Virgin voyage into Electronica...

PoeticIntensity

PoeticIntensity

MagicJones.com (is a website)
Those of you who have listened to my stuff will have heard my rock or pop songs of varying flavors, but those of you who know me know I really like Trance.

I never thought I'd actually try to create some. Sometime last year I got a Korg Radias and a Roland Fantom X8, and haven't used much of either, until now.

I present to you my debut trance-ish song, "Together"

Click here to listen to it

Any and all comments are welcome. I honestly have no idea how this might sound to others, and to be honest, I'm kind of nervous about it. So, what do ya think?
 
ha ha Im the first to comment! :D


when it first starts and its just the guitar and voice I thought you were winding us up....but nope, you werent!


dude, its really, really, good....its got all sorts going on, plenty of layering and a real retro 80's/modern pop feel..some of it almost reminds me of the who and entwistle on the VC3, then you got gated arps, nice pads, creative panning...the wee radius is a VA beast...I dont have a time line on quicktime but their were some nice patches in there, were they mostly presets or have you ventured into programming yet mate?

vocals were great...youve got a good pop voice..liked the idea of the guitar as well


Im really impressed J, for a first attempt at electro its great

Im on my cans, off out with the wife soon, but I can hear a couple of mix things...its a little crowded in the mids, you can really hear how crisp the vocals and guitar are against the synths, and the drums could spring out more..I cut every LF in pads and arps...in fact I hack the bottom frequencies out of every synth and leave that to the kick and bass...also if you are side chaining the kick to the bass its not obvious, it should be hard enough that you can hear it...sidechaining into the pads as well, even the snare can sidechain into them just not as hard as a bass sidechain

Id say the vocals and guitar were a bit out front, the guitar could have a more processed sound about it, maybe a metaverb or a reverse delay would do it??

Is that you live drumming? loved the fills, Im just finishing a rockstep track (made that up lol) and the idea of a live drummer in EDM is great...


welcome to the dark side, I think if this is your first effort....well lets say Im looking forward to your second and third as well :)


(Ill put this through my DAW tomorrow, and annoy the neighbours)
 
What's that cracking sound around 1:10? Is that intentional.

I do like the guitar intro. That's a nice fake-out.

There's a lot going on. Good variety of stuff to keep listeners entertained for 6 minutes.
 
man... listened 3X in a row... it's like a story. I love this kind of stuff. Keep going, don't stop now. It's like trance got some fresh air breathed into it. You could almost get away with the ending...as a break in the middle of the song somewhere.
 
Good curve ball intro. High voice - sounds like it coul've been yes until the pumping bass drum comes in.
It's odd to hear drums sounds constructed on the basis of a kit in this style.
Wait until you hear my one & only synthy thing - I just press little pearls & it loops stuff.
This is is almost a trance Klaatu in terms of melody & message. - the rave answer to Occupants of Interplanetary Craft...
Yep full in the mids and not really too much in the upper highs.
Cool stuff PI, I like it.
 
kcearl said:
ha ha Im the first to comment! :D


when it first starts and its just the guitar and voice I thought you were winding us up....but nope, you werent!


dude, its really, really, good....its got all sorts going on, plenty of layering and a real retro 80's/modern pop feel..some of it almost reminds me of the who and entwistle on the VC3, then you got gated arps, nice pads, creative panning...the wee radius is a VA beast...I dont have a time line on quicktime but their were some nice patches in there, were they mostly presets or have you ventured into programming yet mate?

vocals were great...youve got a good pop voice..liked the idea of the guitar as well


Im really impressed J, for a first attempt at electro its great

Im on my cans, off out with the wife soon, but I can hear a couple of mix things...its a little crowded in the mids, you can really hear how crisp the vocals and guitar are against the synths, and the drums could spring out more..I cut every LF in pads and arps...in fact I hack the bottom frequencies out of every synth and leave that to the kick and bass...also if you are side chaining the kick to the bass its not obvious, it should be hard enough that you can hear it...sidechaining into the pads as well, even the snare can sidechain into them just not as hard as a bass sidechain

Id say the vocals and guitar were a bit out front, the guitar could have a more processed sound about it, maybe a metaverb or a reverse delay would do it??

Is that you live drumming? loved the fills, Im just finishing a rockstep track (made that up lol) and the idea of a live drummer in EDM is great...


welcome to the dark side, I think if this is your first effort....well lets say Im looking forward to your second and third as well :)


(Ill put this through my DAW tomorrow, and annoy the neighbours)
Click to expand...

