somewhat off-topic music

[paul e.]

howdy

this is the latest demo tracks from my project 'sudden'... this is not 'pure' electro music by any means as it has guitars, a song structure..kind of 'pop' in a way..but with electro sounds throughout

my goal with this stuff is to blend electro with song writing..as an attempt to make songwriting more relevant

here is the link

http://www.suddentheband.com/sudden-demo.htm

i fully understand if this kind of stuff does not turn the crank of members here, but i wanted to let you guys know about one of the projects i am involved in

[mosc]

Hey, Paul. Great songs. I like all of them.

I hear music like this a college radio station here. Most of it doesn't sound as good as this.

I like the last two songs the best, but all of them are really cool.

[elektro80]

I love this batch! I like the lot. I will comment on this by PM or chat or something later.
Early on I felt you could have gained a lot by throwing in some Steve Hillage guitar sounds.. and yes.. you actually did add some hillage-esque.

The material is excellent. As for arrangements you already have pretty much everything in place.

[Kassen]

I randomly selected "out loud" and "generate it", i might play some more later but for now my ears tire a bit of electronic sounds (not your fault) and i need something acoustic.


Good fun, this. Sounds like a band that would be particularly nice live on stage. I fully agree with the previous two coments that it´s all musically sollid. To be honest, this is not something I´d play at home myself but it does sound like something that would be nice when out. There is certainly quality here.

If I may be so bold as to sugest areas where some work could be done; to my ear this (or at least those two songs through mp3) sounded slightly overcomressed for their style. Particularly in the high mid (where a lot is going on) there is a lack of dynamics that gets a little claustrofobic and nasal after a while to my ear. To me this hurst the preceived impact of the sounds; I think this material could stand sounding a lot bigger and louder. One way (apart from easing on the compression in that area) to combat this would be working with a slight amount of reverb in the high end. With a reverb, perhaps a few well placed gates and tactfull eq the spikes of various instruments (including voice) in the high mid could have some air in the high end where not that much is going on (relative to the mid, that is). The snare drums could use a shimmer of reverb to; in fact they need it.

Mixing dense material such as this is hard, it´s important to use and abuse all tricks in the book, particularly with regard to psychoacoustics. Remember that it does not matter *at all* how loud anything is. Nobody cares. What is important is how loud it is preceived and this is where the reverb comes in.

I think this would be worth your time to try this next mixdown as the material is sollid and there must be a audience for this, as Mosc said.

[zynthetix]

I downloaded h,w,w and the first track. Very well made, I like them.

[elektro80]

I am pretty sure this is a quick and dirty mix, but I am also pretty sure that Paul does not think of this as a CD ready production. You advice is sound, but I guess Paul might as well go for a rerecording/reassembling the lot when he gets signed with some major label.

[Kassen]

Tha´s cool. I just try to be constructive when I comment. On many boards I see way too many people post equivalents of "rocks" and "sucks", I always try to point out elements I like and elements where I see room for improvement. It´s a kind of personaly policy.

I certainly didn´t mean to imply I thought this was all these songs would ever be.

[elektro80]

It was great advice!
It is interesting that you actually recommended some smart use of reverb. It was pretty much in line with some similar suggestion I made to Paul some months ago.

[paul e.]

thanks very much guys..

i know this board has some extremely knowledgable members with great ears and tonne of practical experience..

and are not afraid to criticise

which is why i am greatful to be part of the community

and thanks especially to elektro 80 and kassen.. those particular insights you have a very useful

and i have tried to incorporate those higher-end methods elektro 80 mentioned to me a few months ago and that kassen details here...to some success..much to learn tho

i think i need elektro 80 to get behind the board when we record next..some synth work too

yes, these mixes are ruff..demo only..not intended for release [all of it was done in my living room]

and thanks again for listening to music that is outside the usual framework ..you guys have very open ears

i consider it a priveledge

[elektro80]

I have heard thousands of rough demoes and these have a lot of detail... and that usually never happens. That makes it extremely easy to take the material elsewhere because it will be possible to discuss chocies in a fruitful manner. This is still powerpop but with something quite intersting added into the brew. Great pres, some very interesting production work, some synth work and a month or three in various studios can turn this into what dreams are made of.
Kassen has some intersting suggestions re using reverb.. and you all know I am into that stuff too, bigtime. Some modular synthesis including enveloped reverb and other magic components can turn this from simply being some great popsongs skillfully crafted and take it away up and away and way into the charts. An intersting thing is that this and the previous batch are a bit more interesting than what he genre has presented to us so far. Well done Paul. These are interesting times indeed. Thanks for sharing!

[paul e.]

[elektro80]

Remember mr. Scelsi on the 8th.

[Kassen]

There are very few problems in audio that can´t be solved by aplying some more modular synthesis. I´m sure mr. Elektro will work some magic here.

Just a thought; if "we" are going to use "enveloped reverb", wouldn´t it be nice to try sidechaining some reverb here? it stands to reason that if we are dealing with both precieved loundness as affected by reverb and both temporal and frequency masking then a sidechained reverb makes sense. of cource this device would need to be invented first but that´s part of the fun.

kindly keep us up to date.

[elektro80]

Yup, sidechaining is cool too.

[mosc]

I think I agree with Kassen's and Stein's comments, but more than that, I think the vocal track needs to be more prominent. The vocal gives pop songs their character. Process the voice in ways that make it uniuqe sounding - make it different from other voices - something identifiable.

The musiciality is all there already. When you get it to have it unique sound, then you'll have a ht.

[paul e.]

i am humbled you guys are taking the care and time to comment like this...i am studying your suggestions

mosc, great point..about the bringing out the 'unique character' of the voice..this is the toughest part as it is my own voice..and sometimes i bury it in the mix a bit as it sometimes feels too exposing...

btw..i have often thought that electronic musicians naturally make great music producers..often they know songs and arrangements as a mere sub-set of composition and have studied sound so closely and know every sonic trick in the book

i suppose this is why brian eno has managed to work so well behind the mixing desk and help transform pop music

[Kassen]

[paul e.]