Feedback (Cautiously) Requested

DJFerrari

So I've been hesitant to share any of my production work with Soulstrut... mostly because I don't think it's very good yet, but I'm drunk from free tech conference booze and a little bummed that nobody, including my close friends, is even listening. I made the leap from DJing to producing about a year ago (after putting it off for way too long), but haven't had any direction or support given that 99% of my friends work in tech and have no interest. Any feedback, good or bad, is welcome so I can move forward. I've been putting in the time, and will continue to even though I don't have it, because it really means a lot to me. I know I'm fishing here, but hey :/

tech12z

Sounds waaay more polished than the typical amateur-hour stuff I usually hear on soundcloud. It's not really my musical taste, but I definitely can't front on your talent/skill, especially after just a year of doing it! Good shit, dude.

If I had to make one critique, it's that I'm not 100% sold on your choice of synth patches in that first joint. I'm thinking especially of the way your piano-ish lead (comes in at :40) sits with the rest of the track. I'm not sure what my gripe is, exactly. Maybe I think the waveform needs to have some rounder edges, or maybe I'd filter-out some of the highs. Or maybe that kind of patch (that "digital piano" kinda patch) just doesn't work for my ears, especially in context. I feel like everything around it is atmospheric and spacey, and then that patch is just like a little vanilla.

(Caveat: I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.)

DJFerrari

Dude... thanks, I really appreciate the honest feedback. You definitely know what you're talking about and actually your gripes are the same as mine. What I've struggled with most is closing the gap between the sounds and arrangements I hear in my head vs what I can put down on paper... for lack of a better phrase. I've spent months on specific sounds for these tracks and just can't seem to get it to where I want it. I can't tell if it's my lack of synth instruments or lack of mastering... or just plain amateur sound design (probably). My mom, who is a piano player and electronic musician (ya, I know, way to not pick up on that sooner), told me that I just need to let it go sometimes and move on, otherwise I'll just be stuck forever. Hopefully I'll can keep closing that gap and polish the sounds up, but I can definitely hear the amateur in it all.

Thanks again homie... I'll keep drinking to that!

HarveyCanal

As maybe you've seen in a similar post I made a couple weeks back, I'm very much in the same boat as you with the transition from deejaying to production. It's weird dealing with all of this tricknology as there are apparently a million different directions you can go in beatmaking. I've decided to do it with rap producers such as Diamond D, Rza, and Dilla in mind on the grimy vinyl tip. But I'm already very curious as to how some of these digital solutions might help me fasttrack my way to more complete beats.

Anyway, I'm now following you on soundcloud.

And as far as your tracks...

The Garden has too much of a generic, stock sound to me. But Right On is really, really extremely nice.

DJFerrari

Cool man... thanks. Following back! I'll check out your tunes after work today for sure.

I knew it wasn't just something I could pick right up after years of DJing, but I severely underestimated the transition. It is easy to get hung up on the tricknology... while nice to have so many capabilities, it just doesn't have the authentic feel to it. I've been super into folks like Pretty Lights lately who can balance sample based and technology based sounds well.

I'm using Ableton Live with NI synths (Massive, Absynth, FM8). How about you?

tripledouble

ivan, i like the garden a lot. mostly cause thats the kind of brooding stuff i love. i wouldnt echo out the vocals so much and id make the drums heavier, but then again, i just listened to it on my laptop
right on is dope to me too. your source material that youre fucking with is top shelf, so the foundation is solid. i like the keyboards synth shit at the 4 minute mark.

for me, this is perfect work music...banging atmospheric moody shit with pep wafting through the background. if i had it on vinyl tho, i probably wouldnt put it on in the mancave unless i was in the basement working on a project and i could let a bunch of these tracks run for 45 minutes.

great work and keep it coming. i know you got the right records to draw from

HarveyCanal

FortyFivan said:

Cool man... thanks. Following back! I'll check out your tunes after work today for sure.

I knew it wasn't just something I could pick right up after years of DJing, but I severely underestimated the transition. It is easy to get hung up on the tricknology... while nice to have so many capabilities, it just doesn't have the authentic feel to it. I've been super into folks like Pretty Lights lately who can balance sample based and technology based sounds well.

