Just produced a new track, please gimme some feedback

[djxeno]

Wassup guys, I just produced a new track. Tell me what you think. It was done entirely on a Akai MPC 2000.

Check it out.

http://www.djxeno.com/singles/ghosts.ram

Peace,

-XeNo-

[brickhouse]

I'm no expert on trance, but the break in the middle sounds a tad long to me.

Also, it might be nice to run some filters through the instrumentation so it isn't the same sound the entire time.

[djxeno]

Yeah you're kinda right, but I wanted to give it like a dramatic and scary feel at that part of the track. Aside from that though, do you like it?

Thanks.

Peace,

-XeNo-

[trancerxn112]

Can I be honest? I really dont like it... it sounds to basic and umm off key, the synth is a sound you really dont wanna hear for 7 minutes... sorry if that came off rough but I imagine you'ld like honest feedback rather then sugar coating.

[thehacker]

umm.... definately need to tune your samples so they're all in the same key with each other... also i know full well that the s2000 has a lowpass filter available to every instrument (i have one, i should know) - why not do some tweaks here and there to spice things up? you'd be amazed what a small change in tonal color and timbre progressively over time can do to a tune - especially trance... and a minor nitpicky point about the snare rush in the beginning (around 1:30) - instead of building from eight notes to sixteenths and then just dropping everything out, how about just a few hits at the very end of both snares at bassdrums at 32nd or 64th-note speeds? it's cliche but it works... a little bit of trailing delay (post-process in soundforge or a similar package once you've recorded the whole mix to a .wav file) that bleeds into the emptiness around 4:30? like a big echo that overlaps the horn instrument that's slowly coming back in... these are just a few things i'd do... it's entirely up to you. keep at it.

[trancerxn112]

yo bro... you dont have to be so harsh to him... saying things like timbre and tonal color you thats just mean why you gotta say things like that... lol it seems like my response was far more primitive the thehackers...

[djxeno]

Hey guys thanks for your feedback. I'm still learning how to make tracks, this being the first one I ever made. But thanks for the suggestions I will definately take them into consideration.

Peace,

-XeNo-

[mentasm]

I liked it. I like the little "melody"

-one criticism is that the "melody" sounds like it's comming straight from the keyboard. Maybe if you used some filters on it, the sound would be more abstract ... it would sound less like somone playing "Mary had a little lamb" on a keyboard

[liquidflow]

Hey bro, It's not really my type of music, I like more happy upbeat stuff. BUT...that really doesn't matter, I thought it was good, expecially for a first track. I do agree with mentasm about the "melody" sounding a little organy, but I thought it was great for a first track. I would love to get into producing my own tracks, but I do not even know where to begin. Anyways, I can say that if that was my first track I would be very proud of it regardless of errors, there is always room for improvement. The more errors the more we learn

[thehacker]

for a first track it definately shows potential. my first track was total shit. now 200+ tracks later i know what i'm doing, enough so that i'm able to play some of my stuff alongside 'professional' things i have on vinyl (i'm able to cue up my own stuff as if it were vinyl thanks to a cdj1000) and the timing and phrasing is right there with it. took a while but i'm glad i'm basically "there".

[liquidflow]

Originally posted by thehacker

for a first track it definately shows potential. my first track was total shit. now 200+ tracks later i know what i'm doing, enough so that i'm able to play some of my stuff alongside 'professional' things i have on vinyl (i'm able to cue up my own stuff as if it were vinyl thanks to a cdj1000) and the timing and phrasing is right there with it. took a while but i'm glad i'm basically "there".

Hey, How did you get started in making your own tracks? What should I learn about first?

[JonStephen]

I'm not a trance head.......but I'll give you my opinion.

I thought it needs a lot of work.

First, the track drags out. After the first break you gotta add something dynamic to keep it interesting and fresh. There is no real builder.....it just proceeds with some extra drums then goes no where. It also seemed very off place with the addition and subtraction of layers......

Second, as was mentioned before, the synths need to be filtered better.

Third, a lot of the samples were completely off tune. You need to tweek them a little so at least it sounds on key.

Good Luck

[djxeno]

Thanks for your feedback. I am still learning all of the features of my Akai MPC2000 XL, so that's why this track seems basic and off key I guess. As for the build, I normally don't like to use drum rolls to build energy, as more and more progressive tracks are building energy in other ways. Also, I guess you could say this track is rushed, cuz I did make it in 2 days and I was eager to see what other people thought cuz I thought it was somewhat good enought to be plaid with other tracks.

You are able to filter on the MPC, but making filter changes throught the song is somewhat difficult. Another thing is that the MPC is sample based, it comes with no sounds and you have load up and sample sounds from different sources, the way Armand Van Helden makes his music, its entirely sampled. Remember his track "The Witchdocter?", that was done entirely on the Roland W-30. Also you will notice how basic his tracks are, but they are still good.

I guess I need to get with some studio programs but I can't decide which one. I am still learning. But I thought it was good enough for people to hear for now, this being my first serious attempt.

But once again thanks for the feeback and your honest opinions, I didn't want to be sugar coated.

