Mastering for Electronic Music

lee miran

lee miran

Bald and Old, so what!
I recently completed this track and although I know that nothing substitutes mastering done by experienced engineers at a mastering house, I dove head first into mastering this track.

Do any of you have experience in mastering or mixing down electronic tracks? If so, please take a listen to 1:01 am - Lee Miran and tell me what you think of the track, the production and the overall quality.

Before you get on my case, the site at which the track is posted does not remunerate the artists in any way. So, this is not a tactic for me to get more listens for a "payback for playback" type of arrangement.
 
maybe this should be moved to the composing forum?
the general sounds are good, but a DJ would rather kill you than playing it, cause your composition is very odd.
You see. In electronic music both the DJ's and the artists all expects the songs to be build up by straight blocks of 16 beat length.
You have this vocoder intro and then you play 16 beats of a melody. Then you play 4 extra beats and suddently start again.
Usually, uf you'd like that break, you'd want it to be 16 beats also. You do it quite many times throughout the choon.
Imagine yourself as a dj, counting the beats for a beatmix and then the choon suddently changes before it's supposed to. GRR. I would be mad. hehe. :)
So would the dancers also by the way. They' too count the beats to be able to set off at the right time.

Please don't take offence :) it's only constructive critisism and I think your choon is quite puncy!
 
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what are you on about????

sorry dj chriss but i have never heard so much complete rubbish in all my life.
djs etc expect tracks to work in 16 beat blocks, what are you on about? there is no formual for electronic music, the artist should be free to do what they like and djs certainly dont count beats when mixing. well none that i know or have ever met anyway.
maybe the more crap formulaic pop chart dance music works in this way but that is probably more because that are just in it for money etc and this way it fits in with the general public desire for songs to take a verse chorus format. i dont know, maybe they just do it because its tried and tested so they wont change till it no longer makes money.
as for dancers couting the beats to know when to set off after a break, ehm NO. everyone just listens to the music either the build tells then or they just dance when the drum kicks back in.
sorry , its nothing personal but i couldnt just let that complete rubbish stand.
lee , just ignore his comments.
 
goddamn you! Have you listened to the track yet?

You totally missed my point! As you said yourself, the build-ups tell the dancers when to dance and not.
Well, the composition in this particular track would confuse any dancer out there. And Of course DJ's don't count the beat. They feel their way, and again that's exactely my point. You stand there and expect that the buildup will end at a specific point, and then suddently the beat starts off before anyone expects it to.

If you want to confuse both the DJ's and the dancers then ok. Otherwise read what I said once again and then go out and listen to even the most progressive tracks out there and you'll notice that they also consist on 4*4 blocks.

This is simple musical knowledge.

ANY record company would tell you the same.

We all know that you can also bend you way out of those blocks without problems. Like adding a 4 beat break after a buildup. But then it should still be very clear when the song starts up again.

And mind you neilwight, I play progressive and underground trance only! I don't have one single chart track on my list. I've NEVER in my long time as clubber experienced a track that totally messed up the composition. You simply couldn't get it released, not even on the most underground label.

Get your facts straight before you call my oppinion moronic, I've got 8 year of classical training behind me, I should know just a little bit about this stuff.
 
Dj Chriss said:
the general sounds are good, but a DJ would rather kill you than playing it, cause your composition is very odd.

Please don't take offence :) it's only constructive critisism and I think your choon is quite puncy!
Click to expand...

Chriss,

No offense taken. I do agree with you, however. I've been a DJ before I ever started producing and I know that the structure of this track is odd. As I was producing it, I was experimenting with what I felt was pleasing. I have also planned to do a club mix of the track with longer breaks and a more defined structure.

Thanks for the review. Can I bother you to offer an opinion as to what genre it is?
 
Dj Chriss said:
goddamn you! Have you listened to the track yet?
Click to expand...
HAR! Hey Lee, pretty good track, but chriss is right. The prollem is that measure where you drop the chords down (where the melody changes), sometimes that measure is early, sometimes it's late. If you are sticking to 4 or 8 measure phrases, that little 'transition' measure should be number 4 or 8. These arent dance song construction rules, they are just part of the 4/4 structure of all songs with a 4/4 time signature, and yes it helps the dj to match phrases.

It is actually only really important to keep this structure at the beginning and end of the track, but in the middle, I'm sure if there are good sounds, dancers wont care if you leave out a measure or two, but if it isn't done in a cool, somewhat uniform way, it just sounds like shotty song construction.

I think you have invented a new genre. I definitely hear the word 'epic' in there somewhere, and since a majority of the song is actually one measure phrases (the melody does not last longer than one measure), it reminds me of techno. But you have a jungley/dnb drum loop happenin, so. . . . "epic breack-tech"? Sweet, works for me

oh, and my favorite part of this thread is when chriss chymed in his opinion, neil attacked his opinion, to defend lee, chriss attacked neil while defending his own opinion, and lee's like, "I gives a phuq, just tell me what you like about my song" Classic fp.com thread!!!
 