I'm using Ableton Live with NI synths (Massive, Absynth, FM8). How about you?

I'm just using an old EPS sampling keyboard at this point. Been doing it for 2 months now and I'm still happily stuck making just loops so far. But yes, next move is to figure how to combine/sequence tracks on the EPS and then I'm seeing an Ableton purchase in my near future as well.

DJ_Enki

FortyFivan said:

What I've struggled with most is closing the gap between the sounds and arrangements I hear in my head vs what I can put down on paper... for lack of a better phrase. I've spent months on specific sounds for these tracks and just can't seem to get it to where I want it. I can't tell if it's my lack of synth instruments or lack of mastering... or just plain amateur sound design (probably). My mom, who is a piano player and electronic musician (ya, I know, way to not pick up on that sooner), told me that I just need to let it go sometimes and move on, otherwise I'll just be stuck forever. Hopefully I'll can keep closing that gap and polish the sounds up, but I can definitely hear the amateur in it all.

Engineering is some tough shit, man. It took me a good chunk of time to even become marginally adequate at it (having an engineer girlfriend for a while certainly helped!), and even now, I'm still nowhere near where I want to be as far as sculpting sounds goes. Whenever I bring my stuff to a real engineer for the final mix/master, what I get back is so much better than what I give them, and I'm constantly wondering how the fuck they do that.

"Let it go and move on" is solid advice, though. It's easy to get bogged down in some niggling little detail and lose all your big-picture momentum. I had to train myself to just get the basic chops/loops/arrangement done, and then go back and tighten things up, work on the EQ, mess with the arrangement, whatever. I make a skeleton first, then flesh it out.

All that said, you're off to a great start! These are solid tracks. You've got a strong sense of what you're doing and what you want your finished product to be, and your technical skills will keep improving over time, so it's only going to get better.

BeatChemist

Both of these have a lot of good things going on!

I agree about the piano lead that comes in The Garden. The patch sounds too up front and clean compared to the rest of the track. I really like the intro and build to the beat dropping on this one.

Right On is a stronger track. Synths and effects on the breakdown are nice. Love those tom rolls. I didn't see the vocals coming... took me a bit by surprise. I love all these synths bouncing and echoing. This buzzing lead that cuts in and out is nice. I would drench it in more reverb and delays though. This song is really good. My biggest beef is the drums are a little too slappy. More thump.

It's clear that you understand song structure and how to build a melody/theme/idea across a song. I think that's what a lot of people struggle with when making electronic music.

My advice to you is definitely KIM - Keep It Moving. Don't get too hung up on details toooo much yet. Figure out a workflow that works for you. Worry more about capturing ideas and techniques/tricks/methods than the overall production quality. Since you're working in Ableton Live you can always go back and make changes to the effects chains and plugins.

Also, avoid the pitfall of "yeah this is a nice loop" because it will always just stay that loop. Trust. And Fuck Rules. Just make shit you think sounds good.

BeatChemist

And yo Harv I'm not calling you out about the loop thing! I just mean it's tough to always be thinking about progressing the song when we're working with such loop based music. I have so many projects that never moved past a 4 bar loop.

DJFerrari

Wow... thanks everybody, I really appreciate the honest feedback. I always feel like a jackass pandering (which is why I wait until I'm drunk), but sometimes you just gotta!

The engineer in me is beyond fascinated with sound design, but it's definitely some tricky stuff. There's some great resources online, but it's always dudes making shitty dubstep growl sounds. I'm starting to comprehend the cause and effect of it all so I can make my own sounds, but know that's going to continue to require a ton of time and effort before it's all polished.

For sure another thing I underestimated was the gap between beat and song... I would get a loop going that I thought was fresh, but I didn't know where to go from there. Harvey, I was actually thinking of doing something similar next with Brazilian beats... 20-30 minute megamix style. I got your stuff playing right now... definitely some dope Dilla-esque beats, which will serve as a great foundation. I'd definitely recommend Ableton... it was what I needed to take the leap.