I was secretly hoping you'd be the first to comment... :) Good stuff!

To answer your questions,

1. I didn't do any programming this time around, but I've done it on single-tracks before. Everything used was a preset.
2. The only drumming I did live on this thing was the tom roll / fill thingy (which I need to process more. The reason it's so far in the background is because it has problems that need fixin'.)

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, Keith. Lots of mids going on, for sure, and as I've never done any serious electronic production, I wasn't sure if the sounds were already EQ'ed or not. I can definitely start messing around with the freqs to see what I get.

Thanks for the listen, dude!
 
VomitHatSteve said:
What's that cracking sound around 1:10? Is that intentional.

I do like the guitar intro. That's a nice fake-out.

There's a lot going on. Good variety of stuff to keep listeners entertained for 6 minutes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the Listen, Steve! As far as the cracking sound, yes, it's attached to the hat/snare thing going on.

mixmkr said:
man... listened 3X in a row... it's like a story. I love this kind of stuff. Keep going, don't stop now. It's like trance got some fresh air breathed into it. You could almost get away with the ending...as a break in the middle of the song somewhere.
Click to expand...

Thanks, man! Good to hear someone actually likes it. Creating this stuff was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Creating electronica is way different than acoustic music, for sure.

rayc said:
Good curve ball intro. High voice - sounds like it coul've been yes until the pumping bass drum comes in.
It's odd to hear drums sounds constructed on the basis of a kit in this style.
Wait until you hear my one & only synthy thing - I just press little pearls & it loops stuff.
This is is almost a trance Klaatu in terms of melody & message. - the rave answer to Occupants of Interplanetary Craft...
Yep full in the mids and not really too much in the upper highs.
Cool stuff PI, I like it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, ray. I definitely learned a lot on this one. Interesting Klaatu reference, for sure... Had to look that one up.

So when do we get to hear your electronic track?? :)
 
PoeticIntensity said:
I was secretly hoping you'd be the first to comment... :) Good stuff!

To answer your questions,

1. I didn't do any programming this time around, but I've done it on single-tracks before. Everything used was a preset.
2. The only drumming I did live on this thing was the tom roll / fill thingy (which I need to process more. The reason it's so far in the background is because it has problems that need fixin'.)

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, Keith. Lots of mids going on, for sure, and as I've never done any serious electronic production, I wasn't sure if the sounds were already EQ'ed or not. I can definitely start messing around with the freqs to see what I get.

Thanks for the listen, dude!
Click to expand...

well I think you might be onto something.....youre lucky to have a voice to add to it all


I EQ the shit out of synths :)

no seriously, i band EQ just about everything when layering, if one parts an HF synth then thats all it is...its the only way to make room, and yet I still hear pro mixes against mine and wonder what else I can do...also youre prolly used to mixing prolly projects no bigger than around 20 tracks normally, with one kick, one snare, one bass etc...start doubling or tripling them and you have to make some big EQ cuts


nice sounding synths though...try Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook if you want to get into some basic programming :)


funny you being nervous, your such an old hand at this and it shows in the quality of your first electro track
 
Not my musical thing, but I still thought it sounded good. The vocal sounds sweet. A couple of syncing gotcha's in the double tracking.

Liked all the different stuff going on. Liked some of the stereo movement. Tones on all the electronic stuff was ear-pleasing.
 
Ha! This was not what I expected. Your voice is so high on this and crystal clear.

I love the little computer bleeps that bounce from left to right in the middle there. Pretty good amount of layering overall.The mix is warmer than I expected given what little I know about the genre. It's a strange piece to me, at times it really sounded rooted in the '80's, but it did take on a more modern character particularly later on. The panning is very cool in general.

I guess mix-wise I expected more extreme highs and lows and not such a warm, mid-friendly mix, but that's kinda cool too. It was fun and I think a very good first attempt. I will be happy to give any of your future efforts in this genre a spin.
 
Brenton said:
Yes! A couple of times I started thinking of Forever Young by Alphaville. But I really like this song. The stereo field was exciting.
Click to expand...

