<WIP><dubstep> Critique & help needed

[itroitnyah]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/113866541/Sample%203.mp3

So I got some friends on skype to critique this for me, and they were helpful, but their critique was a bit confusing in some cases, and they didn't really offer a solution to my problems.

- My drums need work. This I can understand, my drums have been a continuing problem that I've been having. But I can't really seem to fix them. If I try to increase the volume, they just seem to overpower everything and stick out all ugly, but if I turn them down they aren't loud enough. I've done compression on them and EQing but it never seems to help.

- The structure is incoherent and non-existent? This part is especially confusing to me as I have 2 overall different patterns for the lead synth, 1 overall pattern for the bass synth that accompanies the lead synth, 1 overall pattern for the pad, 2 different drum loops, and 2 total patterns for the "drop". I don't quite understand how my structure is incoherent if I'm not changing patterns more than once between each chorus.

- The song is not in key? I'm pretty bad at terms, so my understanding of the song being in key is that the notes lie within the scale that I'm using, which they all do. So I'm not quite sure how it is that my song is not within key...

- There's not very much, if any, bass in the drop. This part is understandable since I lowered the volume of the subbass a bit since I swear that I heard it muddying up the mix. I guess I just misheard and have since fixed the subbass so that it's better, but there still isn't very much bass in the mix at the drop.

- Not very much energy. I am unsure about how to add in energy. Should I just layer more synths? Add in more percussion?

- Sound design. I am incredibly lacking in sound design, I know, and every time I type this out I feel more and more like shit because every time it's the same problem with sound design. I'm taking the online course and I'm hoping to improve, but until I understand why my sound design is as shit as it is, my sound design will continue to suck balls.

I have all the time I need as I will not be actually finishing and posting anything until it's good and quality. So take your time in writing a lengthy review and set of solutions. I have all the time in the world to finish this or anything.

[reach]

Compress your drums, and look up tutorials on how to mix they help alot the bass sounds a little out of tune imo.

Cheers,

[itroitnyah]

Compress your drums, and look up tutorials on how to mix they help alot the bass sounds a little out of tune imo.

Cheers,

I have compressed the drums as much as I felt was necessary before distortion would occur. I've seen videos on mixing drums before and they were helpful but only to some degree. I'd still get complaints about how my drum mixing needs work.

I'll try to get the bass in tune, but the synths are really frustrating to work with for the drop, and it's hard to get it actually in tune. But I guess I have to try harder.

[GumsOfGabby]

- My drums need work. This I can understand, my drums have been a continuing problem that I've been having. But I can't really seem to fix them. If I try to increase the volume, they just seem to overpower everything and stick out all ugly, but if I turn them down they aren't loud enough. I've done compression on them and EQing but it never seems to help.

This could be for a number of reasons. The samples themselves may be bad, you may have over-processed your drums or you haven't sidechained your instruments to them. If you sidechain your instruments to your drums by 100% (standard in bass-heavy music), you allow your track the ability to have either the drums or instruments taking up 100%
headroom at any given time. Sidechaining also naturally makes your big drums (kick/snare) appear punchier.

- The structure is incoherent and non-existent? This part is especially confusing to me as I have 2 overall different patterns for the lead synth, 1 overall pattern for the bass synth that accompanies the lead synth, 1 overall pattern for the pad, 2 different drum loops, and 2 total patterns for the "drop". I don't quite understand how my structure is incoherent if I'm not changing patterns more than once between each chorus.

The structure sounds fine to me. There's a distinct intro, chorus and outro. But, the way you execute the transitions between them sounds lazy. No risers? No build of tension? No impact/crash/downlifter when the chorus hits? I think people are saying your "structure" is "incoherent" because you're playing exactly the same patterns between the chorus. Switch it up.

- The song is not in key? I'm pretty bad at terms, so my understanding of the song being in key is that the notes lie within the scale that I'm using, which they all do. So I'm not quite sure how it is that my song is not within key...

What key is the track in? It could just be that you're playing intervals on different instruments that don't sound good in the right context. Everything sounds in key until the chorus. You can hear the bass clashing as soon as it is introduced to the track. It doesn't sound like yucky sounding intervals, it literally just sounds like you're playing notes not in the key of the rest of the track.

- There's not very much, if any, bass in the drop. This part is understandable since I lowered the volume of the subbass a bit since I swear that I heard it muddying up the mix. I guess I just misheard and have since fixed the subbass so that it's better, but there still isn't very much bass in the mix at the drop.

Sidechain everything to the kick and snare. Play one bass at a time. Make sure you're EQing all the lows off synths that don't need much bass to sound how they need to sound.

- Not very much energy. I am unsure about how to add in energy. Should I just layer more synths? Add in more percussion?

