards the end. If it were me I'd try out a bunch of different ideas with that patch, see what sticks. kineaesth - I enjoyed the opening, with that echoing clack sound & the synths drifting in that almost sound like accordions. Very atmospheric. While I like the bassline/beat that come in, I felt that the atmosphere was disturbed a bit during those sections. I think this is a combination of three things - the bassline being too loud in the mix, things being added/changing very suddenly compared to the slow ambient sections, & the synth pad/reverbed noise sounds that define the start of the track being dropped suddenly at 1:05. The quiet sections are all quite nice (the more I listen the more I wonder if there actually is an accordion in this, and the bloop at the end is interesting), so I'd say the beaty sections are what might need some volume mixing/possible structural adjustment. Funkaholic - You say "two more" in your second post, but the one in the attachment looks the same as the one in the first post. So, I might be missing one here... Strung Sketch - The opening chord progression feels familiar to me. Perhaps that's just something to do with pentatonics. Dunno. In any case the little plonky sound that develops is nice but the chords don't do much for me. I felt things started getting interesting around 0:54. The song could have started right there without the initial chords (stick them in later with something else maybe). Trimming the fat & all that. What I think would have been interesting right before things get loud at 1:08 would have been some sort of slight pause. Personal preference...The odd beat (sounds almost like messed up Super Mario samples) is pretty cool, and the chords do work better when you have them snuck in the background like that. None of the sections that come after that seem bad by themselves, but the track doesn't really feel like it goes anywhere in the last couple of minutes, sticking mostly to the same sonic palette instead of building to some sort of ending. I don't really like doing comparisons but there was one pad (the one at the end) that really reminded me of an Aphex Twin track...Heliospan, maybe? Actually, so does that little percussive sound, now that I think of it. Nothing wrong with that, per say. We've probably all used an overtly Aphexy sound at one point. Maybe that's what you were going for. I know I did it subconsciously for a while until someone pointed it out to me, now I make an effort to avoid that, but again, personal preference. Output 1-2 - Can't say a great deal about this one, given its length. I like it as a beat, & I guess the only thing that really stands out to me in a negative way is the note progression in the second half. It just feels too simple & under-developed to me. Needs some sort of rhythm to meld with the rest, I think, because right now it's basically just dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun. Some Other Time - I like all the sounds in this one. The little melodic percussive sounds, the sort of off-beat wobbly synth farts, etc. Maybe the snare is a bit dry compared to the rest but it doesn't draw attention to itself in a bad way. The little drop-off around 0:32 felt kinda too quick to me. Threw me off the rhythm for a second. I think if you had have paused for just a hair longer after that last synth wobble before bringing the blips back in it would have worked better. Maybe. In any case if you were looking to get a few more minutes out of this thing I think you easily could. You have a nice atmospheric base here that you could have a wide variety of slower pads or complex melodic lines laid down over top of it as you continue along. Root5 - I was listening to this, thinking "these pads are nice, but I'm not sure if they'll carry this song for 8 minutes". And then I got to 1:14 where you introduced a (pretty nice) new melodic element, and all was well. For a time. After a while I did once again begin to feel that there should have been another non-pad melodic elements. The pads here do make good accompaniment, but not so much when they're in the spotlight, and that other melodic line I mentioned could stand to have some more variations, because to me it felt the melodic elements present did not have quite enough gas to reach the finish. As far as rhythms go, I was interested by the mixing of an IDMy hi-hat sound with vaguely tribal drum sounds, but again they felt a bit too contained to one thing for 8 minutes of track time. Normally I might say shorten the track, but ambient type music does need plenty of time to breath, so maybe...a few more sonic elements. More variations in what you already have, and maybe have more things leave for a while and come back later. But don't go too crazy with that stuff or you might swing the other way - having a track that jumps around so quickly one keeps getting pulled out of the groove. I find the time requirements from that vary from genre to genre. Things like breakcore or jazz you might be able to jump all over the place & only stick to one thing for seconds at a time, and get away with it. For ambient, like I said, breathing time. Build-ups, intros, outros, all that junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Sprigg Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Awesome. Thanks, man! At this point the track is really just a couple of half-finished variations of the same theme, the only really finished one being the last bit. I'm absolutely terrible at transitions, relying normally on stop-starts and samples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptowen Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 I'm absolutely terrible at transitions, relying normally on stop-starts and samples. Transitions can be tricky. I usually spend a good chunk of the revision stage hashing them out. Also I find any sort of transition works best if it's on a beat (or whatever) that sticks around long enough for the listener to go "okay, this part is clearly an ending, we're about to go into something new". Jump straight from one section to the next usually works best for short little interludes, but really, it's something you have to play by ear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tamas Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I uploaded a version on Soundcloud so that it's higher quality! http://soundcloud.com/terrestrialcouncil/sound-synthesis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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