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Keep it coming

PopD,

Thanks. What all of you have chimed in with is the kind of feedback I am looking for. I just want to make the track better. Interesting observation on the genre.
 
-way smoother, lee

-but now that diddy starts to wear on the brain

-that was a good attempt at the breakdown. You might want to work on the transitions a little more. At the first breakdown, I wanna hear the bongos/toms stronger. I can hear them fartin around in the background, and it just may be because I am listening through my computer at work on some busted-@ss earphones.

-good new sounds added towards the end.

-try bringing the drums harder in some sections, or changing up that drum loop. A simple fix is take the one measure drum loop that you have, and turn it into a four measure loop, but make the transitions from 2 to 3 and 4 to 1, trickier fillins-->make 'em sound like a real drummer gettn busy.

-I feel like I want to hear another synth or higher tone melody that plays off the main one. That main one drives the whole song and needs to be broken up/ added to

-do some more with the vocals. take a section out of the vocal file, and loop it, and bring that loop in every two or four measures, just something to break up the. . .dont take this the wrong way. . .monotony
 
it's techno allright, but it's quite retro IMHO.
The new version is far far better. The intro is still a bit sudden.
All you have to do there though it adding 4 more of the first loop to the begging so you have 7 and then 1.
Then you should consider adding a noticable change after that break. Somthing to break the monotony like PopD sayd.
:hello:
 
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I think as far as overall composition it's fine... yes... the buildups are a little confusing... And I agree with what Chriss is saying.

My advice is that it's perfectly fine IMO, but needs to be re-arranged again.

----- BACK TO THE SUBJECT OF MASTERING-----

Try to ad a little compression to bring out some off your lower end, and your higher end, and try to flatten those mid-range frequencies a bit. This will make your track bump a little harder and will make your high end frequencies a little more punchier. If you listen to this track it's a little washy due to the mid-range frequencies. If you bring out the high and low Freq's you should end up with a much brighter sound.



:cheers:
Chreers m'8!!!!
 
Back to the drawing board

Thanks again, all.

I'ts back to the drawing board for some more refining. I'll post again when I'm done with the next (hopefully, last) encarnation.

Chriss -

I checked out your stuff on MP3.com. Great work.
 
old work. hehe

Well. Nytestrike is right too. A bit'o compression could make the sounds more clear and punchy.
 
i liked the first version - if it sounds good to you, then do it

although i accept that advice is a good thing, i say stick to whatever your original idea was - if others dont like it, or dj's cant mix it, then fúck em

unless of course you want to make music for others - i make tunes for me, and sure theyre no good or wahtever, but theyre my little babies and they represent times in my life, so there - if folk like em too, then that's a bonus i guess

i once met a guy who thought Autechre were shíte - moral of the story : people dont know squat
 
man, talking of genrebreaking...gotta say I like this choon, like especially the junglish breaks, it's crazy I really coudn't say what kind of music it is..very original, which is already great in itself..
Only, the 4/4 beat is a little too quick for me, I'd probably play it slowed down in a house/techno set rather than in a d&b set cuz I don't like fast 4/4 beats..(that's becuz of that stupid gabba a couple of years ago..)
Anyway, I like the idea of fusing d&b with trance or whateva which is really cool, the only problem is the speed..d&b is fast, so you kinda speed up the 'trance' (very badly said, hope u understand what I mean but I can't really explain..)
overall, very nice tune :victory:
 
dj SUSHi said:
Anyway, I like the idea of fusing d&b with trance or whateva which is really cool, the only problem is the speed..d&b is fast, so you kinda speed up the 'trance' (very badly said, hope u understand what I mean but I can't really explain..)
overall, very nice tune :victory:
Click to expand...

:) Thanks, dj SUSHi! :)

I really wasn't trying to go for any new genre. In fact nowadays there are so many forms of electronica that it is hard for me to keep track of what is what. I'm glad you liked the track, though.

About tempo, it's at 150 bpm. So if you feel it is a cross between DnB and Trance, than the tempo is right there between the two.
 
I liked the track. Good points for me was the driving tempo which enlivened a track that could be considered a bit samey.

Bad points the track is a bit samey. It sounds like it was made on a tracker. This is not a criticism as such , just that a sequencer gives you the power to blend sections together. If it was made on a tracker then top marks. Also the builds and breaks could be made more of.

Mastering wise , it is a bit difficult to tell on multimedia speakers , but it sounds as though it could do with a bit of EQ cut in the mid frequencies.

It is wise to leave mastering to the final stages before a cut , and then depending on what medium you are going to the mastering engineer has as much to play with as possible.

Overall I thought it was a track that stepped out of it's genre and sounded different and refreshing , but I would still term it a demo.
 
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