"Man from Space" goes Japanese and trancey at the same time: "Mekanomancer"

I wrote this track for the upcoming videogame Bouncerback. This track is actually a few months old and it doesn’t take advantage of my latest findings, bu it does use a mastering chain that will probably horrify anyone: Fabfilter Pro-Q + U-He Satin (tape emulator and Dolby A encoder) + BX Masterdesk. Yes, it’s that weird. Bu against all odds, it’s he one that worked best for me so far.

Anyway, this is it: japanese and trancey and uplifting and trancey again. Don’t ask me how I got there, I have no idea, I never listen to K-Pop or Anime Pop or stuff like that.

https://soundcloud.com/manfromspace/bouncerback-mekanomancer

Hey there @nachenko

Sorry for the late reply on this one, had an early listen via headphones before but didn’t find the time to have a closer listen via monitors.

Cool track, not bale to judge if it fits the game since I don’t know it, LOL, but it’s quite energetic and sounds like arcade games music with a modern twist on it.

What I found is that the Kick & bass sounds a bit “dull” and quite thin comparing to the synths. You’ve got quite hard transients in higher frequencies like the synth & arpeggio and some kind of metallic hats sounds and they seem to be all very spread in the stereo field while kick & bass are sounding very mono. Which is quite a usual way to do, but I think level wise and because of those transients, kick & bass don’t really cut through as they should, even if it’s not a club track, LOL. And again the kick feels a kind of loose, missing transient & click IMO.

As for the mastering chain I don’t find it to be weird, mastering EQ + saturation + channel strip should be a nice combination to polish a track and it usually works quite well if used wisely. Perhaps it might be worth to play with the Fundation knob as well as the Mono Maker & Stereo Enhance knobs in the M/S section of BX Masterdesk to help the kick & bass to blend more into the track but tweaking the Kick on it’s own channel and reducing the synths & higher frequencies instruments levels should already make a difference.

Cheers & Happy New Year BTW, all the best with Music Production as well as upcoming teaching & classes :wink:

Hi, @Tekalight I won’t have time in the following few days to fix the issues you pointed out, or even writing a proper reply, but I wanted to say thank you for taking the time to check it. Cheers!

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Against all odds, I was about to tweak things this morning. I tweaked volumes a bit, I tweaked the two most bright instruments: filter attack is now a bit slower, and they are EQd so highs stay a bit more in line even when the filter is fully open.

Another very important thing I did was checking Masterdesk values. Stereo was over 150%! I never used a value this high in any other track, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking about when I did this. Foundation value was close to zero, but I moved it a bit to make it even more neutral.

Again, you’ve been very helpful. Thanks!

I think the song sounds better now, but I’ll let it sleep for one or two days. Then I’ll compare the old one to the new one. I’ll even prepare a before/after render so I can listen to it in my car, etc.

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My assumption on this is that since I believe you’re a synth sounds lover & aficionado ( in the good meaning of it :smile: ) you probably just let yourself been embraced & immersed into the power of the stereo field :innocent: :grinning:

It’s like when we just turn on Unison on a simple patch… Immediate transportation to a new dimension !! Very pleasing for the ears & brain but could get tricky when layering sounds & tracks.

EDIT :

For listening I’m using Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio ( so both correction with Headphones ( well, average profiles from Sonarworks only, no calibrated headphone from them ) and also my near-field monitors ) but what I’m also doing is that I set Sonarworks SystemWide to output to the UAD Console Virtual outputs ( 2 separated channels ) instead of my main monitors 2 outs. Then inside UAD Console I have set each channel PAN to full, so whatever is hard panned only comes out from one monitor and what’s centered & mono really stays “centered”. I find this much more easier for panning values & sounds placement in the stereo field.

I also do that inside the DAW by switching my Master main outputs to those 2 virtual channels from the UAD console.

Ooopsie! Can I ask you about Reference? It was on sale during Black Friday, but I was not sure about it living up to its promises, so I passed until I got more info. I can’t treat my room because it will become my children’s room this summer, so Reference could be useful.

What’s your opinion on Sonarworks Reference? Do you recommend it?

Well, this could be a topic on its own seriously, so I created one to give my humble opinion about it, check it there :

https://forums.sonicacademy.com/t/opinion-on-sonarworks-reference-room-correction-softwares/