Hi,br
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I’ve been working on this for the past few evenings - which promises to be the first completed track I’ve managed to produce in 5 years. Since having kids and a serious case of writers block over the last few years this is quite an achievement for me so it would be great to get any advice/comments on how to improve the track.br
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I’m yet to EQ it so the mixing is far from perfect and I’d like to add a vocal i think. br
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During the build up you might notice one of the construction kits from the new Sonic Academy sample pack that I won in their Facebook giveaway! 
Thanks SA!br
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Cheers.
Embed the link please! It’s a pita if your on a mobile device otherwise
[quote]xpa (09/06/2013)[hr]Embed the link please! It’s a pita if your on a mobile device otherwise :P[/quote]br
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Done 
Hey man I thought all of that sounded pretty good! The only thing that really stuck out to me is that I wish those stabs(?) that came in around 2 minutes had some HUGE reverb on them! I think it would make the song sound way bigger…might just be personal preference 
[quote]jamesXarnold (09/06/2013)[hr]Hey man I thought all of that sounded pretty good! The only thing that really stuck out to me is that I wish those stabs(?) that came in around 2 minutes had some HUGE reverb on them! I think it would make the song sound way bigger…might just be personal preference :D[/quote]br
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Thanks for that, I think you’re right. Will apply some reverb and see how it sounds. 
Hi Eric, great sounding tune with enormous promise - i was just a bit frustrated by the arrangement though - didn’t really seem to be building up and releasing the tension like i wanted it to!br
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Try keeping things nice and simple and slowly building up tension by bringing elements in and filtering parts up and down etc.br
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I really don’t like that bar that you’ve put in were everything drops down to just the kick and clap i thing it was - for me that totally ruined the vibe and didn’t really fit with the overall mood of the track.br
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All in all a really good sounding tune - but the arrangement needs work if this is going to be something that someone would play out etc.
[quote]electric eric (10/06/2013)[hr][quote]jamesXarnold (09/06/2013)[hr]Hey man I thought all of that sounded pretty good! The only thing that really stuck out to me is that I wish those stabs(?) that came in around 2 minutes had some HUGE reverb on them! I think it would make the song sound way bigger…might just be personal preference :D[/quote]br
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Thanks for that, I think you’re right. Will apply some reverb and see how it sounds. :)[/quote]br
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Let me know I’m looking forward to hearing it
[quote]davidmclean (10/06/2013)[hr]Hi Eric, great sounding tune with enormous promise - i was just a bit frustrated by the arrangement though - didn’t really seem to be building up and releasing the tension like i wanted it to!br
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Try keeping things nice and simple and slowly building up tension by bringing elements in and filtering parts up and down etc.br
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I really don’t like that bar that you’ve put in were everything drops down to just the kick and clap i thing it was - for me that totally ruined the vibe and didn’t really fit with the overall mood of the track.br
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All in all a really good sounding tune - but the arrangement needs work if this is going to be something that someone would play out etc.[/quote]br
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Thanks, just the sort of feedback I need. TBH I know you’re right about the arrangement and its probably the main reason I stuck this up as a wip tune - not really spent vast amounts of time on arranging before as I haven’t gotten this close to a full track for a very long time, so I’m probably a little rusty.br
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Going to have another crack at it and I’ll post when I’m done.br
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Also thanks for the positive comments ;)br
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Just try and keep the arrangement as simple as you can.br
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For example - start with drums, then bring the bass in, then bring in the various elements one by one, then have a 8 or 16 bar break, then drop down to kick and bass only, then build the elements up again just repeating how you built them up before, then go into your main break, and just repeat the building up of elements again, but for a bit longer.br
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Then once you have those basic sections, just try and copy and paste across the sections you already have into the remaining sections of the track.br
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Okay, you might need to tinker around with things a bit after, but this will basically get you a pretty decent arrangement for the dancefloor in double-quick time, as all you are doing is copying and pasting different sections of the track until you have 6 or 7 mins of music!br
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[quote]davidmclean (10/06/2013)[hr]Just try and keep the arrangement as simple as you can.br
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For example - start with drums, then bring the bass in, then bring in the various elements one by one, then have a 8 or 16 bar break, then drop down to kick and bass only, then build the elements up again just repeating how you built them up before, then go into your main break, and just repeat the building up of elements again, but for a bit longer.br
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Then once you have those basic sections, just try and copy and paste across the sections you already have into the remaining sections of the track.br
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Okay, you might need to tinker around with things a bit after, but this will basically get you a pretty decent arrangement for the dancefloor in double-quick time, as all you are doing is copying and pasting different sections of the track until you have 6 or 7 mins of music!br
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Awesome - thank you! I’ll give it a go. I’m feeling pretty positive about this track so hopefully I can put something decent together thats worthy of the dancefloor.
