Singing whales - I kid you not!

Shifty · Post by **Shifty** » Thu Dec 19, 2002 4:30 am

This file has expired and is no longer available here. The owner of the topic can re-upload the file, or post a link to an off-site file. <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Genre: House (probably) <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Uses: Pulsar Effects,Pulsar Mixers,Pulsar Synths,Emu XL1 copyright © 2002 Mark Kingston _____________________________________ Hey music lovers,

Take a listen to this if you have a spare few minutes. It's a house track underpinned by an epic developing string riff 'borrowed' from the theme to Twin Peaks (or Moby's 'Go') and a beeeyootiful vocal from the lovely 'Miriam'. You might also notice some whales warbling away in the background about half way through!

Here's where I need some advice/opinions - do you think the vocal is too far back in the mix? Anyone who's produced a track with vocals will know exactly how difficult it is to make objective decisions about even simple things like volume when it comes to the human voice.

Bassline as ever provided by the mighty DubSub, the arpeggio type thing is the Hummel Bluesynth, everything is compressed + EQ'd to heck courtesy of Sonic Timework's essential plug-ins and the super-handy PsyQ adds a touch of warmth to the overall mix.

Cheers folks.

Virtuos · Post by **Virtuos** » Fri Dec 20, 2002 1:20 am

Hi Shifty!
I think this is one of the best song I´ve ever downloaded heare on this forum

The housebass feels right in this song. The stringpad that goes throug the song, wich synth did you use here? I´ve been looking for this kind of sound!
It is well produce overal, beside of the vocals that you needs a lillte more volyme.
I really love this track. I am listen to it right now and it is on repeat. yeah

Is there any change for me remixing this song, giving it a little touch of Lagoona? All our song so far is recorded with our SB-Live soundcard. So the sound quallity isn´t the best.
Now we´ve bought us two Pulsar II soundcard, so I hope that will do the trick

Let me know if your intressted, ok!
So, Well one 10/10

http://www.lagoonamusic.com
http://www.mp3.com/lagoona

Andreas-Lagoona · Post by **Andreas-Lagoona** » Fri Dec 20, 2002 3:17 am

Seriously, I fell in love with this song... Please tell me what artist name I should put on this, cuz I'm saving it on my MP3 player. Great work! =)

Post by **garyb** » Fri Dec 20, 2002 3:18 am

what is the focus?is the featured element the song itself?if so,the the mix is good,unimpeachable,a portrait of a moment.if the focus is the personality of the vocalist,then the vocals are too low.

Shifty · Post by **Shifty** » Fri Dec 20, 2002 4:12 am

Thanks for those comments folks!

Virtuos - The string pad is from the sample CD Distorted Reality 2 - which I can wholeheartedly recommend, it's a great source of sounds ranging from weird and spooky to lovely and warm. I've got the Akai version and so just played it through the S2000P with some reverb and some minor EQ tweaking. No problems with you having a crack at remixing the track, I'll get in touch with you via your website.

Andreas-Lagoona - I've released a couple of tracks on Hook Recordings under my actual name of Mark Kingston but now that the vocalist Miriam makes just as important a contribution we'll be going under the name 'Sikorsky'. Look out for our new track 'Can I Have The Rhythm' on Hook in the record shops within the next month or two, kids!

Garyb - weeelll, my way of working is to put the instrumental together then come up with the lyrics and the vocal melody and then record that at a later date. I think in this case, because I was quite pleased with the instrumental I made the mistake of putting the vocals too low in the mix. At the end of the day the focus of this song should be the vocals - so I think I'll just turn them up a few notches or do a bit of careful EQ-boosting and see how that sounds.

Cheers dudes, and again thanks for your posts.

Post by **Neil B** » Sun Dec 22, 2002 3:18 am

Excellent track Shifty, and I'd say one of the best of its genre on PlanetZ.
The bass is solid and holds it all together without trying to be clever. The tempo is perfect for the track and the mix is fine on my kit.
I'd agree with other posts regarding the vocal levels needing to come up in places though. Alternatively you could make more of a feature of the arpeggios/sequencing, which at times definitely sound "Berlin School" style, and probably the reason why the track attracts me so much.
Well done.

Shifty · Post by **Shifty** » Sun Dec 22, 2002 9:45 am

Thanks Mr. B!

Further to Virtuos' post above, anyone who fancies honing their remixing skills should check out http://www.hookrecordings.com. Under 'media' you'll find the option to remix a Hook track using all the original samples which you can download. If you do something they're into then you're looking at the possibility of the remix getting a full release. Cool huh?

There's also options to upload tracks for them to consider for the label, and even if they're not into your stuff you'll probably get some feedback at least. It's worth doing if you produce music in their genre - I first got involved with them just by sending an unsolicited demo.

Happy music making all!

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Wed May 28, 2003 5:11 am

Beautiful.

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 6:20 am

Lovely track. re the vocals, I think the volume is fine, maybe a touch louder would be ok. You might want to compress it a little more to lift some of the quieter bits or go through and simply raise the volume of just those bits that require it cos the general level is fine.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 9:54 am

Simply awesome, good vibes.
It´s a shame that I don´t heard it earlier.

Again another great track for my Planet Z library 500MB now. Thanks.

[ This Message was edited by: ChrisWerner on 2003-06-11 10:58 ]

Andreas-Lagoona · Post by **Andreas-Lagoona** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 1:20 pm

I still consider this track to be one of my favorite pieces of music. Lovely... =)

(Edit: ...and I would still love to make a non-com remix of this track, together with Virtuos.)

[ This Message was edited by: Andreas-Lagoona on 2003-06-12 14:23 ]