Ok everyone. I'm going to take the plunge here and share some of my stuff.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gentoo
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Just finished listening, and man, you've got a long way to go. Not terrible, but there are a few things you might want to consider. Both vocal performances are very unconvincing, and lacking passion. The female is regularly off-pitch, and the male seems like he's reading a script. Gotta fix that, dude. The mix needs work, too. Gotta beef up the bottom end seriously, and while you're doing that, adding five to ten layers of additional synths would help out a lot. The whole thing sounded very two-dimensional.

There are a few people who are good at mixing this type of music on here. Hopefully they comment.

Also - you're not using gentoo Linux, are ya? I've built my whole studio on gentoo Linux, and love it!
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Just finished listening, and man, you've got a long way to go. Not terrible, but there are a few things you might want to consider. Both vocal performances are very unconvincing, and lacking passion. The female is regularly off-pitch, and the male seems like he's reading a script. Gotta fix that, dude. The mix needs work, too. Gotta beef up the bottom end seriously, and while you're doing that, adding five to ten layers of additional synths would help out a lot. The whole thing sounded very two-dimensional.

There are a few people who are good at mixing this type of music on here. Hopefully they comment.

Also - you're not using gentoo Linux, are ya? I've built my whole studio on gentoo Linux, and love it!
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No Gentoo is a screen name taken from the Gentoo Penguin.

Thanks for the honest feedback. I just wasn't getting it from average people..

So what do you mean by 5 to 10 layers of synths? Where else would they go?

I was never really convinced by the vocals either and now I know why.

In what way should I beef up the bottom end?
 
It's got potential.

Definitely want to get those vocals in tune. I sounds like there's a weird chorus or flanger. Or maybe that's just her vibrato.

It's not exactly my style of music, so take my advice with a grain of salt. :D
 
Gentoo said:
No Gentoo is a screen name taken from the Gentoo Penguin.

Thanks for the honest feedback. I just wasn't getting it from average people..

So what do you mean by 5 to 10 layers of synths? Where else would they go?

I was never really convinced by the vocals either and now I know why.

In what way should I beef up the bottom end?
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Layering synths is what techno / trance type music is all about. Ya can't just take a single synth layer, create a tune with it, and call it done. Put them on top of each other until you get a really deep, rich sound. It takes a lot of time and talent to get those sounds so they don't sound like something coming out of a cheap casio keyboard. Beefing up the bottom end in this case means you've got to layer your kick and bassline, get them sounding balanced, and once you've got that going, then turn it up! I want the bass kicking me in the chest.
 
Gentoo said:
Since we're at it, how about these? We really want them to sound as best they can:

MP3 Player SoundClick

MP3 Player SoundClick
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Advice for the first one is the same as the original. Layer, beef up bottom end, get vocals on tune.

2nd one has a more interesting beat, but it seems frantic... Script-reading male, and off-tune female still there. Totally lacking passion.

Also... Not that you have, but, don't be discouraged with criticism. People respond (even with negative comments) because they think songs have potential. Keep at it.
 
Only listened to the first track

It sounds a little weak at the moment..I get the euro sound you are going for, circa 2 Unlimited etc...but even then they had some pretty powerful backing tracks..

Try some automation on the bass...even a little automated overdrive coming in at the end of each bar should give it a bit more movement..Take the same midi and try moving it an octave down with another bass part thats more sub, a little flange would help people notice it...you could do another part playing the same notes as the original bass with a low pass and some distortion..this will give you some fat sounding bass to anchor the whole thing in..make sure you are EQing each so there arent lots of overlapping frequencies

the same principles can be applied to lead synths with some experimentation....by detuning one a few cents off it will fatten up your main synths


same applies to the kick, have one with a click to make sure its heard on smaller speakers and one with a bit of oomph to make sure its thumping folks chests in the club

the girls vocals are off pitch at parts but i think the correct tool could pull them in again


hope you can use some of this...welcome to the clinic :)
 
I'm not going to comment on this music, since it literally drives me insane.

But the vocal performance seriously needs some retooling. The female is out of tune and needs some more passion in her voice. The male sounds like a tool reading a script.
 
This sort of criticism is exactly what we were looking for. You know, friends and family are not always honest:D

The thing is, these were not made in MIDI, they were recorded straight into Cubase 4.

I don't have any good autotune plugins and they can be hard to find. I have gsnap but it's not the best. I also have one called auto talent but it creates crazy instabilities so I don't use it.

Adding synths shouldn't be too hard. When it comes to MIDI though I'm rather clueless. I've recorded MIDI before but making it into an audio track from the MIDI data is something I've not yet messed around with.
 
Gentoo said:
This sort of criticism is exactly what we were looking for. You know, friends and family are not always honest:D

The thing is, these were not made in MIDI, they were recorded straight into Cubase 4.

I don't have any good autotune plugins and they can be hard to find. I have gsnap but it's not the best. I also have one called auto talent but it creates crazy instabilities so I don't use it.

Adding synths shouldn't be too hard. When it comes to MIDI though I'm rather clueless. I've recorded MIDI before but making it into an audio track from the MIDI data is something I've not yet messed around with.
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does your outboard synths come with midi connectors?

