Journey a wip.

[SleepyBuddah]

Here's a piece of the latest wip wich I thought is good enough to share.

It's also going to be the longest track I've made so far.
I'm really curious what you think.

https://soundcloud.com/mikie-derogee%2Fjourney%2Fs-Ooqb5AWe4oc

 

[Bobby Summa]

Loving this . Real nice mid range arp and later the arp pad and reso pad combine beautifully.
Nice chord progression dropping key. Definitely liking the vibe. Uplifting, emotive.

 

[SleepyBuddah]

Loving this . Real nice mid range arp and later the arp pad and reso pad combine beautifully.
Nice chord progression dropping key. Definitely liking the vibe. Uplifting, emotive.

Thanks mate

I've made quite a few different melodies and tried some new things lately, but this track has caught me in it's flow and I love when that happens.
I've already have some nice ideas for the drop. So working on that and maybe smoothen out some of the transitions.
But enjoying working on this one.

 

[SleepyBuddah]

Here's the full version of the track. Changed some bits here and there, but overall I'm quite pleased with it.

Journey

Full version of the track.

on.soundcloud.com

 

[Bobby Summa]

Just listening as I type. Nice sound to begin with. Nice perc and whooshes. ( not that keen on the vocal sample) wouldn’t mind a bass line at some point in the intro phase. At 1.27 that sound effect is amazing. Breaks quite nicely, great chords, piano. 3.11 that emerging sound is lovely ( and its melody). But at starting at 3.17 pad fades but there it gets a bit quiet. Maybe add little swirly sound fx. At 4.10 the melody is coming up in energy and sounding great. Sounds alright when beat comes in. At 5.30 there’s a lovely melodic swirly sound fx which is nice.
Nice sound at the end to finish it.

Summary: All of the sounds and melodies are lovely. ( the sample isn’t to my taste tho) The track has an uplifting sweet vibe.
There are some really good areas of the track but there are also sections where it goes too quiet or the energy drops too much. ( infact lavish use of reverbs like Valhalla supermassive which is free and incredible) may help sustain the atmosphere and energy in those quiet areas. I feel altogether the track needs a little arrangement work. I think certain sounds coukd stay for longer which would help build the track more , gel and glue it together better and maintain the flow more. But overall there’s some beautiful sounds and melodies in there.

I hope you don’t mind my honest critique.

If it’s ok to ask. What is your setup. ? What kind of daw / soundcard/ audio interface etc? What’s one or two of the vsts and plugs you like using. ?
Apologies as I think you once said but I don’t remember what they were.

 

[SleepyBuddah]

Just listening as I type. Nice sound to begin with. Nice perc and whooshes. ( not that keen on the vocal sample) wouldn’t mind a bass line at some point in the intro phase. At 1.27 that sound effect is amazing. Breaks quite nicely, great chords, piano. 3.11 that emerging sound is lovely ( and its melody). But at starting at 3.17 pad fades but there it gets a bit quiet. Maybe add little swirly sound fx. At 4.10 the melody is coming up in energy and sounding great. Sounds alright when beat comes in. At 5.30 there’s a lovely melodic swirly sound fx which is nice.
Nice sound at the end to finish it.

Summary: All of the sounds and melodies are lovely. ( the sample isn’t to my taste tho) The track has an uplifting sweet vibe.
There are some really good areas of the track but there are also sections where it goes too quiet or the energy drops too much. ( infact lavish use of reverbs like Valhalla supermassive which is free and incredible) may help sustain the atmosphere and energy in those quiet areas. I feel altogether the track needs a little arrangement work. I think certain sounds coukd stay for longer which would help build the track more , gel and glue it together better and maintain the flow more. But overall there’s some beautiful sounds and melodies in there.

I hope you don’t mind my honest critique.

If it’s ok to ask. What is your setup. ? What kind of daw / soundcard/ audio interface etc? What’s one or two of the vsts and plugs you like using. ?
Apologies as I think you once said but I don’t remember what they were.

Mate... don't mind your critique at all. It's a fundamental thing that's necessary for being able to improve and makes room for discussion. So many thanks in advance

In terms of the genre box uplifting is definitely ticked. Being it rather long for a "standard" uplifting track.