The structure of your track has a large influence on the energy of your track. The chorus is supposed to be highly energetic, the intro less energetic and breakdown/build up full of tension (which releases at the "drop"/chorus). Layering synths doesn't necessarily give the track more energy. Percussion can. Hihats and rides may be all you need, but have a play around with other percussive sounds to set a groove that fits your instrumentation.

- Sound design. I am incredibly lacking in sound design, I know, and every time I type this out I feel more and more like shit because every time it's the same problem with sound design. I'm taking the online course and I'm hoping to improve, but until I understand why my sound design is as shit as it is, my sound design will continue to suck balls.

I doubt you will see any improvement in your sound design skill from the online course. You may learn the fundamental principles of sound, but that won't help you improve, only experience will. Spend as much time as you can experimenting and getting to know your synth. If you need more information/help, there is an infinite amount of it on the internet (youtube, articles, premade patches, etc) and also in the user's manual. Most of modern manuals I've skimmed through are surprisingly informal. Not to the point where nothing is understandable, but so it feels personal, keeps you interested and doesn't at all feel like "diagram A does this and that -end of story-".

I would try to make a summary but I don't think I can...

So pickle

[reach]

You should try mixing with your bass's and synths at -6db and then work from there this helps for me.

[itroitnyah]

You should try mixing with your bass's and synths at -6db and then work from there this helps for me.

Yup, that's what I'm doing.

This could be for a number of reasons. The samples themselves may be bad, you may have over-processed your drums or you haven't sidechained your instruments to them. If you sidechain your instruments to your drums by 100% (standard in bass-heavy music), you allow your track the ability to have either the drums or instruments taking up 100%
headroom at any given time. Sidechaining also naturally makes your big drums (kick/snare) appear punchier.

I've been told on a few occasions to sidechain my drums before, but I can never seem to figure out how to sidechain. I can watch videos on how to sidechain, and I can follow the guide step-by-step, but it never seems to work out for me. I can get close to sidechaining by using fruity peak controller, so I'll try somehow to sidechain my drums. My drum samples are pretty good themselves, I synthesized the kick and snare so I had a ton of control over how snappy and thumpy they were. The percussion I just pick some clean and good sounding samples out of some of the drum packs I have.

The structure sounds fine to me. There's a distinct intro, chorus and outro. But, the way you execute the transitions between them sounds lazy. No risers? No build of tension? No impact/crash/downlifter when the chorus hits? I think people are saying your "structure" is "incoherent" because you're playing exactly the same patterns between the chorus. Switch it up.

Transitions, we meet again, you bastard. Yeah, transitions are something that I do need work with. So the snare riser I put before each chorus isn't enough? I also do have a downlifter and crash, I've just put the crash at the start of the chorus so that the drop start doesn't sound awkward. I may have to experiment around with it more. And then when you say "because you're playing exactly the same patterns between the chorus" do you mean that I should have more bass patterns? More pad patterns? Or do you mean that I should have more patterns for the actual chorus itself. That just adds to my confusion because I think that a problem like this would more likely lead to repetitiveness than incoherence.

What key is the track in? It could just be that you're playing intervals on different instruments that don't sound good in the right context. Everything sounds in key until the chorus. You can hear the bass clashing as soon as it is introduced to the track. It doesn't sound like yucky sounding intervals, it literally just sounds like you're playing notes not in the key of the rest of the track.

the key is Eb minor. I got a similar complaint saying that the drop/chorus was where the clashing was occurring, so I'll have to change that up.

Sidechain everything to the kick and snare. Play one bass at a time. Make sure you're EQing all the lows off synths that don't need much bass to sound how they need to sound.

I've already EQed all the instruments excluding the drums with a steep HP filter at ~100Hz, so I guess all that's left over for me to do is to sidechain... fuck

The structure of your track has a large influence on the energy of your track. The chorus is supposed to be highly energetic, the intro less energetic and breakdown/build up full of tension (which releases at the "drop"/chorus). Layering synths doesn't necessarily give the track more energy. Percussion can. Hihats and rides may be all you need, but have a play around with other percussive sounds to set a groove that fits your instrumentation.

So again with the structuring and risers? Alright

I doubt you will see any improvement in your sound design skill from the online course. You may learn the fundamental principles of sound, but that won't help you improve, only experience will. Spend as much time as you can experimenting and getting to know your synth. If you need more information/help, there is an infinite amount of it on the internet (youtube, articles, premade patches, etc) and also in the user's manual. Most of modern manuals I've skimmed through are surprisingly informal. Not to the point where nothing is understandable, but so it feels personal, keeps you interested and doesn't at all feel like "diagram A does this and that -end of story-".