Cubase will treat midi pretty much as audio...dont worry about converting anything, theres nothing to convert. The benefit really comes when layering things accurately. If your audio interface doesnt have a midi connector a 4x4 midi sport is a cheap way of connecting your synths to your PC.

I think you have a good attitude for learning in here...there are some very experienced heads who have helped me loads...you will learn far quicker if you are open to criticism :)
 
I didn't make it this far without taking criticism. It's the only true way to learn.

My keyboard has USB MIDI and Cubase recognizes it. I've recorded things in MIDI before and I like how forgiving it seems to be. When I record this way, I can completely bypass Firestudio.

While I'm not trying to copy the Eurodance sound exactly, I want the raps to have more of that dry, almost talking style found in that genre. The effect we're going for in the raps is similar to these songs:

Dailymotion - Masterboy - Feel The Heat of the Night - une vidéo Music

Dailymotion - DJ Bobo - Love Is All Around - a Music video

There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of synths with these songs either.

The female vocals right now look like my main focus as that seems to immediately catch everyones attention.

As far as MIDI goes, I can record it fine but I'm stupid when it comes to tying to turn them into audio.
 
Its not about swamping your tune with synths, its about fattening up what you have

if you listen to most modern pop it will sound like there are perhaps four or five instruments playing but the project will contain 50 or 60 tracks...we're not studios but their techniques can be used by us...I was reading about this rather nice acoustic guitar part actually had 14 different acoustic guitars all playing the same part, an extreme example

I get the rap part..I know the sound you were going for..and it should have that spoken dry sound, not much of this type of music makes it to the US let alone onto the playlists of most folks so arrangement wise you just have to know that you know what sound you are going for and choose to ignore comments on that part


I dont understand about changing midi into audio though? you have you outboard synth as an external instrument in cubase and you can hear the audio?

after you have the sound you are looking for bounce the midi down into a separate audio track...I cant tell you exactly how to do it in cubase but its pretty easy..try youtube for tutorials

ill shut up now lol :D
 
kcearl said:
Its not about swamping your tune with synths, its about fattening up what you have

if you listen to most modern pop it will sound like there are perhaps four or five instruments playing but the project will contain 50 or 60 tracks...we're not studios but their techniques can be used by us...I was reading about this rather nice acoustic guitar part actually had 14 different acoustic guitars all playing the same part, an extreme example

I get the rap part..I know the sound you were going for..and it should have that spoken dry sound, not much of this type of music makes it to the US let alone onto the playlists of most folks so arrangement wise you just have to know that you know what sound you are going for and choose to ignore comments on that part


I dont understand about changing midi into audio though? you have you outboard synth as an external instrument in cubase and you can hear the audio?

after you have the sound you are looking for bounce the midi down into a separate audio track...I cant tell you exactly how to do it in cubase but its pretty easy..try youtube for tutorials

ill shut up now lol :D
Click to expand...

I can definitely see your point on the synths ans fatten them up. Can this be done in straight audio without killing the mix? Should they be played again or duplicated and tweaked slightly differently?

I'm glad you understand that rapping style. No offense to anyone else but that's sort of the effect. Masterboy is an extreme example, he sounds almost as if he's lecturing you. We're leaning slightly more toward the DJ Bobo effect. Either way, the raps should be dry.

Boy, I've got a lot of work to do now in my mixes. Some great advice here!:)
 
it could be done in straight audio but your playing would have to be absolutely spot on so you arent blurring the sound...the point is not to make it sound like two or three synths but just one big fat one


say you have your bass on a sequence that goes A, C, A, G.....then you would have exactly the same playing an octave or so down on another bass patch...EQ the higher frequencies out of the sub bass. Then have yet another bass, say a simple saw wave, playing in the same octave as the original bass, put it through some distortion and EQ most of its sub frequencies out...now just blend them in the mix...the sub will give it the meat you need, the distorted bass will give you the bite to cut through the mix, and the main bass should cover the anchor..I can give you an audio example if that helps

you dont have to have them all running through the whole track but the average listener shouldnt even notice that it isnt the one instrument..this is just a basic example so sorry if Im being overly simple :o
 
Ok, I just made a crude attempt at fattening and I think it worked reasonably well. I took the song I posted "Fake Smiles" and doubled all the instruments and panned them to varying degrees. Some like the piano I offset from each other by 10 milliseconds and this increased the stereo effect.

This song had always lacked that fat, in your face sound we've always wanted it to have. It sounds much better now. I know I still have a ways to go but this layering technique really does work!
 
cool, just keep experimenting...remember with this kinda stuff the real work is done in the mix, the original performance just gives you the material to work with :)
 
I am really glad I joined this forum. I knew the music was always missing something but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. My monitors are now thumping the whole house with this sound!
 
If you like Cubase, if and when you can, get Cubase 5. The pitch correction stuff and pitch editing is nice, and there are some other features in the newer one that could help you I think. Just my opinion of course. Even the lower priced versions of cb5 have the automated pitch correct tool.
 
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