The Departure [XO Original] [Electro House]

[SoggyWaffulz]

Hey everybody!

Just wrapped this track up after a couple of hours of working on it. Not sure where to take it from here, but it seems pretty strong as it stands.

Trying to keep it simple yet intricate at the same time, that's the difficult balancing act of electro house.

http://soundcloud.com/gerald-wiseman/the-departure-xo-original

Leave me a comment either here or on the track itself. I'm interested in knowing your thoughts!

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Why aren't there any hats? Is that a genre trademark or something? It definitely still works without them, but they do tend to add quite a lot.

The transition at 1.12 felt extremely abrupt. Maybe add a crash or a kick to accentuate the sudden stop of the bass synth or add a fill or whatever. The sudden stop sounds awkward.

I'm terrible with pointing this stuff out, but it feels like it's lacking a little in the mid/upper-mid frequencies... Or maybe it's the high frequencies? Or both? You can solve this pretty easily with oZone on the master insert, if not through EQ'ing then through multiband exciting or expanding. If you don't have oZone I strongly suggest you try it out - it's gonna do amazing things to your songs.

I listened through it without getting bored so perhaps it's not entirely needed, but it's a pretty long song and it feels like it would help if you introduced a backing instrument/synth in the latter half.

I have nothing else to add - it's a pretty solid WIP and I'm interested in hearing what you come up with for it. Hope this helped.

[SoggyWaffulz]

Originally Posted by StoneMcKnuckle

Why aren't there any hats? Is that a genre trademark or something? It definitely still works without them, but they do tend to add quite a lot.

The transition at 1.12 felt extremely abrupt. Maybe add a crash or a kick to accentuate the sudden stop of the bass synth or add a fill or whatever. The sudden stop sounds awkward.

I'm terrible with pointing this stuff out, but it feels like it's lacking a little in the mid/upper-mid frequencies... Or maybe it's the high frequencies? Or both? You can solve this pretty easily with oZone on the master insert, if not through EQ'ing then through multiband exciting or expanding. If you don't have oZone I strongly suggest you try it out - it's gonna do amazing things to your songs.

I listened through it without getting bored so perhaps it's not entirely needed, but it's a pretty long song and it feels like it would help if you introduced a backing instrument/synth in the latter half.

I have nothing else to add - it's a pretty solid WIP and I'm interested in hearing what you come up with for it. Hope this helped.

Thanks for the criticism! I realized what you mean with the lack of high frequency. Just taking a look at the demo frequency graph while listening through it becomes clear that the low frequency is much stronger than the high. Is high frequency a good thing though? Whenever I think about it, I picture it as just unnecessary noise that would, if anything, hurt the overall quality of the track? Maybe I'm missing something. If so, let me know!

Also, I forgot to add the closed hats / crashes. I got so focused on the actual meat of the track that I forgot about the foundation. As it stands, the entire track is just one percussion pattern on repeat. That needs to be fixed before a final release.

I'll look into another backing instrument and adding even more variation to the lead synth. Once I tackle those topics, I'll be back with a more full sound.

Edit: I don't think I used a parametric EQ on any of the inserts of the mixer. If I tossed an EQ on the master track to beef up the frequencies that are weak, that itself could make a huge impact on the sound.

[StoneMcKnuckle]

I have to say it's pretty ridiculous that it sounds this clean without any EQ whatsoever. Regarding the higher frequencies... While it's true that noise and annoying dist tends to find its place there - I usually EQ that out as necessary in each individual channel - lots of fine details also end up there so it's definitely not a great idea to just skip them. You can try EQ'ing out the highest frequencies in the master channel and you'll see that it does pretty decent damage to your track.

[Patashu]

Originally Posted by StoneMcKnuckle

I'm terrible with pointing this stuff out, but it feels like it's lacking a little in the mid/upper-mid frequencies... Or maybe it's the high frequencies? Or both? You can solve this pretty easily with oZone on the master insert, if not through EQ'ing then through multiband exciting or expanding. If you don't have oZone I strongly suggest you try it out - it's gonna do amazing things to your songs.

All this equalizer talk makes me wonder - what happens if you use a pro master equalizer on a chiptune?

[StoneMcKnuckle]

If you overdo it it'll end up sounding extremely fakebit. That applies to YM2612-ish and SPC as well, although much less so in SPC's case.

With careful touches, however, you can make chiptune sound way better. I suck at it though.

[SoggyWaffulz]

I usually EQ every single insert, even if it doesn't need any EQ'ing I just put one on for later. I sometimes EQ a track two separate times. One EQ with compression, a post render effect, followed by a second EQ.

There's a lot on this track that I did skip because it started off as an 8 Bit track. I had a nice 8 Bit percussion pattern, and the sidechained oscillator is actually a saw wave. It started off as a bass saw without a sidechain, and as the track progressed, I ditched the 8 bit feel and brought in some dutch house synths.