Okay I'm little confused by this one, there is no bass, it's all treble maybe that was the point? Lemme read the comments ahhh yeah, okay a solid 4 needs bass to be a 5 but you know that
Hey guys! Long time, no see (and by "see," I mean interact through the web). Anyway, this is the first piece I had started from scratch in FL Studio since "Fibonacci" last fall. Other than that, all of my pieces have been either made in Garageband or just conglomerated from a number of lazy riffs I had written years before. Hopefully, production speed will increase for me now that classes are over, but no promises. XD There's a lot I want to do before I graduate high school in a few weeks. Sorry, back to the song: this is 4.5 minutes of bizarre, trance-ish Drum 'n' bass, made in FL Studio in May 2015 in a little over 10 hours. I really focused on mixing this time, although to be honest, I'm not even remotely happy with it yet. I tried following Johnfn's advice (http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/930135), as well as some other info I found online, but it was hard to find the proper balance between the snare and lead. Any comments on this would be much appreciated. Anyway, I'm rambling. Hope you enjoy! This was an important step for me, so thanks in advance for your support. ;D
EDIT 5/26/15: Switched out an instrument at the beginning, as per the advice of @LucidShadowDreamer. ^^
Okay I'm little confused by this one, there is no bass, it's all treble maybe that was the point? Lemme read the comments ahhh yeah, okay a solid 4 needs bass to be a 5 but you know that
You're totally right on that one. I tried mixing it so that it sounded less muddy in the bass range, but I went way too far in cutting out frequencies. Thanks for stopping by! :)
i was not sure if my speakers had cut out or something lol.
.i guess too much reverb ?
then i see its dnb & i was like what ..
Thanks for the review! I think by "my speakers had cut out something," you mean that all of the tones were high-passed, and I agree that that's one of the major flaws of the piece. I can also understand that you thought there was too much reverb. Haha, I see your confusion with the genre I selected. I think it does have some attributes with liquid drum 'n' bass, but it's definitely more drum than bass. ;) Thanks again for stopping by, my friend! ^^
mixings good n.n nice to hear proper mixing after the handful of reviews ive made :p
nice chill dnb lead needs to be spiced up some :p really wish the filter would drop off in to something deeper missing the bass x.x
but for what it is i like it
Thanks for the review, RandomDanceofHappy! :) I agree about the lack of bass tones. Several people have already mentioned that - I won't make that mistake again. The lead is just a preset from Wasp XT. I need to start making my own synths, haha. Thanks again! ;)
I really didn't expect that filter to stay the whole time. The lack of a solid bass definitely kills the track. This track had a lot of potential and would be really good if you had transitioned from the high pass filter into something big and roomy. I can see what you were going for though.
+ Excellent melody, structure, and progression
- EQing falls flat on it's face lmao
Thanks for the review, Larrynachos! :) I totally agree about the high pass filter. I mentioned in the description that I was trying to follow the mixing advice of Johnfn, but I took it way too far. I appreciate your compliments on my melodies, structure, and progression, though. Thanks again! ^^
I thought compositionally this was nice. There's enough variation to keep it interesting. The pacing is perfect. There was never a moment I thought something got too repetitive or boring, and the end is like a triumphant manic dream attack. Well done!
I'm curious - what prompted the decision to do everything with the high pass filter? During the first phrase I thought you were creating tension and would let it open up, during the second phrase I thought you were super brave and going for the gusto, but after that I was a little disappointed. I found it a little challenging to continue listening to be honest. The snare drum is a bit fatiguing as it's always just hammering away at the ears at the same limited frequency range everything else occupies.
If finding a balance between two elements is an issue you can try to separate them in a multitude of ways. Sometimes using a stereo expander to open up the sound a bit can help it occupy more room in the mix. Things can sound a little warbly if you do this by itself, so I usually send the main sound to a bus with the expander on it, then mix both the bus and the original track lower so the volume is the same, but the sound fills the stereo space out a bit more. If you do this with more than one sound, set the stereo field differently so you separate where the sound swims.
You can also try parting the frequential curtains so to speak. This is when being able to see your mix on a spectrogram is really useful. If two sounds are relatively constant, limit the sound of one of them to a concentrated area in the spectrum, then duck those same frequencies in the other sound. Alone they don't sound right, but together they should blend well and will fill each other complimentarily.
For percussion, you might want to try using sidechain compression to auto duck the synth. Make it so the synth will dip in volume subtly when the snare triggers. That way the snare can still have the prominence you want, but you can keep the volume levels lower and more balanced.
Was the high pass an attempt to do something new, or did you have a specific scenario in your head? Creative decisions are creative decisions, but this one was so unique I figured there must be some sort of story to go along with it. Overall, well done musically. The mix confuses me a bit, but I might just not "get it" yet.
Wow! This is an extremely detailed and helpful review, man! Thank you so much! ;D I appreciate your compliments about the composition. For the mixing, I was mainly relying on the advice of one of my long-time friends on this site, Johnfn, but I acknowledge that I took his advice way too far. :) I'm incredibly grateful for the advice you gave me in the last 4 paragraphs. I'm always trying to improve my mixing. I have to ask, though: you mention terms like "stereo expander" and "bus" that I'm not familiar with. Are these plug-ins that are available for FL Studio? Do I have to purchase them? Are basic versions of them already included in the mixer settings? I would check right now, but I'm afraid I'm on vacation this week and so I don't have access to FL Studio. Thank you very much again for your advice, though. You're getting a couple of healthily-sized reviews when I get home this weekend. ^_^
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