I've gone through the manuals for more of the main synths I use (sytrus, Massive and Cyclop), and I've written down and have notes on what everything does. I know what just about every function of each effects plugin does, Ask me about any of the synths I use and plugins that come with FL, and I could most likely tell you what just about every single knob and button does. As for time to practice, I don't have a whole lot of time to practice, as a lot of my time is spent fixing mixing problems, making sure the song is in key, and other meticulous things. I try to get sound design practice in, and I have gotten quite a bit of time in (I spent about 2-3 weeks on sound design alone a few weeks ago, finding what every function of every plugin and synth does), and I apparently haven't made much improvement. I can try and dedicate more time to sound design though.

[GumsOfGabby]

I've been told on a few occasions to sidechain my drums before, but I can never seem to figure out how to sidechain. I can watch videos on how to sidechain, and I can follow the guide step-by-step, but it never seems to work out for me. I can get close to sidechaining by using fruity peak controller, so I'll try somehow to sidechain my drums. My drum samples are pretty good themselves, I synthesized the kick and snare so I had a ton of control over how snappy and thumpy they were. The percussion I just pick some clean and good sounding samples out of some of the drum packs I have.

If the Fruity Limiter or Peak Controller don't work for you, you could always try automating the volume of the channels that you want sidechained to your kick and snare. Put the waveform of the sample into the playlist to see how long you need to sidechain to make sure the instruments and drums never play at the same time.

Also, when you were making your drums, did you give them any context? A pad playing in the background or with a bass...or anything? Whatever you make may not sound great when played with other things.

Transitions, we meet again, you bastard. Yeah, transitions are something that I do need work with. So the snare riser I put before each chorus isn't enough? I also do have a downlifter and crash, I've just put the crash at the start of the chorus so that the drop start doesn't sound awkward. I may have to experiment around with it more. And then when you say "because you're playing exactly the same patterns between the chorus" do you mean that I should have more bass patterns? More pad patterns? Or do you mean that I should have more patterns for the actual chorus itself. That just adds to my confusion because I think that a problem like this would more likely lead to repetitiveness than incoherence.

I mean, you have lazily copy/pasted the intro in between the choruses and also used it as an outro. It sounds repetitive and incoherent. It sounds like you're either being lazy or ran out of ideas and are just reusing what you've already got because you can't/can't be bothered to fully express your mood/thoughts/ideas through the track. Just change it up a little.

I've already EQed all the instruments excluding the drums with a steep HP filter at ~100Hz, so I guess all that's left over for me to do is to sidechain... fuck

Why steep filter? Why not a smooth filter that lets through only the mids and high? Experiment to find out what instruments sound good with certain EQ filters. Cut unnecessary frequencies to free up more headroom in your mix. If you just cut everything at 100Hz, ofcourse it's going to sound bad. You may be cutting of a fundamental or may not even be cutting anything at all...

So again with the structuring and risers? Alright

Also percussion, repetitiveness and tension in the build up (don't resolve your musical phrases until the "drop"/chorus)

I've gone through the manuals for more of the main synths I use (sytrus, Massive and Cyclop), and I've written down and have notes on what everything does. I know what just about every function of each effects plugin does, Ask me about any of the synths I use and plugins that come with FL, and I could most likely tell you what just about every single knob and button does. As for time to practice, I don't have a whole lot of time to practice, as a lot of my time is spent fixing mixing problems, making sure the song is in key, and other meticulous things. I try to get sound design practice in, and I have gotten quite a bit of time in (I spent about 2-3 weeks on sound design alone a few weeks ago, finding what every function of every plugin and synth does), and I apparently haven't made much improvement. I can try and dedicate more time to sound design though.

Well you either need to work harder or tackle the dilemma from a different angle. Try synthesizing sounds differently to how you'd normally make them. Use filters you've never used before, wiggle parameters you thought had little/no use. Or take a break, you'll naturally improve with experience. It takes longer for some than others, some people get the concept straight away, others have to fiddle with synths for years...If you keep at it, you will improve. You just have to be persistent, willing to learn and creative. Not much else to say

[itroitnyah]

Also, when you were making your drums, did you give them any context? A pad playing in the background or with a bass...or anything? Whatever you make may not sound great when played with other things.

Hmm, I haven't tried that before. I guess I'll give it a shot.

I mean, you have lazily copy/pasted the intro in between the choruses and also used it as an outro. It sounds repetitive and incoherent. It sounds like you're either being lazy or ran out of ideas and are just reusing what you've already got because you can't/can't be bothered to fully express your mood/thoughts/ideas through the track. Just change it up a little.

So the transitions?

Why steep filter? Why not a smooth filter that lets through only the mids and high? Experiment to find out what instruments sound good with certain EQ filters. Cut unnecessary frequencies to free up more headroom in your mix. If you just cut everything at 100Hz, ofcourse it's going to sound bad. You may be cutting of a fundamental or may not even be cutting anything at all...

Alright, I'll go through and fix everything then...