Ableton Forum

Hello. Just put a new track up and would appreciate your feedback.

http://soundcloud.com/whodunnit/tracks


Cheers

Oh hell no!

Certainly not my kind of music - but it's mixed nicely and there were some pretty cool variations on the theme in there. The drums could use a bit more reverb and processing - maybe look at getting a vocalist in too.

Thanks cressy, I appreciate making guitar music puts me in a minority in this forum. Really appreciate your feedback and will take your comments on board.

Not my kind of music either really. The mix is ok but i agree with cressy about the drums, they need a little something to make them sparkle and gel better with the rest of the track.
And yeah, a vocalist would be a fine move.

Neil.

Thanks Neil. I'll have a tinker around with the drums and see what comes out of it. Idea of working with a vocalist is a bit daunting but I'm gonna give that some thought. Your stuff by the way is very good - lots of nice influences coming through.

Thanks mate

Neil.

Had a play with the drums, see what you think....

http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks

I gave it a short listen. It's not that it's not my thing but that your performances need tightening up.

It's not worth overdubbing until you're totally happy with what you're recording on top of.

Not a lot was in time with everything else, so my advice is get back to the drawing board and start again.

Also, spend a bit more time practising, you can even out a lot of dynamics with compression (read up on serial compression), though a lot of your dynamic problems would be overcome by a good performance and the small mis-hits, which although add character, can spoil someone's listening pleasure.

Many record companies hire in session musicians to play on people's albums as that way they save huge amounts of time in the studio trying to get it right.

Remember, the best guitarists practise for 4+ hrs a day.

The only way to fly was a lot better but it seemed to rely heavily on distortion effects, so I can't really comment on what the actual playing was like.

Jarvisimon - thanks for you comments.

A nice way of telling me I can't polish a turd!!

I completely accept your criticism about needing to tighten up - I was already thinking about re-recording some of my other tracks. This track was arranged, recorded and mixed in a couple of hours. When I went back to make the drums better fit the atmosphere (which took me another 2 hours) I thought about fixing the timing issues on the intro and the odd bit of fret buzz, etc., but ultimately decided I didn't want to sacrifice the feel and the mood of the song.

4 hours practice a day is on my list of things to do when my lottery numbers come up. Until then I'll certainly take your advice about reading up on serial compression - although I personally get more enjoyment out of just playing and experimenting than striving for technical perfection.

Cheers and thanks for listening.

Jarvisimon wrote:... it's not my thing but that your performances need tightening up.

Interesting comment. I interpreted the track entirely different. Not only did I like the qwerkiness of the timing ( which I thought was specifically intended) I was thinking all along that your playing skills were mad, like bravo for adding a touch of wierdness as opposed to some smoothed out almost un human perfection

Jarvisimon wrote:... my advice is get back to the drawing board and start again.

My view is that all you need to do is try and remove the pinging string noises between 2:00-2:15, either that or reduce, limit their volume, and just tweak/play with dynamics and your mix a bit, but other than that I think its great.

Jarvisimon wrote:Also, spend a bit more time practicing

Although I agree with this sentiment, in my personal music life (as opposed to my professional music life) I always replace the word practice with the word play. In reality, everything you do is contributing to sharpening up your skills. In all walks of life there is such a thing as 'on the job training'. Just keep doing what your doing with a gentle critical eye. In 5 years time you will be amazed at your progress.

Thanks G, means a lot

The quirky timing was intended, at least in the way the whole thing fits together. Some individual bits could have been tighter.

I've still go lots to learn on the production side of things. I'll see if I can clean this up a bit and apply the same learning to some other tracks in the pipeline.

Really glad you liked it though!