Peace,

-XeNo-

[thehacker]

Originally posted by djxeno

You are able to filter on the MPC, but making filter changes throught the song is somewhat difficult. Another thing is that the MPC is sample based, it comes with no sounds and you have load up and sample sounds from different sources, the way Armand Van Helden makes his music, its entirely sampled. Remember his track "The Witchdocter?", that was done entirely on the Roland W-30. Also you will notice how basic his tracks are, but they are still good.

in just about any professional-grade midi sequencing package (or software like Logic and Cubase and Cakewalk, to name 3, which are both midi sequencers and digital audio workstations in one) there is a way to sketch graphs of midi controller changes with respect to time - so, let's say the akai mpc2000's midi controller number for "filter cutoff" is 200 -- set up an envelope that's mapped to the same midi track as your instrument you want to tweak, set it to midi controller 200, and with a swish of your mouse, you can 'draw' how the filter cutoff changes as time progresses. you can do the same for resonance. or anything that's map-able as a midi controller number. this includes volume, panning, pitch bend, tremolo, and a host of others. check the chart in the back of the manual to get ideas. and then find a software package that'll facilitate doing what i've just described.

blah blah "entirely sampled" blah blah -- whatever mang. everything utah saints ever did is entirely sampled-based, too. big deal. it's not the tools, it's the music that's made with them. it's cool that you've found one excellent tool for making kickass tunes but don't go around bragging that it's Entirely Sampled - ? that's kinna weak.

anyways, there are shiteloads of free samples out there for the taking.

especially check out www.loops.net

also:

LOTS and LOTS of samples of old + new analogue instruments:

http://www.analoguesamples.com/

furthermore:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/7012/wav.html

http://www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/~jcp/akai/samples.html

http://www.lynnemusic.com/samples.html

tons of categorized, random stuff in au format:

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/multimedia/sun-sounds/

oodles of stuff from tv + movies:

http://www.earthstation1.com/

links and utilities for akai s2000:

http://www.fsphy.uni-duesseldorf.de/~kjmoses/s2k.htm

[thehacker]

Originally posted by liquidflow

Hey, How did you get started in making your own tracks? What should I learn about first?

way back when (we're talking august 1993) i sold my ibm xt and with the money bought myself a gravis ultrasound card cuz i heard it had wavetable capabilities and it was an extremely hot card in its day (then of course creative labs released their line of 'soundbank'-based audio cards and well sorta took over the market for sound cards that could store samples in ram and play them back in response to midi events, so games no longer had to sound like shite when you played them).

anyways the thing shipped with lots of examples of good .midi files to show off its capabilities, As Well As a utility for playing .mod files, along with some examples of songs created in the amiga .mod format, from the game star control 2.

at the time i was mad addicted to bbs'.

and not bbs' like these.

bbs' you actually had to use a modem to connect to.

somewhere along the way i'd picked up an editor for .mod files called (uninterestingly enough) modedit. i loaded up one of those .mod files that came with my sound card and could SEE how the music was created, very primitively, in a grid of 4 columns, and 64 rows. in each column, a sub-column for note events by note letter, and another for 'effects' - a three-digit code for things like panning, volume, pitch changes, etc.

i immediately read the manual and set out to create my first tune. it was a godawful archaic and rigid way of creating music but i persisted.

also, somehow i'd come across a board claiming to be run by "the KLF" - being a huge fan of the KLF's music, and thinking i'd be able to say "what's up" to at least someone who knew them, i dialed in and found a bunch of references to the same .mod files that came with the ultrasound.

lo and behold, they were created by someone calling himself "maelcum" (much later on i realized the reference to the novel Neuromancer by william gibson) and running this bbs in order to spread music he'd been making with a few friends of his, as a group named the Kosmic Loader Foundation (the name had historical relevance to them - they'd started out just figuring out new and clever ways to make 'loaders' for bbs systems).

i hung out on the bbs a lot, and sooner or later maelcum asked if he could remix a track of mine he rather liked called "high voltage" -- he created the remix in a program called 'mmedit' - it's long name being MultiTracker. it used a format similar to .mod except it allows for 32 tracks per pattern instead of just 4. the possibilities seemed endless.

i started making more tracks in mmedit.

released them through the KLF

( later to be renamed the Kosmic Free Music Foundation,

with its own website, www.kosmic.org )

later, found fasttracker ii, which allowed the

use of 16-bit samples, not just 8-bit samples,

and also had nicer ways of creating 'instruments'

from samples and using those -- basically it

provided a volume and panning envelope for the

sample, instead of just playing it at a particular pitch...

oh yeah and you could create samples that

used keymaps - up to 8 samples, mapped

to whatever keys you wanted.

(actually a lot nicer than the s2000's notion of 'zones')

along the way i've collected some vintage

analogue gear (including an 808 that i've since

gotten signed by afrika bambaata - w0rd )

and though i've not yet transfered my knowledge

of creating 'tracked' music (tunes that are

made out of samples and 16th-note sequences

from grids and grids and more grids) it's something

i plan to get into more and more as i yearn

to simply twist a knob than program things

like volume and panning changes manually

in an editor.

then again,

that kind of precise control is exactly

what you want and need at times.

who knows where i'll end up.

making making tracks both ways

under two different names.

hmm...

my point in giving this account of how

i got into making electronic music is...

(shit, what's my point? oh yeah!)

is that it's a JOURNEY.

it's not my place to say what your first move is.

find Something.

if it doesn't work, change it.

easy