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This file has expired and is no longer available here. The owner of the topic can re-upload the file, or post a link to an off-site file. <BR><BR><a name="planetz-tag"></a>Genre: Trance<BR> <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Uses: Pulsar Synths<BR> copyright © 2003 Neil Buxton<BR> _____________________________________<BR><BR> Now that I’ve been retired for a year, and with my 50th birthday only a few weeks away, I thought that I ought to write something more suitable for my age and senility.

Then I changed my mind – big time!!!

I’d appreciate feedback please:
Comments, both positive and negative.
Advice on how to improve it – but not including moving it to the recycle bin.
I’d also be interested to see what genre you think that it is.

This is the first (quick) attempt at the mastering. Hopefully your comments will allow me to get a much better final version. Then I can reload.
I’ve played it back on 4 separate hi-fis and unfortunately they all sound completely different. I’m really frustrated by this so help please.

The Detail Thingies.............

Title: Artificial Intelligence – Becoming Unstable (303 Mix)
Length: 6 Mins 14 Secs
Filesize: 5.8 Mb
Filename: NeilB_Becoming_Unstable
Recorded at 32 bits, mastered down to 16 bits at 44.1, 128 thingies.
Written totally in MIDI and then of course recorded to audio.
The only samples are the speech.

Pulsar:
Inferno – Some Bass lines
Orbitone 303 – three tracks of them
EDS8I – Kik Drum
Prisma

Cubase:
PD 303 – Bass break
FM7 – Trancey sounds – thanks to a good friend for the use of his synth. Three tracks of these too.
All effects & mixing

Roland JV1080:
All percussion except the Kik drum.


Okay – I’m off to Scotland for a week on Saturday for some serious mountain biking, hill walking and Munro bagging (Scottish mountains over 3000 feet). Oh, whisky and lots of food too. Snow is forecast!
It would be lovely to come home to a few comments so I can finish it off, and even better if I read a couple before I went!!!!!







_________________
Neil B

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Neil B on 2003-10-29 13:52 ]</font>

Ok

First congratulation with your upcoming birthday

I believe this genre would go under the category commercial trance - Not a genre I can say that I'm into, but I do have a few comments on the mix, though I don't have the know how to do them better than this myself.
But since you asked for it, these were my thoughts when I listened to your track:

To me the leading melody sits to far back in the overall mix, it should be brought all the way to the front. Also the bass should fill more in the mix somehow. And if the bassdrum could get a more defined punch, I think it would work much better. The hi-hat sounds fine to me. Maybe if you listen to your track at a low volume it's easier to hear what I mean.


And last, maybe set the tempo a little faster....not sure about that though.

I hope this helps!
Thomas

Here's my .02

Set those 808 hats real low, then layer 909 hats on top. Swap the tamborine for some shakers in a stutter like patters, hrmm how can I explain that to say it, like a Taa-TaTa-Taa-TaTa, change velos on shakers to give a more live percussive feel and set those deep in the mix.

Now swap the bass for a more Juno 60ish punch sub, the bass seems a little drifty and lacking in the punch needed for true trance music. Next pump the BPM to around 138.

The 303, hrmm, maybe throw a slight distortion on it to make it a little more grainy, and sast but not least off the top of my head, the main synth needs to move a little more, maybe automate its frequency to have a more swirling effect, trance music is beat driver, so have fun with it and make it interesting!

But carefull, to much salt can ruin the soup

Cheers!

I thought that I ought to write something more suitable for my age and senility.

HAHAHA!! Senility my ASS! I wasn't expecting trance from that comment! Great roaring kicks.. and man, you've got the form DOWN. Awesome variation of synth sounds. Some of the 303 sounds sound more modern than what I make. lol

If I had a pitch slider, I'd pump the tune up to about bpm 140. felt a bit slow for the amount of heat that's going on.

Happy birth day dude! And keep 'em coming!

Hi Niel,

I have to agree to the other comments, but remember that all is subjective, and that I'm not feeling home in this genre. I feel the track would benefit from a "tempo-lift" too, also the whole sound could be more edgy (distortion) for my ears.

I love the kick, the basic sounds, the vocals (which maybe could be more brought to the front by dist, and "telephone filtering"), and the composition as a whole, it just rocks.

