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 week or so 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.
Thanks for your submissions everyone – and keep them coming. We have enough to publish two or three a week at the moment. Let me know if it gets too much.
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?
Judgement Instrumental by L1
Author’s website: myspace.com/l1theproducer
Description of the track:
A track I made using Logic 9, it just seems a bit too empty to me at the moment, would like some more advice on how I could improve, also on the mixing side.
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Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.
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I understand you named the album Hip-Hop Instrumentals already. If you are not that anchored in the Hip-Hop idea, then you might change the titles.
Now, the song. I really like it. But in my mind, it has little to do with hip-hop. Free your mind, if this is how you are expressing yourself, just keep on… don’t limit yourself within the boundaries of any style.
- give the intro a little more room
- insert maybe two (distinct) breakdowns, different beats, maybe not beats at all
- the pads. now you can go with the “House of Horror” type of pads you have now, or you can do them more dreamy, as in a “House of Horror” vision/trip :)
- the pads would be now longer notes, so you can have a new layer with
- stabs
- distortion in places would change texture, try it
- bass track maybe a little more upfront. Not much, just a little, if levels allow you to do so
- I envision a “noise” background on this song, some loops with voices of people (something meaningful?), industrial stuff…
The track is very enjoyable, but as it is now, it’s more like a skeleton for adding a MC over it… or the canvas for painting a instrumental masterpiece… go for it :)
I’m New to this category… but it sounds good I think :)
In the context you have the whistling lead reminds me of space travel. ;) Like Encore said it sounds like a canvas for a vocalist to go on top or some sort of melody to be established. the intro in my opinion is fine. You’re following the 15 second rule which in my opinion is a good one. Too many tracks are half intro and they take too long to get into the meat of it.
The only thing I’d change is to make the transitions into the whistle lead more dramatic and maybe make the beat more intense during that time. Nice track.
Thanks for all the feedback suggested, I will take it all in and try work with it as much as I can
As for the transistions, what do you suggest? I was thinking a kind of staccato string sound building up quickly?
P.S. It was instrumental not instrumenta, unsure if that was me when I submitted it but lol.
Thanks L1 – I’ve corrected the title.
I agree with what is said above. It seems, to me, to be missing a feature instrument. I like the Theremin-type sound, but other than that, the pad is what’s really far in the foreground. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just repetitive.
In regards to your mix and your feelings of it being “too empty”, you may be light in the mid-low part of the spectrum. I was listening to it with just powered speakers and instantly thought, “this song is missing a bass part”. I could literally only hear your bass line when I turned on my subwoofer. It’s hard to judge this kind of stuff from streaming files sometimes, but your bass frequencies may just be too low. You might try doubling the bass an octave higher (at a different level), doubling on a bass setting with a different timbre or adjusting EQ to shift the balance to the higher bass frequencies. Definitely test your mixes without subwoofer and on small speakers to make sure that you don’t have whole parts of your song missing for certain listeners.
The track became much clearer and more cohesive once I could hear all of the parts.
It’s a pretty cool sound bed, some alternating drum parts, or like 808 sub bass could “frame” it a bit more in the hip-hop context
A huge part of “hip hop” production is in your face drums – your drum sounds are fairly far away and processed with reverb. That takes it more new age than hip hop. Put the drum big time DRY in your face and you will have a more interesting track. I’d mute the swirling synth chord part instead of the little melody motif to also be stronger music wise. The swirling synth chord part should only be in for the chorus. Add something else when it’s in so it really feels like a catchy chorus, too.
Overall nice idea and groove.
I think you have way too much going in the upper register and things are clashing. Like Screenwright said, nothing is standing out.
I’d drop down the pad(s) an octave, that would fill out the sound more and give the melody some space.
Agree with John about the drums…do you have a hi-pass on them or something like that? They could use a bit more oomph.
I think i just mixed them too quiet. In honesty I made this track on a £3 pair of headphones, and done nothing else since.
But again thanks for all the feedback, and it will all be put to good use.
Nice instrumental!
As for me organ-like pads are a little lifeless. They are repeated so many times that their invariability could annoy a little. Maybe if you add some volume dynamics or filtering to this track to emphasize some kind of a culmination or something, it could be much more interesting.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked overall feeling!
Thanks