Song of the Month Club - April 2016

crouchie

@orchardman said:
Busy on here already this month,

This one started life as a rock instrumental I did at the back end of last year. We've chopped it up, mixed in some loops from Blockswave, added a few more synths and some vocals. Not really folky this month, more ambient , trance, metal(ish).

Yep, liked this one a lot. Vocal treatment really works for me. Drums a bit too rocky, but the arp sounds lovely running through without dominating. Is that acoustic (?) part a tiny bit high in the mix? Love the chopped man's voice - takes me back to Tension by Orbital - properly tribal. Really enjoyed it.

crouchie

@Richtowns said:
My first attempt at reggae. Ive tried to keep it simple. Its not quite finished but I need a push to do more. Gadget with dublin, marseille, bilbao (cheated with the vocals ). What do I need to do to finish it?

Liking this, great electro dub feel (I don't want u to put any off beat guitar on it btw, love the synthetic feel). Some heavy duty compression happening there, bit off putting at times. Reckon you could have gone even further with the sub bassthough. Love it. Vocal sample sets it off perfectly. U could just vary the hi hat pattern a bit which would help it tick along. Great effort though, really good.

crouchie

@funjunkie27 said:
What the heck...I'll throw my hat in the ring in the hopes I can learn something. I'll even start it off...I think more changes are needed, it's not a full song, and there aren't any vocals, but I'd love to hear you guys pick it apart even further..

Great start, the tunes knit together well. Obviously in need of bass and more of a percussive thump, but I'm really looking forward to hearing how this develops.

orchardman

@crouchie enjoyed your track. I thought the vocals worked well especially in the catchy chorus with some nice lyrics.

orchardman

@funjunkie27 you got a nice vibe going but it needs some more beats and some bass.

orchardman

@Bluepunk said:
@orchardman Your "cutting up" knife skills are sharp & effective sir. Think you've described it well. I can kinda still get a folky flavour looking in & that blend the styles together & I really like it. The bass riff is hooky & keeps the flow throughout your tune. What did you use for the acoustic snare drum? Quite meaty. Nice, unexpected breaks at 1.30 & 3.0. Effective, different & cool. The solo sounds almost oriental followed by that crunchy, unmistakable rock riff. What contrasted the riff beautifully was those "la, la, la" vocals.
Clever mix of vocal styles/effects & again, so well sung by your good lady. Great stuff. Lets hope your uncanny gift of lifting the sunshine levels works again this month.
I have faith!

Thanks @Bluepunk I can't really take credit for the bass riff as it was a loop I borrowed from Blockwaves. The drums at the start are from funk drummer but I don't remember which kit. This sacrifice was offered up for something more than sunshine but it hasn't worked yet as I still have to work for a living.

badrico

Heya @crouchie, I was listening to " prop " earlier today.. Splendid number, I want to give it more listen and then elaborate.

Ah, good ol lemonjelly, hadn't considered that, but yeah they really did stand out for a happy sound... And for me it was quite a surprise to cook up something in the key of jolly.
( where did all my precious angst go ? )

• all I need is a marching band to take it down the street with real horns.
• Thanks for the listen, cheers Rico

badrico

@crouchie

Yeah this just hurtles along ! A Memphis freight train with a Berlin haircut. And of course the anxious Brit getting it all said. The vocals are great especially the singing on the chorus.. Thought the verse vocals could be a dash rougher going with that edgey Lectrofunk. And what the heck,with a solid beast like " prop ", that break coulda gone wider and weirder ( just shout " it's not my fault ! "at the end of it " ).
splendido tune !
Cheers, Rico

NoiseHorse

Hi. Here's an old fashioned made-up-on-a-guitar-love-song. The title is a Texified mispronounciation of the french "je t'aime". So real guitar through Altispace, Sampletank bass, iGrand piano (what else?), Vocalive, DM1, and lastly ThumbJam strings. I think it's pretty hokey, but if my girlfriend likes it, I've done my job.

Bluepunk

@funjunkie27 "Dance of today" will result in "aching muscles of tomorrow." It will at my age & you certainly got me a jigging along. A good taster of where you could go with this. It's catchy & owns a wispy, airy light feel at the mo & if that's what you're after, you're well on your way. With some added bass n bits you should have a cracking wee number on your hands. Think some bass will add punch & depth to help cement it all together. If the bass drum comes up in the mix it will add even more thump so that it can be felt in the guts. Why should the ears have all the fun? Nice one.

