Just want input on something I’m working on
Here’s a housey track I’m working on. Believe me I know it sucks, but I just want some input and advice on how to improve off the concept I’ve started.
Any and all opinions welcome. But don’t just say it sucks. I already know that.
Thanks
https://soundcloud.com/djgleebs/rough-draft-track-revision-1
Basic drum intros are bland, so you might want to work on that. As long as the first 30 seconds of your song are captivating, it’s easy to hold them for the next 3 or so minutes.
So here’s a few of my suggestions
MOST IMPORTANT, The saw bass sticks out like a sore thumb. Either smooth it out and add some more low frequencies, or make everything else rougher to suit it. You have a percussion line that would suit the fatness of a Benassi bass, not some average joe saw
The intro, perhaps put a hi-pass filter on it, there’s nothing better than a classic treble percussion intro that drops into a good bass.
2:16 - 2:30 makes the rest of the song look bad. Seriously, 2.16 is like suddenly Dave from the nearby council estate just got booted off and a decent DJ stepped up to the platter then at 2:30 when he drops a sweet pad stab, Dave shivs him and stuffs his body under the desk.
the sound at 2:30, (the aforementioed pad stab, the “doo doo”) is a fantastic and classic sound, you may want to consider laying that over your intro for a good old shibuya-kei vibe, and perhaps throwing in some glitch/stutters
If someone (For example, you) where to give me that track now (So I guess it would be you) and say
“Hey I’m releasing this, and I want some remixes to fill out the single” , I would say “What the hell are you asking me for? I’m just Dave from the nearby coun- I mean, yeah man sure” and then proceed to delete everything except 2:16 from 2:30.
I read somewhere that when writing stories, it’s sometimes easier to completely rewrite the entire chapter than to keep adjusting it, and I found that this holds true for music as well.
Duplicate your master, rename them to whatever (“Dave from the nearby council estate” if you want to pay homage to my analogies hint hint) and straight up delete everything, keep the drum intro an that filter-sweep build up, but have it drop into the 2:16 part. Copy and paste it about 60 times, and just start messing with it, chopping it, throwing things around.
Obviously, I know you’re pretty set on that bass saw because you’ve used it in abundance in your song. Try putting it in after 8 counts of the 216 loop, lower the octave, and instead of just the off beat “throb” effect (it always hits on the “uhn” in “1 uhn 2 uhn 3 uhn 4 uhn…”) try it on the “uhn”'s and the 1, just to add a bit of uhh… Panache? Pizazz? You obviously have some sort of resonance filter on it, to give it that throb effect, does you synth allow you to perhaps double it? This is the technique that gives the almighty dub step wobble, and I’ll give you this hot tip, throw the dubstep wobble techniques on that bass line.
The current trend in electronic music is putting the dubstep bass wobble into something other than the monotonous 80 BPM 2 step drum beat. (Look at Prodigy, Pendulum and Skrillex for examples.)
I make it sound like I know my stuff but honestly, I’m chatting bubbles. I’m like that old decrepid trainer from the Rocky films, who spouts crap like it actually makes Rocky better, though everyone knows it were that big flight steps. So yeah, get to Philly and run up a flight of steps, then do the above. You’ll be topping the charts in no time.
Seriously though, 2:16, you’re onto something. In fact you could take any generic dub step bass and have one of those tunes all those “cool kids” listen to and say things like “Oh yeah this is dirtier than Santa’s real intentions” and what not.
And you can do the whole “Oh I know it sucks” modesty thing then be actually insulted when someone says yeah, it sucks. But at least I pointed out really simple ways you could turn the track into an up-to-date banger 
Of course you could just remove the 2:16 bit, up the tempo a bit, and you have a track that would be enjoyed in the mid to late 90’s, akin to artists like 666 and Cosmic Gate (Lol, Fire… Wire…)
So yeah… Constructive feedback on my constructive feedback? Haha. In fact, I wouldn’t mind getting in on that 2:16 loop. If you decide to share, you’d be a gentleman and a scholar.
In general…what he said.
