Ableton Forum

Just posted up on the cloud... inspiration struck saturday night, and it all just seemed to come together so quickly. A song with layered guitars, some resonator kick, fizzy snares and cymbals and more...

http://soundcloud.com/darkslide/push-4

New Mix up:
http://soundcloud.com/darkslide/push-2-0-new-mix

Man, sometimes I just love how you can plug in and play, hit record, get a few riffs down, add a few fx racks, throw in some drums and boom, you've got a new song. Man I love the state of digital recording! Of course, there's the hours upon hours of mixing/composition/etc. but you know what I mean. Ableton just makes it so easy for me to get my ideas down! So often I just pick up the guitar to play, but end up plugging into the interface and opening Live....

Oh, I was really enjoying that and then it just stopped! Nice work, kept my toes tapping while working...

Sorry! The fade out didn't register, I must have accidentally reset the volume envelope on the master before rendering! I'm posting a new render right now! Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for checking it out!

New render uploaded!

Very nice work sah, some of those rhythm guitars are a bit too washed out in the background though, although it might have been the effect you were aiming for?

The busses is good! Good job dude

Thanks guys

@UKRuss: yeah, they are a bit too washy, agreed. I will see what I can do to create their own space a bit more. I am going for a very floaty sound there, but it could still be better, for sure. I rendered about 3 different versions of this tune, and each time the guitar levels and resonator kick levels were either too loud or too quiet. I wanted to make sure that the guitars didn't drown out everything else; the hats,fizzy snare and cymbal hits, etc. I threw in pitch changes on the rez'd kick and couldn't hear it on my first render...

Maybe just a little tweaking on the saturator freq and depth for those guitars might help, Idk. Thanks again for your honesty and critique, I actually get a listener's perspective that way!

@never: you referring to BusJack? Thanks, man. Totally different from PusH. I kind of have a split personality when it comes to the music making

It is so diffuclt, I find, to get those really spaced out guitar sounds to sit properly in the mix, but let us know how you get on. Looking forward to hearing more versions of this!

Nice piece jamers, I like the guitar progression a lot, good delays, layering, drums. It has a great sense of urgency mixed with some moments of introspection. Mix sounded a little wonky in me cans... it could very well be that I'm out of touch with modern guitar sounds, but I found it a bit too fizzy in parts, thought the bass sound might be tightened up a bit. At times I thought the drums might be a touch hot in the mix, and that they could gel a bit better with the other tracks... from a reverb and compression pov. Anyhow, really enjoyed it just trying to offer some constructive ideas.

jamers-

nice tracks! i esp like busjack. keep up those industrial sounds.

Thanks for your kind words and feedback guys! I'm working on it some more tonight, I'll post again when I've got another version to share, with the guitar and drum feedback in mind.

Okay, after two nights, hours and hours of re-mixing, I've got a new mix up on soundcloud, check it out if you like...

I did what I could with the guitars, by panning a little bit differently, modifying some of the fx on them, etc. Everything is done using only Live's native fx, which is both a good and a bad thing. I really need some other guitar plug-ins already...
I added some new guitar parts and changed a few levels throughout the song...

For the hats, cymbals and snare hits, I used returns to add some overall compression and reverb to hopefully tame any hot stuff (although there never was any clipping), and to give them more of the song's 'feel'. I added a few new fills and cymbals there too.

So, I'm wondering how anyone thinks it compares to the original version, have I solved any issues that would have caused this washiness, etc. I'd be grateful for more feedback! Or of course, just enjoy! Thanx again for the feedback so far, I think it has helped me bring out a better piece.

http://soundcloud.com/darkslide/push-2-0-new-mix

Cheers!

Hi jamers,

I listened to the first version but didn't post because I just didn't get what was going on. Electronica is a bit foreign to me anyway, so I'm out of my element but I do dig guitar stuff.

The most current mix is way better in my view. I can hear what is happening, how the different parts fit together. The spacey echoey guitar part works really well in there.

The fizzy guitar tone is a bit too much for me even now, but I'm not sure what suggestion I could give other than maybe listen to some stuff you like and see if fizzy tone is what you're really after. You can get some powerful guitar parts that with alot cleaner tone - they'll sound dirty and grungy, but underneath it's not a saturated fizzy sound that's creating that impression. Angus Young for instance has a surprisingly clean guitar tone that sounds nasty because of layering and overdrive - not fuzz. Your tone to me is somewhat more in the ballpark of Smashing Pumpkins, but even there the fuzz is over the top in comparison.

I guess my rec is pull back the fuzz is you can and see what happens. If you can record the same part pan one left, one right and clean them up. You can still get a wall of sound, but not so fizzy.

Anyhow, just a thought.

thanks smili, I appreciate your feedback.
As for the fuzziness, I'm not sure if it's my crappy interface (I just have an M-Audio FastTrack Pro), my guitar's tone to begin with, or the fx I'm using from Live...
I use saturator from Live's fx, and I usually combine it with flanger, reverb, and/or a little EQ'ing to try to get a good distortion. I don't have any other plug-ins, but I really think I should be using Guitar Rig or something along those lines. I just can't seem to find a way to use Live's fx to get a great guitar tone for this particular song - dirty and strong but not muddy or washy. I tried to tool around with the frequencies, depth, width, etc. but yeah, I just can't get the sound I need! have 5 guitar tracks going here, maybe that's 2 tracks too many..? They are panned apart, like you suggest, but it's not working effectively I guess.

As soon as I have some extra dough to spend on studio equipment, I plan on getting a real interface and some better apps for guitar, for starters!

Good at least to hear that the second mix is coming out a little better, I did what I could with my noobie knowledge, ha!

Oh, and yes, smashing pumpkins is much more what I'm shooting for, not AC/DC... but there is still much work to do to get it how I really want it!

fwiw, At least in the recent past I've tended to find that guitars generally sound way better mic'd up -- but then I'm old school in that - and it does force you to decide on the guitar sound before you record. I've not messed with any of the newer guitar plugs though - I'm sure they're getting better every year.