Well i seriously think the parts you have there already are really good - so if you can just nail the arrangement you will have a killer track!br
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I could seriously see Sasha dropping this if you could get the arrangement right - if you need anymore help just let me know mate.
Wow, thanks. I’ll certainly give you a shout - you’ve been a great help.
No problem mate - always happy to help if i can!
New arrangement …br
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I hope this is working a little better than the last one.br
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Comments welcome.
Hello mate, this is still sounding really really good on the drop, but there are some things with the arrangement still that i think need a fair bit of work.br
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It’s certainly much better now that you are building the elements up slowly at the start.br
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Personallly i would leave the drums and the bass just looping the same first bar of the progression over and over for 16 bars once the bass comes in. This will build tension and root the groove of the track in the listeners heads at the start. Remember that in a club, you probably won’t even have the track mixed in without the previous track playing that the DJ has mixed out of, until the bass drops after 32 bars, so i don’t think this will become boring at all. just keep the groove going for 16 bars without any changes.br
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then i think you should start filtering in your chord stabs over 8 or 16 bars, just with the first 1 bar of the progression looped over and over again, again to keep the tension mounting.br
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then have a first break, where you introduce the progression by filtering everything up slowly before it all kicks in for the first time.br
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maybe add a higher element playing the same lead riff after 16 bars of the full drop playing, to ramp things up a level so it doesn’t get stalebr
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think a bigger reverb on the kick in the break would sound nicer and provide more atmosphere in the break.br
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i would start filtering in a perccussion loop or two 16 bars into the break, to create tension and start introducing the groove of the track again. br
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i think the track is longer than it needs to be in my opinion - i think you should try and make things simpler for yourself by limiting the track to between 8 or 9 mins. so aim for about 240 bars maximum. this will have the added benefit of making it easier for you to keep maximum interest and make sure the track doesn’t get boring at any stage at all.br
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after 32 bars of the main drop (the 2nd drop), i would bring in that higher lead riff again that i think you should create. again, this will ramp things up an extra notch just when the track needs it.br
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i do really like the way you break down to just the kick and bass and stab at 5.25 - sounds good - br
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i think the track might benefit from you adding some big strings during the break - to keep with the vibe of the track, i am thinking some good old fashioned old skool sounding sampled strings, like the Solina ones or something. alot of the old tracks Sasha used to play like this had those big strings in the breaks, and they sound great and really help to create emotion with the chord progression.br
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but overall mate i absolutely love the sound and vibe of the track once it goes into the full drop, such a nice tune.br
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just need to get that arrangement nailed 100%!
Great feedback, thanks again for your time.br
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As you might have gathered I’ve struggled a little with this arrangement so its great you’ve given me a bit of a walk thru. Will go back to the drawing board.br
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I think you’re absolutely right about the epic length of this - will try and get it down to 7-8mins.br
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Cheers.br
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Wouldn’t worry too much mate - in my experience, arrangement is ALOT harder than most people think!br
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I think alot of people think that once you have the parts for a track, the rest is easy, but that’s not my experience! Arrangement requires just as much work as anything else to get it as perfect as it can be!br
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What really helps me - is once i have an arrangement that i think will work - i bounce the track down, stick it on a CD, and then get on my decks and mix the track into a couple of other tracks professionally produced tracks that i have bought - this is great because it gets the track out of the computer, and into as much of a real life scenario as you can get, once you are effectively sticking it in a mix.br
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Once i do this, i always invariably know what i have to change in the arrangement, as it’s really putting the track into it’s proper context.br
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Try bouncing it down and mixing it in with some other tracks - this should help.
Nice tip, thanks for that. br
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I just got hold of traktor so I’ll give that a go for sure.br
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Yeah, I never appreciated the skill of arrangement before working on this track, loving the challenge of learning though.