Bluepunk

@crouchie oh yeah man. Love it! Straight away, with your unique vocal delivery (memories of Bill) you got my pulse rate to rapidly increase. Vibrant, uplifting & a joy to dance to. I mean that thumping bass drum. How could anyone not move to this? You've instilled a controlled urgency & depth without sacrificing the addictive flow that runs throughout. Certainly achieved your "not crowding out" objective & left space to allow each instrument/ sound to breathe & shine bright in the mix. The break at 1.52 is wonderful. Great change of pace & dynamics......another bar of that please do that I can breathe as well!
Again, top shelf lyrics & bloody well done on getting them down in an hour.

The line "What if this was all my fault" is apt. Well, in this instance, it is sir. I can't f....g move after 12 mins of gyrating to your stuff. Have you got a song that can give instant massages as well please? Love it. Do I smell a remix.....................

crouchie

@badrico said:

@crouchie

Yeah this just hurtles along ! A Memphis freight train with a Berlin haircut. And of course the anxious Brit getting it all said. The vocals are great especially the singing on the chorus.. Thought the verse vocals could be a dash rougher going with that edgey Lectrofunk. And what the heck,with a solid beast like " prop ", that break coulda gone wider and weirder ( just shout " it's not my fault ! "at the end of it " ).
splendido tune !
Cheers, Rico

Thank u Rico, v kind. Got some new headphones recently, plus have been trying hard to layer things better so it's really gratifying that you noticed. Cheers!

crouchie

@Bluepunk said:
@crouchie oh yeah man. Love it! Straight away, with your unique vocal delivery (memories of Bill) you got my pulse rate to rapidly increase. Vibrant, uplifting & a joy to dance to. I mean that thumping bass drum. How could anyone not move to this? You've instilled a controlled urgency & depth without sacrificing the addictive flow that runs throughout. Certainly achieved your "not crowding out" objective & left space to allow each instrument/ sound to breathe & shine bright in the mix. The break at 1.52 is wonderful. Great change of pace & dynamics......another bar of that please do that I can breathe as well!
Again, top shelf lyrics & bloody well done on getting them down in an hour.

The line "What if this was all my fault" is apt. Well, in this instance, it is sir. I can't f....g move after 12 mins of gyrating to your stuff. Have you got a song that can give instant massages as well please? Love it. Do I smell a remix.....................

Thanks as always. You give such detailed and helpful reviews, I am in your debt. I'm glad the kick has worked well, I cranked it up towards the end of mixing and it does seem to drive it better. @crony has expressed an interest in taking it on...
Cheers!

funjunkie27

Thanks for the great feedback @orchardman , @Bluepunk and @crouchie . It got me thinking I should revisit and see what I can do to bring up the drums and add a bass line, as well as a verse, bridge, chorus, intro, etc. or two.

I just started listening to everyone's contributions, so I should have some feedback shortly.

funjunkie27

I imagine I'll learn more about critical listening with this exercise, which would be a good thing.

@carol - Forest Circles - Nice ambient sounds that are woven together well.

@Richtowns - Gadget Track Reggae - Nice transitions, nice use of Gadget, nice mix.

@theconnactic - Moco - Nice groove, nice mix, nice breaks, nice guitar work. Enjoyed the way you did the outro.

@mschenkel.it - Remix This II - Thavius Beck - Quirky, interesting sounds used, mixed well, interesting gating effect (I assume that’s the effect.)

@badrico - Let Us Take Our Bathing Fashion To The Beach - Nice build up in intro, thought some synth parts sounded a little dated, nice upbeat tempo, nice transition just past halfway point, nice mix.

@orchardman - A Sacrifice - Nice breaks, nice mix, interesting Middle Eastern and African flavors, nice guitar parts, ending seemed a little abrupt.

gleandibson

@carol said:

@gleandibson said:

@carol I really enjoyed your song. I'd love to know more about your set-up - specifically more about how you captured this live in AUM. Did you plan all of the tracks out in advance and control everything with a hardware controller? I have been experimenting with a similar style of music and the best I've been able to pull off is overdubbing one track at a time, which is OK but takes away some of the improvisational feel. I'm guessing a big part of my problem is that I am confined to an iPhone 6 and don't currently have any external controller.

