At Audiotuts+ we irregularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every couple of weeks we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.
This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.
- Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
- Can the arrangement be improved?
- How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
- What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
- Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
- Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
- Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
- Do you have any other constructive feedback?
Maybe by David White
David describes the track: “Built as excuse to play my bass, rhythm guitars are logic samples tweaked, cut and pitch shifted, synth solo was a ‘happy accident’… stumbling on how to patch an arpeggiator in the environment window. Solo played with no regard to key – voicing only, arpeggiator took care of timing. Each note hand pitched to create solo in post production. Titled to evoke ‘Yes’. I know it’s produced ‘loud’, but i was excited…”
Author’s website: www.reverbnation.com/davewhitepdx
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Terms of Use: Stream only. comment freely.
Composition and performance by David White
(c) 2009 AudioMoxie™ Music (BMI)
(P) 2009 AudioMoxie™ Records
Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.
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improve the bass
maybe an expander too
IMO, the bass could use a somewhat more natural feel — the chorusing in particular is kinda distracting. The guitars make for a cool effect. I’m also really impressed with the drums! I’m curious to know what the settings are, and the sequencing (my drum tracks always sound so sterile and boring).
thanks all for all you feedback, these are all good comments. i have to run but a few quick comments
your all correct, i am a sloppy person, i leave a lot of loose, jagged ends, i like a lot of density and multiple rhythms, tones, notes and data flying in every direction in my music and in mist of the music i listen. and i’m aware that most people find it distracting, i am trying to learn more about mixing, eq’ing, etc. and i really appreciate all you comments. i work fast and rarely play any song i do more than once. (unless i’m sitting around playing acoustic or classical guitar, there i kinda have a repertoire). specially on drums. i rarely use straight drums, for my part i find straight beats boring, so usually (but not always, since i don’t compose by any particular method’) i layer various apple loops, program an sequence an ultrabeat and use a third party software like addictive drums of BFD…often the demo modes. i may add fills by hand or program them in via midi…kinda what ever it takes.. i usually have many , many tracks of drums..anyway i have to run. i really would like to thank all of you for you replies…very helpful..
I found all the parts really nice but I think the biggest problem is that they don’t fit together the way they should. Very nice quality and such. Just build more fluid elements together.
First of all, you play the bass very well, and it’s obviously a good bass instrument, because the chords sound very much in tune.
But, the repeating sample is absolutely nerve-wrecking, and as such kills the whole song in my opinion. I also don’t see the point of doubling the tempo by means of the drums. It defies the whole setup of the bass solo in the first place.
So when you have this gift of playing good bass, i think you owe it to yourself to present your bass in a suited environment.
You should take a good listen to the Spectrasonics Trilian videos to see what a bass can be in the right atmosphere.
Hi, hard to give any good feedback on this one. It is not my kind of music at all. But in general it sounds very messy. To many sound clashing. Maybe you could eq some stuff out from some of the instruments so you can give them more room. And probably more compression could help. And I think you should try to leave some stuff out. Less is more!! Keep it simple!
What Robin Said. and on a side note WHERE DID ALL THE TUTS GO?!?!? its been a while since anything useful has been posted
Suwweeet. I love it when the drums roll in, the beat is not at all what I expected. Fantastic. In contrast to some of the other comments, I like the repeating sampled guitar phrase… sort of a drone throughout the entire piece. Great stuff man!
I liked the piece as a whole, it reminded me a little bit of Bill Bruford’s solo work. Sonically all the pieces fit together in an interesting way. The only thing that bothered me was the way the groove of the guitar loop and the drums were fighting each other. They are both good individually but don’t work well together. The guitar loop had a bit of 6/8 feel while the drums are more straight. Maybe a different guitar loop could be used over the drums.
i’vr got a few more minutes and a few more thanks. yes it has very much of an influence of bill bruford, yes and king crimsi\on and esp. philharmonie ( a defunct french band feauturing frederick l’epee which was FANTASTIC, look ‘em up…incredible, they combined the pixelated guitar twistings of king crimson with the smoothness and melodic beauty of pat methany… these are the fuel that feed the fire of this song. i wanted to add a quick note to xxx above that questioned how to keep the drums interesting. i you go to my website http://www.reverbnation.com/davewhitepdx, there is a song called ‘philharmonic’ named after (see above). on it i used a FABULOUS software i found on the web called numerology 2.2 by five 12 systems this software is looped based and stunningly powerful. i haven’t even scratched the surface of it’s potential. http://five12.com/n2.html the demo alone is amazing and it’s only $99 to purchase. the drums on the song ‘philharmonic’ are done with the drum module playing in conjunction with a logic ultrabeat and addictive drums. even if you don’t ;ike the song – note how the drums are never quite playing the same thing twice, much like most of the real human drummers i’ve had the joy to play with… anywho thanks for the feedback all of it is very helpful..
hi, creative piece, in my opinion there is happening to much. try ti EQ, compress and creato space, bring out parts and play with this focus. make it more dynamic, its flat now. thanks for you r song
ti EQ
what is “ti EQ” ? thx
I dig this. Sure the jumping synth is a tad annoying, and the bass would have been deeper without that chorus, but hey, it’s fresh and it has energy.
top 5 of 2009? i am humbled…
Excellent track!! I like it as it is. With ALL the arrangements!! ;D It’s not too much, just improve the MIX. The trick is to use the EQ effectively for different parts and tracks plus assign own acoustic spaces to each instrument. Although, it seems that you are doing a good effort as the song could sound much more muddy. For me it seems that you have build your mix from the guitars rather than from the bass and drums?? I would try to attain more solidness from the bass and drums and then add the guitar mix. I would use automation a lot for different tracks and maybe drastic effects in different sections of the song to play with different arrangements and reverbs. Otherwise, the mix gets boring with the same intensity and repetitive lines all the time.. Try to eliminate or mute some elements wisely for a couple of bars and build effective breaks with maybe only one instrument playing at the time (one guitar motive, drum fill, etc..) and then add excitement with all instruments playing at unison afterwards. I think that could work nicely. Listen to King Crimson arrangaments. They do it a lot! They build this kind of “question and answer” lines between the different instruments and melody lines and it rocks!
Nice job though!
By the way, could you give us more info about how did you use the arpeggiator? Especially for the guitars? Did you record a guitar part, then load it in the sampler and then use the arpeggiator?? I’m very interested on this, as I can manage to use it only for MIDI in Logic… not for audio tracks!
Well, keep rockin’!
&
Happy new decade to all!!