Ableton and dance music

[tymoney]

yea u right , good luck to everyone here.

[nebulae]

as for sasha & digweed ,to be honest their music has become a bit old school .
last time we booked sasha for a charity party ,he played some old school cheezy house & disapointed everyone ,may be cos he wasn't geting paid he didn't want to play the pumping stuff ,i don't know .
hey, don't take me the wrong way , i like the guy (he never done the shut up i m the superstar with me) but his music is not getting better to my view .

OK, I'm not one to start a flame war of opinions, but Sasha's production records are AMAZING, especially Involver. Not only is it a masterful approach to music making with Live, it's also a fantastic study in deconstruction and remixing. The production of that record is among the best I've heard in years, and the songs are just dripping with emotion, which is really hard to do with electronic music. I think Sasha's prog house sets may sound dated, but his best production days are ahead. And although I haven't seen his live shows with his new material, I read on this forum that he's doing some amazing stuff with Live in his shows.

Again, sorry your experience hasn't been good, but I respectfully disagree on Sasha's music.

As for getting back to this thread, my honest opinion is that the songs sound a bit thin. I like the melodies and basslines of all the songs, but I feel that the pads sound thin. The production is very clean too, but again, a bit antiseptic and cold. The kicks could hit harder, and a bit of sloppy analogish warmth might be in order. Perhaps adding PSPs vintage warmer or some Voxengo plugs to warm and fatten the sound?

Or perhaps you are actually using hardware, in which case, I'd get some more low end into the recording in Live.

Overall, it's good housy stuff, and I'm sure at a really loud club, I'd be dancing to it

[Livewire]

hey jt these are some awesome tracks. all three are really good. redrush is my favorite, i like the lead. nice and relaxing song.
keep it up.

[anonymouse]

why does Sasha, the fading Cliff Richard of handbag house, attract such energetic followers?

he made a lot of money as a businessman jockeying a generation with his breathily effected mixes, but, the guy has yet to reveal credible artistic talent deserving of such adulation by whining forum posters.

with the real creativity, innovation and freshness from so many penniless artists these days, who are just in it for the love of music, it is sickening that a big brand machine like Sasha Inc still commands such adoration.

Are there rock forums where people are frantically defending Liam Gallagher's integrity and vision?

[nebulae]

why does Sasha, the fading Cliff Richard of handbag house, attract such energetic followers?

he made a lot of money as a businessman jockeying a generation with his breathily effected mixes, but, the guy has yet to reveal credible artistic talent deserving of such adulation by whining forum posters.

with the real creativity, innovation and freshness from so many penniless artists these days, who are just in it for the love of music, it is sickening that a big brand machine like Sasha Inc still commands such adoration.

Are there rock forums where people are frantically defending Liam Gallagher's integrity and vision?

Liam Gallagher is the second coming of John Lennon. Perhaps even Jesus.

Ok, back to reality. The truth is that I'm not a big fan of Sasha's house mixes. However, Involver is a brilliant piece of work, and in my opinion (and I'm pretty hard on most artists) it deserves a lot of praise. I have no affinity to Sasha or his marketing machine. I just love Involver, and I also really like Airdrawndagger. I also love a lot of indy artists and I see a lot of genius music out there, most of which is unsigned.

Phew, I almost feel valid again, having gotten that off my chest.

Ok, before the flames begin, I'm just wondering if you have actually listened to Sasha's produced records, not just his DJ mixes.

[anonymouse]

right on. i agree the albums he has done are good.

but, i wish his extreme fans would just calm down. it does the guy no favours that he is proclaimed the grandfather of Live eclectronica.

there are busloads of quiet geniuses out there breaking new gorund. I don't think Sasha, in his capacity as a true artist, rather than a DJ, can be credited with such achievement or core innovation..

[nebulae]

Ok, maybe we need a new thread on this, but I completely agree with you about undeserved adoration. What bugs me more than blind sasha devotees is the following phrase:

"BT invented trance music." I shit you not, next time I hear someone say that, I'll have no choice but to kick his/her ass.

[anonymouse]

well we all know Tangerine Dream and Syd Barrett invented trance

it is all music at the end of the day, which is made to be enjoyed.

The talent will out. There is a proliferation of cheap musicmaking technology these days. The happy irony, this only makes the true talent shine brighter, hopefully it gets the opportunity to get some deserved exposure.