I appreciate it a lot. Ill definitely let you in on that loop for all the advice you gave me. Knowing I did something right is reassuring enough haha
You know already know that it sucks. And I’m gonna tell you right now, it’s because of that bassline. It’s actually kind of impressive how awful that sound is, and I’m curious to know how you made it. My guesses:
Good news is, this isn’t hard to fix since you’ve already got a nice sidechain pump going and your kicks are coming through even with all the instruments playing, which is more than I can say for alot of people who post “check out my track” threads. The rest of the track sounds good aside from arrangement, which is a given with it being a demo and all.
Start with a simple saw wave, and transpose it down to octave 2. Open a spectrum analyzer and make sure the lowest “peak” is at around 75-120 hz. This is the basis for every electro house bass. Add legato and glide and you get Benassi, add 80+ hours and you get Gartner, add 50 lbs and you get Angello. Of course, it’d sound rather dull if you just left it at that. Somethings you can do to spice it up…
-Layer some more oscillators, either in the synth if it supports it or on different tracks, just make sure they’re all running through the same sidechain compressor bus. Start from the bottom up, and keep the original saw louder than the ones up higher. Try 2 more saws one octave up, and detune these .05 semitones in opposite directions, and pan them 10-15 left and right respectively for that fat, wide bass sound.
-Tube distortion makes everything sound better in small amounts. Keep either your wet amount or your drive low, if you crank both it’s gonna sound gash. Distortion adds harmonics, which increases the high end at the cost of the low.
-Low pass the bassline at around 300 hz, lower if you think it sounds too muddy. Layer chords on top in the arrangement with that tasty lead @ 2.20.
That’s all I’m willing to say for now, though it’s no where near as much as could be said. The fully compiled sum of all questions and answers on the internet regarding bass synthesis, processing and mixing printed out on paper could fill the Library of Congress twice. I’m a DnB/Dubstep/Breaks producer, so 80% of my synthesis efforts go towards the low end, and I’m still learning stuff all the time.
Edit: Also, that weird sounding bass in the beginning, use that as your alternate bassline to break up the monotony of a constant sidechain. Eg, sidechained bass playing a half note across 1 and 2, then going portamento up an octave or two on 3 for half a beat, with a chunky 80’s style tom on 3.3 and aforementioned weird bass hitting on 3.4 and carrying through to the end of the bar.
Just to clear something up in the above post, distortion doesn’t neccessarily take away your bass and boost your highs, it can be the other way around, it all depends on what frequency range you apply the distortion wave to and how wide the peaks are.
Proof that distortion and bass sound amazing together → Justice.
What did you make it in? Can you send the loop in multi track?
EDIT: Also, you seem pretty new to this, so do you know what sidechaining is? Qyzyx mentioned it a lot, but assumed you knew what it is. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a compression method that lowers the volume of an audio signal based on the volume of another signal.
A lot of people rave about it like it’s the way to sound pro, but it takes a lot of work, and a lot of newbies end up entirely muting the track everytime the kick hits (Like how your saw bass annihilates everything haha). Sidechaining is versatile, but nothing beats a good sonic mixture in the first place.
Yeah, I intentionally sidechained the bassline to a muted kick track. I’m definitely new to things, but I know my way around ableton and basic production, its just not so much knowing how to make the sounds that i think of in my head, ya know?
Yeah I was the same starting out. Simple solution is read all of this website
www.synth.tk
It’s a lot to take in, but you’ll understand how everythig works. Then it’s all about deconstructing the sounds you want to know which buttons to press.
And you use ableton, thats a very very good start. Haha
yeah, I’ll check it out.
and i had tried using logic and reason, but they just didn’t fit my workflow, and it was hard to get everything to sound right. glad my cousin nagged me to try ableton, its just so EASY haha
Yeah I started out a hardcore advocate of FL, sometimes I still use it, for things like House music it’s definitely one of the best for it’s basic layout. Switching from that to Ableton I was like “What the hell is this” but after a few hours and nights dicking around with it, it was like second nature.
Have you done anything more to the track since your first post?
Not really, I kind of quit working on and I’ve been worked on some much better tunes with a buddy of mine who knows his way around ableton way better than me. just learning where i can
Fair do, it can be frustrating trying to turn a bad song into a good one, but very rarely are good songs made quickly. Can you upload the Ableton files to rapidshare or something, I wanna have a crack at mixing it.