Beeing your age, and the fact that you made this super modern piece, shows that music has no age, nor does creativity. Hope you get at least 50 more good years.

Thanks to the 4 of you for the replies, the tips, advice and comments. I'll try to reply to each in turn but I'm sure that there'll be some crossovers.

Thomas:
Commercial Trance will do fine as the genre.
I wanted to write my first trance track, but I wasn't certain as to whethere I had drifted away from the recognised form of trance during the composition.
Yes, I think that the main melody sits too far back, but it was a first mix before I went to Bonny Scotland (I threw some snowballs - in October!!!!!!). Also it sounded so different on 4 hi-fis and my ears were a bit over-tired from all the mixing/remixing. I will bring the main melody up more now that I'm home.
The Kik drum does need more definition and a quicker decay. While I was putting this together I liked the combination of the EDS8i Kik and the JV1080 hats. I wanted to steer clear of samples and loops for this track so I could've used some better kik samples for instance. However, I wanted to get under the skin of trance so I opted to do it all in midi, and believe you me, I had to nail some notes in one at a time to get the end result!
On listening more closely now, a shorter Kik with a bit bigger attack would allow more space in the mix for the other sounds to come through.
Tempo wise - yes it could be faster. I have another track under construction that is at 138 BPM, but seeing as how everything is coming from midi on this track it will be easy to up the tempo a bit.
Finally the bass - at the end of each "verse" I chose to pan the bass around a bit, slowing the attack while I did this. Don't ask me why, it felt right at the time!

Basic Pitch:
Wow, a whole bunch of tips from someone obviously schooled in trance. Thank you for every tip.
Yes, I do understand what you mean about the shakers.
I've played around with the Choppy Bass on the Uknow 007 - this reacts well to velocity for changing the timbres. Perhaps I'll use this instead.
The 303's is a bit more difficult. With 3 of them on the track, all doing their own little things, it was difficult to separate the sounds of the 3 of them, especially where all 3 come in together on the last "verse", but it is something I can try, if not on this track, certainly on the next one.
And the main synth - yes, it was a case of not having time to get to know its capabilities before using the patches that I used. The only variations on these came from velocity.
I'm really grateful for your .02

Kensuguro:
HAHAHA back - glad I caught you out. Of course, with it being my first ever attempt at trance, I'm embarrasingly pleased with your comments - glad you liked it.

Thalamus (Noah)Again, glad you liked it, but I'm young for my age (never had kids so I've not grown up myself yet!)
I'm also hoping for more than another 50

Regarding the vocals - it was a bit lucky that I could use them at all. They were simple and a bit dirty 8 bit clips I found on the net. They're hidden in the mix a bit on purpose (as loud as I could get away with)
Out of interest - is the telephone filtering the technique that you use on many of your tracks with the vocalist?

There were many other problems in puting this together too:
For instance I get lots of PCI overload errors and DSP overflows etc. I frequently have to use more than one project for each track.
Another problem is dirty hiss that I get from the outboard JV1080. I have a de-noiser plugin but this introduces too much latency to play along with. So I laid down the tracks with the plugin and then recorded to audio but found the latency had affected the timing of the hihats. The only answer that I could come up with was to record all and then have the plugin as the first one in my master effects chain, thus putting everything through the plug-in.
It kept the timing together but I didn't know if it would affect the overall mix.
Hence the early upload.

Anyway - again thanks for all your tips and comments. I feel confident to attempt another couple of tracks in this genre now and also have the advice to improve it.

One final question please - how do I re-upload a track once I've redone/remixed this one?

I think it sounds nice to be your first Techno song.

BTW: Happy Birsthay man! :wink)

I too think it is a bit slow. I don´t particularly like the hat changes, it just cuts my perception of rythm.

It's not the kind of music I like, but overal, I think you've got a 7 there...

My problem with this music is that melodies are so very simple, that I get a bit bored after a couple of minutes, I would like for it to develop a bit. This has alwyas been my bad point for absolutely all trance and techno kind of music.