You mentioned a bass line somewhere in the intro while actually the midbass starts right off the bat. It's what you've called the midrange arp thingy earlier if I recall correctly. But it isn't in the standard (widely over used) midbass pattern. But any tips to make it more clear or anything are appreciated
I understand what you mean about the parts where the energy drops and things go a bit quiet. Especially at the beginning of the build up to the drop after the fading pads. I've heard that happening in a track a while back and I thought it was really wonderful like a big breather before "chaos" unfolds.
I will also look into the arrangement work a bit more adjusting transitions and fades and such to make the flow as smooth as possible.
Could indeed use some more reverb here and there I guess, but I'm a bit cautious with that cos I don't want to over do it and it has to fit the track. I do have the Super Massive plugin and it's bloody wild
That vocal sample I've used actually isn't there to stay. It's there just because in my head there has to be something there like a vocal chop or a little something but haven't found something that really fits. So for now it's there cos it sounded better than anything else I could find at the moment and maybe it does stay... I don't know yet. Hope that makes sense.

About my set up.... can't really recall having mentioned it in the past. But I think it will shock you
I'm using a standard Lenovo ThinkPad laptop.
i5 processor, 20Gb RAM and standard windows soundcard etc. So the absolute bare minimum requirements.
I've got two DAWs the first one is Cakewalk by Bandlab since it was free and I didn't know if I could get in to making music again. Switched to Ableton Live Suite 11 which I'm using now as my main DAW. Could install BitWig 8 track as well since I've got an Arturia microlab midi controller and the license came with it.
As for plugins and vst's... My absolute favourite synth at the moment is Spire. Hive2 is my 2nd favourite. Got other synths as well but those are my main 2.
Got the complete Fabfilter bundle too, but the stock Ableton plugins are really great so not using much 3rd party plugins at the moment.

Hope everything I have put down makes any sense and just ask if not

But again thank you for your honest feedback, it really means a lot and keeps my learning curve going up.

Cheers mate

 

[LostLegend]

Just took a proper listen to this.
In terms of the melody, chord progression and arrangement, that's all good. There's plenty to work with here and you've done a lot right.
However, I'm gonna spend a bit more time on the things I didn't like as I think that's probably more use to you in terms of feedback.

The sub bass. I agree with bobby that it needs to come in a bit sooner. More important than that, it's at a too high a frequency to give the track a real warm low end. You probably need to drop your sub bass down by an octave here.

Don't like that vocal sample in the build up. Just doesn't work for me.

Like the intro melody, but it needs a bit of modulation to keep it interesting. It just sorta filters in and stays there. Some movement on the filter or some other parameters will give it a bit of movement and make it sound a bit more interesting.

On the breakdown, I'd keep the filter on the main pad down when the piano melody first comes in as it gets a bit lost behind the pads. This will also give the piano melody a bit more impact when it first arrives.

Main melody arp is nice, buildup works ok. But the drop just doesn't have the impact that it should. You want to look at how to make that drop really hit. Automating volume or low end EQ down just before the drop hits is a good way. Also this video has a few nice ideas:


As I said, it needs a fair bit of work, but there's a lot to like about this track to work with.

Hope this helps!

 

[SleepyBuddah]

Just took a proper listen to this.
In terms of the melody, chord progression and arrangement, that's all good. There's plenty to work with here and you've done a lot right.
However, I'm gonna spend a bit more time on the things I didn't like as I think that's probably more use to you in terms of feedback.

The sub bass. I agree with bobby that it needs to come in a bit sooner. More important than that, it's at a too high a frequency to give the track a real warm low end. You probably need to drop your sub bass down by an octave here.

Don't like that vocal sample in the build up. Just doesn't work for me.

Like the intro melody, but it needs a bit of modulation to keep it interesting. It just sorta filters in and stays there. Some movement on the filter or some other parameters will give it a bit of movement and make it sound a bit more interesting.

On the breakdown, I'd keep the filter on the main pad down when the piano melody first comes in as it gets a bit lost behind the pads. This will also give the piano melody a bit more impact when it first arrives.

Main melody arp is nice, buildup works ok. But the drop just doesn't have the impact that it should. You want to look at how to make that drop really hit. Automating volume or low end EQ down just before the drop hits is a good way. Also this video has a few nice ideas:


As I said, it needs a fair bit of work, but there's a lot to like about this track to work with.

Hope this helps!

Thank you dude! This is very very helpful.

I will definitely have a play around with the filters and such, adjusting the automations and other parameters.

The vocal sample isn't there to stay. In my head there has to be something there but I haven't really figured out what exactly. So it's there to fill the space for now and for me not to forget because it stands out. Hope it makes some sense.

Will dive in to the video when I get home from work, I've seen a lot of her video's and I follow her on YouTube but can't remember seeing this one. Otherwise my drop would've been better obviously

Again thanks for this feedback. It really helps a lot