Ableton Forum

sup guys,

been hearing a lot of great stuff done with ableton on these boards. would like to say there are also some of us down here in miami that work every day with live, love it, and support it. keep the music pumping.

i'd be privaleged if you guys would check out some tunes done with live. any feedback would be appreciated. it's hard to find tech-inclined people for feedback, but you guys know your shit.

1. Strange Night
2. My Fantasy
3. Red Rush

if you can relate to any of those tunes, we're getting a label going on down here and are looking for talented producers with unsigned tracks to get a proper release and some playtime in miami beach/fort lauderdale clubs. if that's your thing, or got any other comments/questions, shoot me an email: [email protected]

--jt

well,I downloaded the first one...went off on a stoned internet search one, completely forgot where I was and what I was listening to and I suddenly had a moment where I thought "what's this I'm listening to??" and then pissed about for ages trying to find whatever page it was that had led me to this music.

Eventually I found it and bothered to write all this crap

So that's definitely a good thing.

forge wrote:well,I downloaded the first one...went off on a stoned internet search one, completely forgot where I was and what I was listening to and I suddenly had a moment where I thought "what's this I'm listening to??" and then pissed about for ages trying to find whatever page it was that had led me to this music.

Eventually I found it and bothered to write all this crap

So that's definitely a good thing.

Btw. Nice tracks
I like nr 3 the most

it's american !
to be honest it's not my type of music at all ,but when i was listening it made me think at the records i have been receiving from USA for the last 6 months ,you guys are not hard to reconise .but it sounds clean ,the kick on the 3rd is good .

"StrangeNight" is nice, good production. Sounds like the kind of tune you might hear half way through a progressive set, just as it starts to warm up. You've got a nice riff going that doesn't sound cheesy, so it might avoid being pigeon-holed as 'trance'.

The best bit about "My Fantasy" is the bassline, its catchy, funky while still sounding cool. The rest of the track doesn't have too much going on to keep interest and the drums & percussion sound a little lightweight.

"RedRush" is also well produced. It starts out sounding like something from the Bedrock label and builds up nicely after that. I would try to add in some more nasty sounds and maybe some vocal fx dotted around.

I could definitely see tracks 1 & 2 making up part of most progreesive DJ sets.

Although this is not my style of dance music, i thought i'd comment and say it is a job well done. I like redrush of all three as it seems more of a versatile track. The other 2 tracks sound like they were written specifically for the South Beach crowd.

it's american ! "
to be honest it's not my type of music at all ,but when i was listening it made me think at the records i have been receiving from USA for the last 6 months ,you guys are not hard to reconise .but it sounds clean ,the kick on the 3rd is good"

what kinda ass response is that?...american?...poooaahhhh...you maybe right though , we should start boycotting the sasha's and digweeds, its starting to rub off !!!

by the way JT , the tracks are great...i too like the 3rd mostly. keep it up.!!

reminds me of a few summers ago in Virginia Beach. A bit too anthemic maybe for some tastes, but really well produced.

for my 0.02 opinion, i'd loosen your kicks a bit in places and rely a little bit less on airy ambient pads, drum rolls and motif riff breaks to lift things... maybe stutter and shuffle things a bit. sounds like good quality miami trance, so hard to quibble. good luck with the label.

stockbender wrote:it's american ! "
to be honest it's not my type of music at all ,but when i was listening it made me think at the records i have been receiving from USA for the last 6 months ,you guys are not hard to reconise .but it sounds clean ,the kick on the 3rd is good"

what kinda ass response is that?...american?...poooaahhhh...you maybe right though , we should start boycotting the sasha's and digweeds, its starting to rub off !!!

by the way JT , the tracks are great...i too like the 3rd mostly. keep it up.!!

may be it's an ass response but over here this type of music is called US import or US beat or US house or US whatever , i might have received around 50 records from USA in the last 6 month & they all sound the same : US sound (lol) i don't even know why they keep sending me these records .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 .

hey jt is my bro

im the one that got him hooked on ableton live, muahahaha. he cant dj for shit but he makes some fat ass tracks, j/k bro!

he's a great dj/producer and spins at our warehouse bashes. keep up the good work you freakin lazy bum and stop smoking da good shit...without me, bitch

love you bro,
peace

I like the production on all of them, I am more into fusing comedy stuff with mine though , I really like to hear other styles of music too, so keep it up.
Ty

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.

sounds cool, everybody is trying to be critic, music is a ll about creativity, I thought...

YO! it is all about expression and colour, what may sound fucked up to you may be the next Big hit and then you will find something you like about it .

Generally speaking

any feedback would be appreciated. it's hard to find tech-inclined people for feedback, but you guys know your shit.

Is a request for technical feedback. And as I made it clear, I like the music a great deal. My only comments are ones of practicality, born of experience. There are some things dance tracks have to do to compete where it matters.