Thanks for the reply Nestor.
I'm convinced it is too slow now and I'll do a repload in a week or two once I've made other changes (thanx everyone).
Yeah, I found the hard bit of writing this was keeping it minimal - it is basically a one chord trick after all. I think the secret of trance/techno must be to enjoy the blend of sounds and the energy as opposed to wanting to hear developing melodies. Perhaps that's what all the other genres are for
Anyway - getting a 7 for my first attempt at trance is more than I could have hoped for.
Thank you again.

Perhaps that's what all the other genres are for

I've never thought about it this way. It makes a lot of sense to me, good point...

I finally got a chance to hear this today.
I agree that it needs to be upped somewhere between 136-140 BPM to give it more drive. There's enough going on with the melody and it's true to form, not that I'm the world's authority on trance
The mix sounded fine to me - although I would have liked to hear the female samples louder. 8 bit - WE LOVE low-Fi - some evil mangling or fattening could be applied to either take advatage of the Lo-Fi or thicken it. Sometimes a mess of sweep delays can do this for you - and gives you licence to bring the vocals right up and out of the swamp.

You could have a listen to some early BT - the grandfather of trance if you would like to study the sorts of methods and sounds that some of the other guys have mentioned. Mind you, I took my own advice and found myself emulating him hahahaha, and that will never do.
It's rumoured that Mr BT is coming down to Australia sometime this year..... but I thought he was "never gunna come back down"

Idem all
Take a second view and it will be a great track Neil!

Thanks for your comments BLGrace. Again, all will be taken on board - I'm starting on version 2 next week!
Please indulge an old man - who is BT?

Hubird: Thanks for the encouragement. I was expecting a very different smiley after the "Andreas - Lagoona" episode a few months ago I was expecting the return of the young girlie smiley.

Again, indulge me - what is IDEM short for?

Finally - can someone please tell me how to reload a track to the same thread please?

We can talk about this track next week Neil, but I would say that I like this track and I´m very curious to your next version.

You can replace a track very easy, just press edit here on your first entry and upload your new version as usual.

BTW: Are you really becoming unstable, Neil?

I've always been unstable Chris, ever since I met you on Planet Z

idem = the same (roman latin).
meaning I agree in general with the comments of the others
btw 50 isn't old at all ?!!

Thanks Huub (idem)
And I know 50 isn't old - just a bit of fun

Nice trance

On 2003-10-19 06:11, Neil B wrote:
Thanks for your comments BLGrace. Again, all will be taken on board - I'm starting on version 2 next week!
Please indulge an old man - who is BT?

http://www.btmusic.com/frameset_home.html
http://www.btnetwork.org/

BTW, I just turned 42 (10 days ago) so I don't think 50 is old either

Congratulations of course to your birthday.
Cheers!

Okay, first of all - thanks everyone for comments, tips & ideas.
I've edited, remixed and uploaded but haven't had time to take on board everyone's suggestions.
Tempo up by 16 to 136 BPM and it really makes a difference.
Improved the Kik drum and even doubled it up in some sections.
Vocals more up front.
Main synths (3 FM synths) more up front and dirtier although in my opinion some of the subtle nuances have been lost.
All 3 303's have a dirtier edge to them.
I haven't changed the bass much except for sharpening the attack. As it only plays on the offbeat to the Kik in some sections (not all the track), I like it as it is with 2 of the 303's adding the interest around it.
Haven't had time to replace the tambourines with shakers (I've been asked to do a 10 minute track for the church youth leader for a Christmas multi-media thing)
I couldn't find any decent 909 hi-hats amongst my collection of sounds (shock eh?) so the hi-hats remain unchanged too.
I tried it up to 140 BPM but even the extra 4 BPM's lost quite a few of the subtle nuances.

Basic Pitch - your comments and suggestions are really useful and they have found there way into another track I'm working on (Touch Me). If I get some decent 909's it'll be done and uploaded around Christmas at a guess.

One thing I have learnt - however much of a hurry you are in to get a track finished - keep your track sheet up to date !!! Does anyone else still use a tracksheet?

Having said all that, I thought that I should upload it again in light of the time and effort that you all put in to comment on it. I certainly feel that it has improved a lot and I sat and thought today that this is perhaps the first track that I have ever written that I would buy !!! Strange thought.

Okay, onto the next track now, but before that it is time to download and listen to some of yours.

Many thnaks again