My first piece of music in years.

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Fri May 07, 2004 6:52 pm

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: Electronic <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Uses: Pulsar Effects Pulsar synths Halion Battery. copyright © 2004 Nils Höhmann _____________________________________ Hello fellow scopelings!

This will be my first piece of music submitted to this forum, and as the subject says, its the first piece of music I´ve produced in years.

Believe it or not, I bought my first pulsar card 4 long years ago, but calling me a veteran in all things scopey couldnt be farther from the truth. There have been many things in my life that drew my attention away from music production and inhibited my creativity. So this feels like a rebirth of sorts. Especially since I also recently switched platform from Macintosh/Logic to PC/Cubase. (of purely economical reasons I might add, Im still an Appleteer at heart

)

The first thing I noticed when I started making music again was: Damn, this is hard. I feel like a newb all over again, hehe. So I started making sort of a test project just to work out all the knots in my software configuration (PC:s are a nightmare!) and making sure that all signals went where they should. A signal flow test, and thats a fitting name for this little tune: Signal flow.

It feels almost intimidating posting my music on this forum shoulder to shoulder with all the pros and gurus. I never knew uploading my music would make me feel so exposed!

Anyway, I´d appreciate any feedback. Especially on the mixing since this is mixed and mastered in my apartment, which isnt the perfect acoustic environment (yet)

_________________
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind.

/Mahatma Gandhi

[ This Message was edited by: Nisse on 2004-05-08 09:36 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Nisse on 2004-05-11 08:00 ]

Post by **hubird** » Fri May 07, 2004 8:21 pm

Post by **hubird** » Fri May 07, 2004 8:23 pm

On 2004-05-07 19:52, Nisse wrote:
So I started making sort of a test project just to work out all the knots in my software configuration (PC:s are a nightmare!).

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Fri May 07, 2004 8:28 pm

Bah, I just listened to my own mp3 and I noticed that some reverb seems to be missing in this audio mixdown. Weird.
Im gonna try to update this.

At half past three in the bloody morning, hehe.

P.S. Im not sure how to take your reviews, Hubird.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Fri May 07, 2004 9:35 pm

Calm, moody, sparse and clean. I rather like it, especially the bassy-stringy thing and bleep percussion. A nice flow although I can imagine some long pad sound coming in somewhere.

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 08, 2004 3:54 am

@ Nisse:
well, the note smiley says:
must feel good to be back in music again after all those years, and considering the new start it sounds quite nice and fresh

The apple smiley says:
c'mon, you don't really think a mac is any better uh?

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Sat May 08, 2004 6:44 am

Well the constant buzz thing didn't work for me and became quite grating on the ears. Though it did work well when it did the triplet and echo thang though. I would sit it way back in the mix more until the triples and echo effect parts.

There's some clever stuff going on here too. For example around 2:26-2:30 the bite (high-end) of the bass and the buzz sound drops off as the piano melody becomes the focus again. Very good!

Very enjoyable! I like the sparseness and the piano works very well too. What's doing the bass? It sounds awesome.

Cheers.

[ This Message was edited by: bassdude on 2004-05-08 08:28 ]

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sat May 08, 2004 7:21 am

I have a lovely feel on this.
It´s a kind of minimalistic electronica.
Don´t get me wrong, it´s good with all elements it has.
I would add two different (stringish) pads, though. One pad for each part and later they come together.
All in all this is very electronic and I like it indeed.
About the mastering, all elements sounds well balanced to me. I miss some real deep and high thingies but this a thing that will come with the time and it´s only my taste, pads could help here.
Musically, it´s nice and never say again you miss yourself space or a relaxed feeling in your music

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Sat May 08, 2004 8:57 am

Thanks guys for taking your time and listening to my work

The track is updated now with some minor fixes.
There was supposed to be a short reverb on the snare and the bleep percussion thingie that somehow got excluded when I did an audio mixdown (in Cubase SX)
Furthermore, the automated filtersweeps on the synth bass were delayed in a weird way. I manged to fix it slightly but not as I wanted it. Ah well, yet another knot to unravel in my wacko PC

Several of you suggested some type of pad sound to be added to the mix. I thought about this too when I wrote the song, but decided against it because I felt it would be too much stuff happening at once.

Hubird: Thanks for the badass smilieys. Where do you get those anyway? I should copy your big apple smiley and use it as an answer on the problem
solving forum every tiime someone has a PC related problem, hahaha

Spirit: Thanks for the first (intelligeble) review. What you said was exactly the kind of feelings I wanted to evoke with his track.

Bassdude: The grating constant buzz thing is a granular snare from the Battery arcocen kit. I chose it for its "electro feel" and I debated a lot about where to put it in the mix. In the new updated version I have lowered it with roughly 4 db but increased the automated echo effect on it.
The bass is not anything advanced at all. Its made by my trusty old Inferno with some reverb and the Waves Enigma plugin.

Chris: Minimalistic electronica, eh? I like the sound of that

And I actually debated using two pads exactly the way you suggested, but in the end opted not to, to let the piano run more freely.

Cheers!
Nisse.

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 08, 2004 9:41 am

On 2004-05-08 09:57, Nisse wrote:
Hubird: Thanks for the badass smilieys. Where do you get those anyway? I should copy your big apple smiley and use it as an answer on the problem
solving forum every tiime someone has a PC related problem, hahaha

My idea, but I never dared to do that!!

BTW, I never found a real Apple logo smilie, the one with a bite out of it.
Tthe maker of the one I used for sure wasn't aware of it's potential use.
If someone knows where to find one, please let me know, I will misabuse it just very carefully

Isn't it a nice couple:

PS. check it out:
http://www.mysmilies.com/ (best there is)
http://www.smilies.nl/ (mostly the same as the former).
I checked other sources, but the 'smilies' overthere are ugly, not funny, not cool, or a combination of this.

Sorry for OT

_________________
Let There Be Music!

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-05-08 10:56 ]

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sat May 08, 2004 3:20 pm

<img src="http://www.thetechboard.com/images/topi ... .gif"</img>

I´ll delete this post this evening, so copy it fast. lol

cheers

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Sat May 08, 2004 3:29 pm

Hahahahaha

Copied!

If Hubird gets his hands on it we´ll never see the end of this!

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 08, 2004 3:43 pm

we got him!
thanks Chris

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Sat May 08, 2004 7:24 pm

[ This Message was edited by: blgrace on 2004-05-08 22:34 ]

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 08, 2004 7:46 pm

AudioIrony · Post by **AudioIrony** » Sun May 09, 2004 5:05 pm

On 2004-05-08 09:57, Nisse wrote:
I should copy your big apple smiley and use it as an answer on the problem solving forum every tiime someone has a PC related problem, hahaha

Post by **hubird** » Sun May 09, 2004 8:49 pm

dp

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-05-09 21:50 ]

Post by **hubird** » Sun May 09, 2004 8:49 pm

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Mon May 10, 2004 7:28 am

.... I have lowered it with roughly 4 db but increased the automated echo effect on it.....

Cheers!
Nisse.

Yep, can tell you put it back a bit. I still think it needs to be more sparse but then that's just my personal opinion!
Looking forward to hearing more of your stuff.

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Tue May 11, 2004 7:04 am

Hiya Bassdude. I just cant stop fiddling with this tune so i made yet another mix. I recently listened to the track through a pair of small computer speakers and I percieved the snare as way too loud and grating. It sort of cuts your eardrums apart. So i made yet another mix with it even lower and a slightly different mastering. Id like to hear what you think now.

Its not that I find this piece of music to be all that important, its more the mixing Im interested in. Making it sound good on all kinds of speakers is hard, but interesting!