Actually whoever else said this song is like a journey was dead on. It's like a walking tour of oblique references to all the great bands I loved in the 80s - hints of new order, the cure, pet shop boys (!), alphaville. I really love the idea that you didn't go dark at all - I always slip into the blackest caverns of my desparate soul (haha) whenever I attempt anything electronic :-)
 
kcearl said:
well I think you might be onto something.....youre lucky to have a voice to add to it all


I EQ the shit out of synths :)

no seriously, i band EQ just about everything when layering, if one parts an HF synth then thats all it is...its the only way to make room, and yet I still hear pro mixes against mine and wonder what else I can do...also youre prolly used to mixing prolly projects no bigger than around 20 tracks normally, with one kick, one snare, one bass etc...start doubling or tripling them and you have to make some big EQ cuts


nice sounding synths though...try Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook if you want to get into some basic programming :)


funny you being nervous, your such an old hand at this and it shows in the quality of your first electro track
Click to expand...

Keith, I'd rep you all day long if they'd let me. You're awesome. So... Into the land of EQ'ing synths I go. I had no idea... The more I contrast this piece against other pro-grade stuff (ahem, Ghetto-Train) the more I hear that mine is a bit full / messy in the mids. Thanks for the tip, bro. I'll see if I can give that cookbook an eyeball or two, too.

TripleM said:
Not my musical thing, but I still thought it sounded good. The vocal sounds sweet. A couple of syncing gotcha's in the double tracking.

Liked all the different stuff going on. Liked some of the stereo movement. Tones on all the electronic stuff was ear-pleasing.
Click to expand...

Thanks, as always, Trip. I'm finding that quite a few people think this song "sounds good, but don't really dig the style", too. It's all good. For me, it was just a learning exercise. Always appreciate your ears and comments.

heatmiser said:
Ha! This was not what I expected. Your voice is so high on this and crystal clear.

I love the little computer bleeps that bounce from left to right in the middle there. Pretty good amount of layering overall.The mix is warmer than I expected given what little I know about the genre. It's a strange piece to me, at times it really sounded rooted in the '80's, but it did take on a more modern character particularly later on. The panning is very cool in general.

I guess mix-wise I expected more extreme highs and lows and not such a warm, mid-friendly mix, but that's kinda cool too. It was fun and I think a very good first attempt. I will be happy to give any of your future efforts in this genre a spin.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the listen, Pete! Quite a few people say this sounds like the 80's, and honestly, I have no idea what that means, musically. I grew up in the 80's, so it's not surprising, but both of the synths I'm using were made well past the year 2000, and the sounds are stock sounds. Who knows... Maybe I'm forever doomed to sound dated to the 80's. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I find it intriguing that while I'm creating these things, I have no "sound" in mind that I'm going for. I just flip through the synth banks, and see what fits.

Brenton said:
Yes! A couple of times I started thinking of Forever Young by Alphaville. But I really like this song. The stereo field was exciting.
Click to expand...

Love me some Alphaville, for sure. Thanks for the kudos, Brenton!

talktofrank said:
not really my cup of tea, BUT the vocals do sound nice
Click to expand...

Thanks for the listen, dude!
 
chuckduffy said:
Actually whoever else said this song is like a journey was dead on. It's like a walking tour of oblique references to all the great bands I loved in the 80s - hints of new order, the cure, pet shop boys (!), alphaville. I really love the idea that you didn't go dark at all - I always slip into the blackest caverns of my desparate soul (haha) whenever I attempt anything electronic :-)
Click to expand...

I like the idea that this song is a journey, though I'm not quite sure how it came out that way. Anyway, I like New Order, Pet Shop Boys, and Alphaville, for sure, so the comparison is a great one for me. It's interesting, though, that I never think "I'm gonna create an 80's type electronica song". I just choose the sounds and away I go. Anyway, thanks for the listen and comment, Chuck.

FoulPhil said:
Nice disco song bro :laughings:
Click to expand...

I consider the fact that you even listened to (not to mention, actually commented) on a song like this a compliment, dude. Thanks!
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Anyway, I like New Order, Pet Shop Boys, and Alphaville, for sure, so the comparison is a great one for me. It's interesting, though, that I never think "I'm gonna create an 80's type electronica song". I just choose the sounds and away I go. Anyway, thanks for the listen and comment, Chuck.
Click to expand...

Hey - don't get me wrong, it was just hints. I didn't find it derivative, nor did I think anything was copped from anything specific and I didn't mean to imply that it sounded particularly 80s. Just enough nods in the right directions in my book!
 
It reminded me of a cross between Triumph and The Beegees lol. Not an insult, it reminds me of disco at a certain point. I actually like both bands, especially triumph, but Beegees in small doses LOL...
 
Brilliant euro-pop stuff here, Jason.
I honestly don't find anything to criticise in the mix. I guess running a commercial studio, you have to keep an open mind to different styles and this is a fine example. Nice work!
 
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