Airdrawndagger sounds like creation from the heart. Maybe he should change his brand name to re-establish himself as a credible independent from the big scene he once matadored.

[nebulae]

Well, Tangerine Dream and Syd Barrett probably experienced trance with all those lovely hallucinogens

I think Sasha is re-inventing himself with his prodcutions. Involver was very much a deconstruction, and having done many remixes, I can tell you that it becomes your own work when you strip it down to that level and build it back up.

As for proliferation, I totally agree...the easier it is to make music, the more the real cream rises to to the top. I can't tell you how many times I thank god for the Internet, and how much I pray for the complete death of the Clearchannel monopoly over the US.

[scot7y1]

Firstly, lovely work! Really good sounds, beautifully produced, and I'm especially imporessed with the FM work. I feel I have a few comments to make which might help you sell these to the people who I would assume make up your primary market - DJs. Bear in mind that I've no idea what all this talk of the US scene is all about - I come from a European and London perspective.

Strangenight - The kick lacks punch and the way it lags slightly behind the rest of the percussion takes away bite. It would be better if everything landed hard together on those on-beats.

Can't say I really felt the breakdown - goes on for too long. No matter how battered the dancefloor are, they're walking off for people to talk codshit at. A good rule for me with breakdowns is that there should always be a sense of rising or falling - it should never sit still.

This doesn't sound like a DJ single to me - there's no sharp edges on it. Subtle niceties kinda pass people by at 130dB, so you need to make all the noises sharp and up-front. As it stands, the tune gives the impression of lots of time spent listening to progressive mix CDs which have been EQed for home systems. This will sound loose and lacking in punch and midrange on a big system.

Oh one other thing - an alarming number of DJs are complete musical numpties and can't mix a tune into another without a big fat obvious beat at the beginning and the end. I've made the mistake of ignoring this before and it just kills a big proportion of your market. If they think it's going to be difficult to mix, they won't expose themselves and make themselves look rubbish. If you look at people like Sasha, every tune he plays seems to start and end wish a fairly bare 1-2 minutes of percussion. not that you hear this on the compilations, obviously.

Unfortunately, there's another mixing issue which affects the *better* DJs - if you start and end the tune with too much easily identifiable key information, it is necessary to pick out tunes in compatible keys in order to mix them sweetly. By and large this is safer to ignore as so many DJs are tone deaf, but it's worth bearing in mind.

My Fantasy - really nice! But again that kick isn't lined up, lacks edges, and in my humble isn't loud enough. Also, is that stereo in the bass? Watch out for that, since when cut onto vinyl that will be monoed progressively from 300Hz-ish down. And a hell of lot of club systems are mono. Any phase decorrelation will just translate into a quieter bassline if you're not careful.

Same issue with the lack of any harshness - have you tried pushing those hi-hats through some analogue distortion? Or trying giving them some more presence around 1-2Khz and gating them.

I LOVE the way this one kicks off, but the double kick thing doesn't *quite* work in my opinion, Kepts throwing me off the groove.

Rudrush - Not much to say here. By aiming it so squarely at a more chilled vibe, most of my comments that apply to the previous two need not apply. This track benefits from the smooth classy production and sounds great.

Some really good advice there, thanx. It does pay to listen to people that know what they are talking about, criticism is hard to take but when backed up with constructiveness its invaluable.

[jt_castillo]

thank you for lending me some of your valuble time and listening to my tunes.

i appreciate all the feedback and have made notes on some very good points made on this thread. i hope others, as well, have learned some things from the info on here and experiment with it themselves.

as for sasha, all i can say is that he is rich, famous, and loves what he does, if only we were all so lucky, so i give him props for making it, regardless of my opinion on his music.


thanks again,
--jt

[fmass]

Back to those 3 songs ...

Initially I kind of like them ... all ... but then ... something clicked ...

Went to the Arturia site ...

Downloaded Storm ... and played a couple of demo songs ...

Oh nooooooooooooooooo!

[Sly One]

thank you for lending me some of your valuble time and listening to my tunes.

i appreciate all the feedback and have made notes on some very good points made on this thread. i hope others, as well, have learned some things from the info on here and experiment with it themselves.

That's the idea. Good luck!