Alright... time to keep it moving! Thanks Soulstrut. It's good to be back around these parts... been a minute!

Reynaldo

I'm digging the "Right On" remix. Would really like to hear the higher fidelity, less hissy/sibilant version. The first one is a little too Beach House meets Castlevania for me, and I was maybe led to believe that there would be a big breakdown or beat change at 3:36, but I've probably been listening to too many songs from Diplo's 2013 trap mix.

HarveyCanal

BeatChemist said:

And yo Harv I'm not calling you out about the loop thing! I just mean it's tough to always be thinking about progressing the song when we're working with such loop based music. I have so many projects that never moved past a 4 bar loop.

It's cool. While I eventually do wish to move on from just the loop thing. I've actually made a point to stick with it for a bit. Coming from a dj background, it makes sense to me to just repeat phrases like that. Also, I love the challenge of making a loop that sounds like a complete beat in and of itself.

pcmr

hey man finally giving it a proper listen

first of all congrats it sounds super polished and it gives me hope (few months away from getting started myseklf)

love the melody and idrection of the garden and you have more of your own sound on that one..but the piano pieces you play i would definetly change the synth..it makes your playing sound less smooth than it could be

very interesting second track it moved me less but was more creative

i am not well versed enough to give you more direct feedback production wise but your are in the right direction in a major way. And it really sounds professional which must really be motivating given the fact i assume you are a harsh critic towards yourself

keep us posted

dj_cityboy

I just finally had a good opportunity to listen to both tracks and I like them both...I don't have any gripes about anything that I heard and if given the chance I would buy both those tracks on vinyl, um not overly fussy with quality or arrangements - if it sound dope to me that's all I care about...both tracks sound dope to me and sounds like sumthin could just play over and over and scratch records too..

this is also coming from a dude who doesn't know much about mastering and most of my tracks lack quality (I have seen people with less outboard gear then I have rock out killer mastering techniques.. that for the life of me I don't understand) - I started making my first beats (other than tapes loops) in the early 90's and I have never been able to figure out how to polish my sound quality I have read magazines, watched videos, I even had dudes come to my place and help me set up compressors/limiters and shit...and quality still sucks.

thing I like the most is how you have multiple arrangements for your beats and flip them different ways throughout the tracks, I am sure some dudes who make their living doing this shit could criticise it all day, I have nuthin bad to say at all...

*and followed!

the_dL

For some reason I can only see the garden, I like it, my one criticism would be it sounds a little underwhelming for something that is that dark (dont know if that makes sense), but that might just be the bassline? Drums are tough and that drum roll is fresh!

the_dL

oh and major cosign on what the others said about polish, it sounds great!

DJFerrari

Thanks again for all the feedback... this is great stuff. I'm meeting free today, so I can return the favor and listen to everyone's stuff who followed me. Much appreciated!

Hey dL... that's weird that you can't see Right On. Maybe a direct link? Right On

I agree that The Garden is a bit underwhelming... as mentioned I just couldn't get it as epic as I had it in my head, but had to move on because I had just been spinning my wheels on it for months. Hopefully the more I go through the process and the more I pick up, the better I'll get.

pcmr... I've been meaning to reach out to you to see how your experience has been considering we're in a similar boat. Anything you're running into that you have challenges with or didn't expect? You've always had a great ear, so I'm really looking forward to hearing what you come up with.

cove

I like em both, especially Right On.
nice work.
(now please join the beat battle!)

DJFerrari

cove said:

(now please join the beat battle!)

Ahhh... I may just have to... sounds like a fun one. Thanks for the reminder!

the_dL

FortyFivan said:

Hey dL... that's weird that you can't see Right On. Maybe a direct link? Right On

I agree that The Garden is a bit underwhelming... as mentioned I just couldn't get it as epic as I had it in my head, but had to move on because I had just been spinning my wheels on it for months. Hopefully the more I go through the process and the more I pick up, the better I'll get.

Cool, I will check it out tonight thanks
As for moving on, its something I really learned earlier than I did, sometimes all you need is a day or so and other times I have gone back to things months (years) after and what I wanted to do just kind of fell into place.