Ableton Forum

just plain dark, dark and dark. The bassline is an operator and it just took forever to tweak it to this. 5 mins. any comments welcome.

http://www.affiliationsound.com/Affilia ... ilence.mp3

I am willing to make company with you.. I work for you man..!

Please remove all instruments, leave only drums, send me pls

Just got a chance to listen to this on my home stereo. Very nice track indeed.
Well produced and paced. I liked all the sounds you use.
I'll have to check out your website. Thanks.

Maybe it's time for me to get operator.

very cool. all the elements work really well together. the kick is a little low in the mix for my taste, but great job! how much time do you think youve spent on it?

well its funny you ask. I usually spend at least a week on a track before I consider it finished; at least. This one went in a quick two days, and the last day was pretty much detail work like small tweaking that bassline on the operator and setting all the compressors/maximizers. This is by far the quickest...so I don't know if that is a good thing or not... About the kick do you mean low in frequency or level? There is a standard kick sample at the top of the rack and also an operator triggered with that kick giving it a sharp noisy attack and also a sub sinusoidal very low rumble to it - hardly present when you listen to it but sure makes the main mix clip because of its loudness. It really is a fine balance.

to me it seems too static, too calculated, too schoolbook minimal with very less surprise and tension. but i agree, the sounds themselves do nice.

there is not much real good minimal out there, and if there is they don´t use much, and they don´t change much of the parameters. but the sounds have a hidden complexity, and therefore mutate beneath their flattened surface, and they communicate with the whole piece. it´s slightely transforming/LIVING all time through.


but don´t care, just another view.

yeah i meant the kicks loudness, but i had another listen and i realized that when you go further into the track the kick gets tougher and its actually ok.

how does it sound on other sound systems though? it takes me quite a few shots before i can get my mixes sounding "true". but im pretty new to that game too.

if your finding its not working keep reading below, otherwise ignore me. I can see youve made a lot of tracks on your site so you probably already know this stuff. but maybe someone else will find it useful.


I'm listening to your track on some genelec 8030 monitors so its bound to sound ok here. but i often find moving to my car stereo or even other half decent hifi soundsystems (headphones too) can see my bass and sub 400 hz region fall to bits. thats where i have to put in lots of work.

on a spektral analyzer i can see you have quite a bit happening in the sub 50hz region. i think its even clipping a bit - you should try using a limiter like voxengo's elephant (thanks to nebulae for recomending that one!). a lot of systems struggle with that below 40-50hz region (and headphones too). you might find it could get a bit dirty on the low end on a few systems.

but hey if its sounds ok everywhere you play it who cares?

another thing i recently learnt on dandont.com that works well- try keeping everything in the sub 300hz ish region mono. this can help your base be more driving. but the main reason is if it gets played in a club, they mostly have mono output below that region anyway so at least you know you aren't hearing anything they wont.

a highpass filter of everything except your base and kick above say 300 hz (or to your best judgement) helps clear the path for that punchyness for those elements too. low frequency sounds are the most difficult for a soundsystem to deal with. it has to move lots of air, which requires lots of force and work. if you can simplify the work a system has to do down there it means the driver can maintain more consistent momentum and will push more easily.

maybe you already know all this sort of stuff. this is all pretty new information to me, but ive found its worked really well for me so far.