They sound great as they are, but if you feel like implementing any of the comments, I'd love to hear the results at the end of it. If the second one got that bit of extra punch, I could certainly offer a few club tests for it!

as for sasha, all i can say is that he is rich, famous, and loves what he does, if only we were all so lucky, so i give him props for making it, regardless of my opinion on his music.

I know Sasha isn't a producer, but it reminds me of an old bit of advice I was given. Producer literally means "creator of Product". Therefore a successful producer is one who has a proven success in creating saleable results. In effect - if having your name on something as the producer makes it sell - then you are a good producer. If you make pop trash which sells by the bucketload, you are successful. If you are a hidden genius making experimental electronica in your bedroom which is light years ahead of its time but only sells to a handful of people and never makes money... you are a skilled, maybe visionary musician, but you aren't creating a saleable product, and you are therefore not a good producer.

You can't knock a guy for identifying a market and exploiting it.

[jt_castillo]

hey sly, what's up, man.

checked out your site and you got some nice stuff going on, man, im very happy for you. Gamma Storm is a solid piece of work, really like the breakdown and buildup, and i can hear some deep rooted knowledge of music theory. keep up the great work.

on a few things you wrote:

Strangenight - The kick lacks punch and the way it lags slightly behind the rest of the percussion takes away bite. It would be better if everything landed hard together on those on-beats..

yeah, i tried using a 'deeper' kick than usual, but it causes that aftershock and makes it feel like its off. ive added some delay to the kick to tighten it, and it's worked some, but i got to play with it some more, perhaps up the attack frequencies and/or maybe fade out or lower the gain on the later half of that kick.

Can't say I really felt the breakdown - goes on for too long. No matter how battered the dancefloor are, they're walking off for people to talk codshit at. A good rule for me with breakdowns is that there should always be a sense of rising or falling - it should never sit still.

it's a funny, thing, im usually not a fan of the long break down, specially the ones that dont seem to go somewhere fast, but i was in club space one night down here in miami, and the dj went into this long breakdown. you could see the crowed starting to drift off and get that confused look, and at the moment it seemed like a bad thing...but what happened next was amazing, the insuing buildup was so dramatic, made such a contrast, and was so welcomed that when that kick finally came the whole freakin place went absoslutely crazy. im sure part of it was the purposely put calm breakdown and large buildup, so i opted to try that here in this song.

This doesn't sound like a DJ single to me - there's no sharp edges on it. Subtle niceties kinda pass people by at 130dB, so you need to make all the noises sharp and up-front. As it stands, the tune gives the impression of lots of time spent listening to progressive mix CDs which have been EQed for home systems. This will sound loose and lacking in punch and midrange on a big system.

yeah, i definitely need to work on my mixing/mastering, its a whole nother world to me. ive only been doing this for a few months, and the learning process is exhausting and overwhelming at times.....but you should hear my first few shots at mixing/mastering, very sad thing

Oh one other thing - an alarming number of DJs are complete musical numpties and can't mix a tune into another without a big fat obvious beat at the beginning and the end. I've made the mistake of ignoring this before and it just kills a big proportion of your market. If they think it's going to be difficult to mix, they won't expose themselves and make themselves look rubbish. If you look at people like Sasha, every tune he plays seems to start and end wish a fairly bare 1-2 minutes of percussion. not that you hear this on the compilations, obviously.

couldn't agree with you more, im guilty of the same thing when i spin, albeit if i like the tune ill just cue it up where the percussion kicks in, it's still very important to take this into consideration, cause in the end its about making something others can and want to use.

My Fantasy - really nice! But again that kick isn't lined up, lacks edges, and in my humble isn't loud enough. Also, is that stereo in the bass? Watch out for that, since when cut onto vinyl that will be monoed progressively from 300Hz-ish down. And a hell of lot of club systems are mono. Any phase decorrelation will just translate into a quieter bassline if you're not careful.

yep, i know, i know...the stereo bassline, its been at the back of my head for a while, just keep slippin on taking care of it. and the drums in this piece can definitely use an overhaul, i had written it a while ago and have improved several techniques on it.

Same issue with the lack of any harshness - have you tried pushing those hi-hats through some analogue distortion? Or trying giving them some more presence around 1-2Khz and gating them.

it's the way i eq them, guilty of that. i cut a lot of the lows and mids to get the crisp sound but ive come to realize sometimes you really want/need that harshness. very good point.