Hey thank you ! Difficult to remember exactly what I used on this track as I start with one of the custom presets Ive created in aum , but then usually change it a bit for the performance and dont save the settings . I think though it probably included mitosynth or DRC , ivcs3 , idensity , soundscaper and fingerfiddle ( my first attempts at using this ) . Id wanted to include fieldscaper as well but for some reason it wouldnt load . I havent got an external controller so everything was played live either via the apps themselves or the aum keyboard . I split the instruments into a few bus channels routed through fx such as frekvens ( love it ) , muckraker and the aum dub/space apps . All then channeled into a final mixdown bus and recorded live straight into audioshare .

I like to record live and improvise , though this can be hit and miss and I have a lot of unused recordings on my ipad ! At some point Id like to get cubasis or auria and mix some of my other attempts together lol .

I dont have a newer iphone so cant really use it to make music , but I cant reccommend aum highly enough , it allows me to work in a way thats natural to me , much more fun than laying down individual tracks and i love the unpredictability of the results . )

Hey, thanks for responding. I've been using AUM for iPhone. It seems full of these sorts of possibilities, but because of the tiny iPhone screen, which forces me to flip between the buses, doing a live session with any complexity barely seems possible. I love reading about how other people make their music, though, so again I appreciate the response as yours is very close in mood and spirit to what want to be doing.

carol

@funjunkie27 said:

@carol - Forest Circles - Nice ambient sounds that are woven together well.

Thanks )

@gleandibson said:

Hey, thanks for responding. I've been using AUM for iPhone. It seems full of these sorts of possibilities, but because of the tiny iPhone screen, which forces me to flip between the buses, doing a live session with any complexity barely seems possible. I love reading about how other people make their music, though, so again I appreciate the response as yours is very close in mood and spirit to what want to be doing.

No problem ) Yeah I can imagine it's a lot harder to use on a phone - even on my ipad I have to scroll quite a lot . Itd be useful if aum had a pinch to zoom in / out option .

Im having a few problems with apps in aum at the moment , in particular geoshred and elastic drums , which seem to cut out or freeze up at times . Hopefully they'll be some updates at some point lol

Bluepunk

1980.The Oi era. Three bored factory working lads. Weekend fun. Musically we were heavily into the 4Skins and The Business. After the Rejects appeared on TOTP they were dumped!

I've tried to create a slower pace of " Yob Rock " here, so hopefully it's easier to swear along to. Guitarism, Ifretless bass, Cubasis... etc... etc...

The 3 " Oi Oi's at the very end was our calling to arms and are dedicated to Dibsy, one of the three in our crew, sadly taken at a young age. He probably bludgeoned his way into Hell because he wouldn't have enjoyed heaven. I know your listening big man ... Oi Oi Mate.

ion677

rickwaugh

@carol, great sounds and texture, but not my cup of tea. Kept waiting for something to happen.

rickwaugh

@mschenkel.it, also great sounds and texture, with more structure than carol, but not sure the disparate sections hang together well.

rickwaugh

@theconnactic, very fusion tune this month. Love the section where the distorted guitar comes in. Excellent mix as usual, and I really like the rhythmic breaks.

rickwaugh

@badrico, liked the feel and main theme, wanted it to go somewhere more, though. Great mix, everything nicely placed.

rickwaugh

@orchardman, love that. Relentless beat. Excellent mix, love the bass sound, fat but punchy. Vocals were super. Can't think of anything negative, or that I would change if it was me.

rickwaugh

@Richtowns, like the idea and feel, but needed a bit more. It would certainly be good at a party, that's for sure. Needs some light and large sound system. It's only sorta reggae, but there's enough there to get the idea across.

rickwaugh

@funjunkie27, I like that a lot. I don't think it should be slowed down, it just needs more, some breaks, a bridge, some more layers. It's a great start on something.

rickwaugh

@crouchie, great song. Word, vocals, beat, mix, music. Love that chorus, that's a hook and a half.

rickwaugh

@NoiseHorse, hokey it is. I think your arrangement needs some work. Maybe a bit too much going on, and there is a sameness to the layers throughout. Variety is the spice of music for me. But yes, if the girlfriend likes it, it's done it's job.

rickwaugh

@bluepunk, that's some good solid punk. Love the voice, the guitar, and the mix. It gets a bit repetitious in the end, could be shortened a bit.

rickwaugh

@ion677, it's a nice bit of keyboard work. It's the start of something, needs a bunch more. Great feel to it, like the drums as well.