Dirty producers: Song/remix compilation

[Camiel]

Holden, I really dig the artwork. Great job. I love all the contributions, but most of all I think that LX Nen and Sputnikk stand out the most.

[Strangelet]

wow you guys did a kick ass job. so many quality tracks. really liked the professor's, avid, lx nen, and probably my favorite is grandbrother and bb's awesome track. You two should cut an album.

[Sean]

Hey, thanks Strangelet. Yeah, I really like the vocals Janie came up with. If anyone's wondering what to get her for Christmas though, I think she wants a really good microphone.

A Gator Got Her - Involuntary Dub: Looking forward to hearing where this one ends up. It has a great spacy quality to it that I hope gets amplified by new elements that are introduced as it moves forward.

AViD - Sidewalk Dramas: I like when the guitar first kicks in on this one. It has a sort of nostalgic feel to me for some reason. I also like the switch between feels midway. Gives the track some great variety. I have found that I need to turn it down when the vocals start though....not because I don't like them, but because the levels on them are quite a bit higher than on the rest of the elements. Would be nice if they were more integrated into the track. But aside from that, it's a very nice track overall.

Cranks - A Whisper, A Glance: This is one of those tracks that I like more and more as it progresses. Starts simple, then adds another element that I really like. And then another, and another, and on and on. And it, like AViD's track, has a bit of a nostalgic sound for me. What is it with you people and zeroing in on my nostalgic feelings?

Dr. Processor - The Dumbest Thing I Heard a Smart Girl Say: Great atmosphere and production on this one. Sounds like you share my two chord tendencies. And actually, this one might end up as part of the soundtrack on the video I'm editing down from our last trip to Thailand.

Grandbrother - Midnight Dub feat. Janie H.: I'll take this opportunity to thank Janie for her vocal contributions on this track. They really did a lot to tie the track together in ways I hadn't expected when I first started working on the music. So thanks Janie!

LX Nen - D G L: I love the lushness of this track. And again with the nostalgia here for me! Fantastic work on creating a strong mood, and great production work to boot. One of my favorites for sure.

Maus - Island Hopping: Great, original sounding beats, layered again into some great production. I'm liking the Orbital-style chords, too. Excellent track!

Sputnikk - Firefly: Very nice, chilled dance track. It's one of those tracks where I don't mind that it's repetitive because I like what's being repeated so much.

tHe niGHt oWl - Weekend Cute: I first heard this track a while back on your MySpace page, and have wanted a copy of it since then. I was very glad to see it was the one you submitted for this compilation. Great late-night relaxing song. Might also end up on my Thailand video...

The Tin Foil Hats - Dreamgirl, I'm Desperate For You: Bust out the shiney silver jump suit and do the robot! Very fun combination of tight, retro dance with lush, atmospheric elements. It's a great, upbeat way to end the compilation.


Overall, this is an impressive compilation. The best I think I've heard out of this group. Thanks to everyone who made it all come together and who contributed tracks!

[maus]

just a quick heads up to everyone...

i still have to update the site with the artwork and a couple of tracks... apologies for not getting to it yet (been in the studio for 13+ hour days working on a deadline).

things should level out this weekend at the latest and i can sort it out.

great work all around...

rock on,
c

[King of Snake]

ok here's my track by track review, I've tried giving some constructive criticism as well

A Gator Got Her - Involuntary Dub
great title and this track has some nice dubby and atmospheric sounds. The production still needs work though, cause some sounds seem to be a bit hard to make out. Still, I know from experience that learning that kind of stuff takes years of practice and afaik you haven't been doing music that long. You're definitely on the right track with the ingredients, and I'm confident that if you stick to it, the technical side will follow.

Avid - Sidewalk Drama's
this opens with a cool, New Order-like groove with guitars, synths and drummachine.
I like the movement to a more intense and dark groove halfway trough the song and then back again. The instrumental outtro is well done as well. I had a hard time listening past the bad recording quality of the vocals though. Not sure what happened there. Your voice itself sounds good enough, but it sounds like it was recorded with a dictaphone or something. The whole track seems to have been recorded too loud as well, looks like it's clipping all over the place and it really messes up the sound. What's you recording setup? Are you checking your input levels when recording?

Cranks - A Whisper, A Glance
a slightly weird old-school and slowed down house beat leads the way into some beautiful melancholic melodies. Starting the hypnosis by repetition thing on me. This is pretty good stuff. Personally I'd try and update the drumsamples next time unless you really want to make it sound like 1991

Dr Processor - The Dumbest Thing I Heard a Smart Girl Say
you could say I'm a fan of Marshall Watso... *ahum* Dr Processor's work for some time now. Continuing his trademark drugged out ambient IDM-ish sound this track doesn't dissapoint.