I LOVE the way this one kicks off, but the double kick thing doesn't *quite* work in my opinion, Kepts throwing me off the groove.

Do you mean in the last drive, after the build up? yeah, just tried something different. seems to move the tune forward, but if it hasn't grown on you it can throw you off.

well, thanks for your insightful, full coverage of my tunes, man. im not sure what i can offer in return, but i have a pretty good monitoring setup over here and give you my opinion on any tracks you send my way.

--jt

[Sly One]

checked out your site and you got some nice stuff going on, man, im very happy for you. Gamma Storm is a solid piece of work, really like the breakdown and buildup, and i can hear some deep rooted knowledge of music theory. keep up the great work.

Thanks I've got a few more on the way - took a break from releasing as I'd just got my residency which was absorbing too much time (whoever it was that said you can't be a good DJ AND a prolific producer had a point - one always suffers...) and I'd just completely rebuilt the studio, so I had to get used to the sound.

I'm off work sick at the moment, hence why I'm hanging around on bulletin boards!

yeah, i tried using a 'deeper' kick than usual, but it causes that aftershock and makes it feel like its off. ive added some delay to the kick to tighten it, and it's worked some, but i got to play with it some more, perhaps up the attack frequencies and/or maybe fade out or lower the gain on the later half of that kick.

Nah, never ever replace the kick once a track's got past the groove stage - you end up killing the track.

Assuming that you haven't used any plugin processing on the kick which is introducing latency (which it sounds like)... what you actually want to do is emphasise the attack on the kick. Try putting the kick through a compander (compressor/expander in series). You use the expander to increase the dynamic range, thereby making it tail off more sharply, then follow it with a compressor set to a very long attack. This will bring the boom back up to its previous level, but leave the click at the beginning that you'd pulled out with the expander. This is great for leads too, btw.

Another trick is to layer the kick with a very short, clipped start of a hihat sound. With a bit of tweaking this can sound quite natural. It helps though to then runt he two through the same heavy dynamics processing (like the compander) to bind them together.

Before you try anything, though, run every track apart from the kick through, say, between 4 and 10 samples of sample delay. I think Voxengo do a free VST for this. If that fixes it then you've just got a kick sample which goes, subtly, "w-BUMP" and therefore the start of the sample isn't actually the peak, click point of the sound. Look at the kick sample in a sample editor (try AUdacity - it's free) and expreiment with just trimming off the start, so it starts on the peak. As long as you trim it at zero, you could end up with a frighteningly sharp sound. COmbine that with any of the above and *pow*

All the above could work with "My Fantasy" too.

it's a funny, thing, im usually not a fan of the long break down, specially the ones that dont seem to go somewhere fast, but i was in club space one night down here in miami, and the dj went into this long breakdown. you could see the crowed starting to drift off and get that confused look, and at the moment it seemed like a bad thing...but what happened next was amazing, the insuing buildup was so dramatic, made such a contrast, and was so welcomed that when that kick finally came the whole freakin place went absoslutely crazy.

Not arguing with that, I've been there myself! I just think that there should always be an impression that it's leading you somewhere. Even if it keeps seeming to build and dropping off again.

yeah, i definitely need to work on my mixing/mastering, its a whole nother world to me. ive only been doing this for a few months, and the learning process is exhausting and overwhelming at times.....but you should hear my first few shots at mixing/mastering, very sad thing

You're doing bloody well, and clearly have a talent. I don't think it's about mixing or mastering - I just thing that you need to treat each sound individually to make them stand out. The hihats are lovely, for example, but I can't shake the feeling that they're going to get overlaid with some big dirty saturated house loops when the track "gets going", and it doesn't happen.

it's the way i eq them, guilty of that. i cut a lot of the lows and mids to get the crisp sound but ive come to realize sometimes you really want/need that harshness. very good point.

Bingo

Do you mean in the last drive, after the build up? yeah, just tried something different. seems to move the tune forward, but if it hasn't grown on you it can throw you off.

Just my opinion - ask a few more people before you change anything, I say!

well, thanks for your insightful, full coverage of my tunes, man. im not sure what i can offer in return, but i have a pretty good monitoring setup over here and give you my opinion on any tracks you send my way.

No worries! Any more questions, just ask.