To our bud, Howie, here’s wishing you the best mate.
As for the track…
I come from a hip-hop background, so I find my main struggle is with creating evolving arrangements, as opposed to just making a solid bar or 2 and tying them together with a drum-roll.
Anyways, I took this chance to just experiment with building and releasing. I know all of us are experimenting in one area or another and generally we don’t “release” a track as complete unless we have figured out how to make it perfectly the way we want. I find I learn more and don’t have so many creative blocks if I just push through and attempt making a complete track - even if my knowledge of how to accomplish this is incomplete.
So, as always I would appreciate feedback. Are there certian parts, sound, or effects you liked/disliked?
Or if you have any ideas on things that may be interesting to try, let me know!
Thanks, and again lets give it up for howiegroove!
Stellar track! I like your sound selections. only thoughts is that I would either add some microbreakdowns to make it flow more, or just flat out cut 2 minutes out of the track. It tends to drag on with the lack of variations. Bring the tech sound that comes in in your breakdown earlier in the mix, but not full on. like just give us little spurts of what’s to come prior to dropping the full midi in the breakdown. Make the track evolve instead of step if that makes sense. This will help it to flow better, and will also allow you to make your ideas meld together without having to put so much focus on getting sounds that match, as well as overall improving the flow of the track. Keep in mind that you only break it down so you can build it up! Add a white noise crash or something on the end of that breakdown to make it pop! Hope this helps!
Raymond
Think of making your sounds “meet” each other. This sound has to hand shake that sound. and then that sound hand shakes another sound. None of them meet all at once, but they all meet each other at one point or another in the song or “meeting”. Also, look at your waveform on soundcloud. Did you intend for the track to be louder in the second half? I noticed it in the audio, but didn’t really realize til I got another look at the waveform. This is all constructive criticism btw, and you can tell me to shove it if you like. Im just one man talkin’! 
Raymond
Thanks for the input ray, and generally I completely agree with ya.
On all the tracks I had been working on before beginning this one, I was having trouble getting past that 2 minute mark. So I decided to overkill my sections when making this one. I anchored changes around the 32-bar marks, instead of 16. Obviously it doesn’t work in terms of making this a quality track, but it did help me see how to expand the ideas I have in my other works-in-progress.
A few thoughts I had that will probably help the track:
- Center the track around one drum pattern, instead of the 2. I like both the drumlines, but the track would have a better foundation if built on one or the other.
- Spend more time either refining the basslines setup in my drumrack or just make it with a synth. It is just a loop that I sliced to midi and messed about with the macros.
- Read my reverb plugin’s manual, lol. Its a great reverb with tons of knobs to shape its character, but I got to actually understand how it works to better control it.
- More practice with manipulating simple riffs with effects.
As for the different levels, this obviously wasn’t intentional. I hacked this track together in a few hours and once it was together I just wanted to wrap it up so I could look back on it and analyze.
Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts ray, I really appreciate it.
No problem!
I would say that you don’t even really need to monotonise the drums. You can have the two sections as is, I would just allow another drum riff to ride over both sections to blend them as well as bridge the gap. D-Unity alters the hell out of their drums throughout tracks to great effectiveness! The only thing that seems to stay the same is a 2beat tribal sample that pulls it all together. As for the reverb, it is your best friend! Absolutely read the manual!
On another note, I would like to hear some of your hip hop beats being your forte and all. As well, have you given nuskool breaks a whack? Very hip hop in formula…
Again, stellar track for just putting together a tester. I can’t wait to see what you do when you get down to honing your craft!
Raymond