Grandbrother - Midnight Dub feat. Janie H
this is my favourite track so far. I commented on it already earlier in the thread, saying that imo Sean had really nailed the Kruder & Dorfmeister sound on this one, and I can only repeat that sentiment here. A lovely chugging triphop beat, trademark electric piano, janie's minimalist vocal echoing in the background and the attention to detail in the production make for a nice journey into trippyness.

LX Nen - D G L
moving into Plaid-like territory here. There's fairytale synths combined with rigid drums. I really really like the synth ambience on this track, and good use of reverb and delays creating that floaty vibe. I personally thought the main drum was a bit too rigid and hammering for it's own good esp since the rest of the track sounds so organic, but there's plenty of cool sounds to make this track stand out anyway.

Maus - Island Hopping
the first thing that pops into your head when the first synth melody starts is "ORBITAL". Yes it definitely does sound very much like them, although the breakbeat is probably more heavy and pronounced than on actual Orbital tracks. I like it though Another winner!

Sputnikk - Firefly
well obviously I won't comment on my own track, other than to say I'm pretty happy with it myself.

tHe niGHt oWl - Weekend Cute
yeah this is very short but also very sweet. Not sure why you made it so short, for me you could have easily kept looping the whole thing for a while without me noticing

The Tin Foil Hats - Dreamgirl, I'm Desperate For You
The range of styles on this compilation is great. Here we have a classic electro sound, with robot beats, robot basslines and a robot voice. Dust off your 808's and vocoders! I guess it's a sound that doesn't really get old and it's good to actually have someone use the theme for the comp and make a vocal out of it. Indeed a good way to end to compilation.

[holden]

Hey all! thanks for your great comments on the tracks. I'm enjoying this more with each listen!
Since it's been brought up a few times, yeah, i agree that the vocals on my AViD track are quite high in the mix. If you saw my bedroom set-up, you'd laugh!
A laptop, a desktop comp, a couple mics, guitars and amps. Nothing fancy at all, and i'm sorry the track suffers from lower quality production values than most of these others.

The vocals themselves were recorded with a simple mic, then treated several times in Sound Forge and Acid Pro to get the level of vocoderization and distortion that i wanted, albeit with some clipping. The middle, harder part of the song has doubled-up vocals (trying to sound menacing here!), which also causes the levels to get hot.

[thee carp dreamer]

i've been insanely busy lately, so i didn't find time to submit my track (but i did get it finished) but i've just given all the tracks a listen and my faves are maus and dr processor. maus's one is mint! avid's starts off amazing too but the vox need some work. i'd love to make a remix of that track....all the tracks were quality effort though.
my track which i was going to enter is on my myspace which is http://www.myspace.com/lucidrhythms and it's called "the green room". enjoy.

[King of Snake]

Originally Posted by holden

If you saw my bedroom set-up, you'd laugh!
A laptop, a desktop comp, a couple mics, guitars and amps. Nothing fancy at all, and i'm sorry the track suffers from lower quality production values than most of these others.

nothing wrong with that setup man and no need to apologise for the production! I'd actually think that kind of setup is pretty much what most people here are using.
I believe one can still get great production values on just a computer and some plugins, or other minimal setups (and a computer can really be as minimal or maximal as you want, it all depends on what software you use)
I can also totally understand if you are consciously aiming for a distorted/rough kind of sound. Just make sure you take care when recording digitally, you cannot/shouldn't go over 0dB or "in the red". On an analog mixer you may get some nice warm overdrive by doing this, but in the digital world you're just losing data and get nasty sounding distortion.
Anyway, just kick me if you think I'm trying to be mr know-it-all but I think if you take a bit more care with your levels you could get a much better sounding result from a technical standpoint.
if in the end you think you're recording isn't loud enough, you can always use a limiter or preferable a multiband compressor to pump it up a bit without clipping the output.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by thee carp dreamer

i've been insanely busy lately, so i didn't find time to submit my track (but i did get it finished) but i've just given all the tracks a listen and my faves are maus and dr processor. maus's one is mint! avid's starts off amazing too but the vox need some work. i'd love to make a remix of that track....all the tracks were quality effort though.
my track which i was going to enter is on my myspace which is http://www.myspace.com/lucidrhythms and it's called "the green room". enjoy.

Nice track. Hopefully it can get added to the compilation page.

[galama]

I'm so glad you guys completed the project. I've been so busy that i couldn't follow this development...aand, as soon as this zip file is downloaded i'll enjoy in your work and later comment on it.