Two recent tunes by PMental. Extreme contrast... *updated*

[Programentalist]

... is what best describes the difference in style and tempo between these two tunes. At least the tempo.

EDIT
Ok, I've gone back to "Moving Out Of Silence" and tried to tame the overly compressed sound a bit, I've mucked with levels and I've also filtered the lead sound that comes at around 2 mins a bit and darkened it down a bit.
END EDIT

This is the first time I post anything here, but I thought since I get all my goods from KVR I should post the results here as well, hopefully getting some constructive criticism along the way...

The first one I just finished today, although finished is open for debate, I find a few things every time I listen that might need some adjusting, anyway:

"Laid To Rest" (~192kbit, 6.2mb), a very soft piece with some subtle melodic touches. I'm very happy with the chord progress and the general feel of the tune. It all started when I decided to try UGO's "String Theory" and immediately fell in love with one of the presets (you'll know which if you have it). Also used are Texture, MrRay73 and Triangle II, a bunch of drumsamples and various ampsims and plugs. I've played everything except the drums and the bass on my cheap midikeyboard and done some manual adjustments afterwards.

Now for something completely different, quite a contrast to the first one...

"Moving Out Of Silence" (~192kbit, 8.2mb), this one moves like a madman on crack! Well, it moves nicely anyway... some manic piano played by me, not the rhythm and the solo parts at the same time though, I've only had a keyboard for a few months, I used to program everything.The only programmed parts in this are the drums actually, and nicely moving drumparts they are if I may say so myself (may be the weakest part of "Laid to Rest" as it is), all in all I'm really happy with this one, it came together in just the right way. And yes, I know the piano is distorted...

So, enough of me praising my tunes, now you can thrash them

Comments on both music and sound/mixing welcome!

If the links won't work properly you can download and/or stream from here: http://www.musicv2.com/artist/programentalist

Maybe noteworthy is that apart from FL Studio, everything used is freeware (hardly anything of FL Studio's stuff either, mostly used as sequencer, I think I may have used the BooBass plug in Moving Out).

PS. Sorry about the big files dial-upers! I have a hard time compressing my music more than necessary...

[Sicklecell666]

I'll take a listen when I get home. Welcome to the Cafe

[Sicklecell666]

Wow man, great stuff! I really enjoyed 'Laid to rest' alot, you have excellent composing abilities and the track is very well mixed to my ears..I have a hard time criticizing much about it as everything sounds great all around to me..aside from maybe using a denser verb on some parts, but you heard my stuff; I'm a verbaholic

The second one needs a bit of remixing; it sounds overcompressed alot to me especially on the piano, but again, great composition on this one as well..I would probably change the guitary lead patches as they take away from the rest of the music in their current sounds.

Great debuts to the Music cafe especially the first track!

[Programentalist]

Cheers mate!

Yeah the overcompression was very apparent yesterday when I listened to "Moving out" right after "Laid to", guess I've been semi-aware of it (although when mixing my ears were tired) and have mostly listened to it in car stereos after that (where it's not so apparent, actually helps in some cases in the noisy car environment).

I may go back (or not, who knows) and do something with the synth you're talking about (it was never intentioned to sound like guitar though ) and ease down on the mix compression...

[austere]

This is pretty nice. Moving out of silence wasn’t really my cup of tea but there were some nice things in there. Like you’ve already established, it’s quite over compressed, which is a pity cause it did do some significant damage to the sounds.

Laid to rest is still not my standard fare but is more to my liking. Again it’s quite compressed but survives it a whole lot better than MOoS. It sounds very well balanced (soundwise) and very convincingly real. The part starting at ±3:40 to the end is nice. It really starts to evolve & develop there. Though overall for me the songs are bit too directionless / going nowhere (compositionwise) to keep my interest (I see you’re your doing but to me this style is kind of alien ), but you certainly do have talent & know what you’re doing. Thanks for sharing & welcome to the music cafe.


Ps. I like the pretty pictures of yourself there on the musicv2 page.
Pps. With a name like Programentalist I would have expected techno or something. It’s a cool name!

[mystahr]

Great sense of mixing and composing indeed; where somehow room is left for some great dark female vocals or something.

Impressive debut

Welcome aboard

[mayan]

laid to rest is quite cool...underwater music...it sounded appropriately bent and sorta low-fi-ish...cool piece and subtle beauty way in the background

really liked the piano thang - the piano did sound a bit flattened and harsh - but if that's the sound you were going for, hat's off...it did seem to trump the lead synth/guitar that comes in at the early 2:00 minute mark - but overall I think it's a great composition - cool break - the whole thing was faintly Beatle-esque. Excellent.

[Programentalist]

Cheers for all the comments... thanks for the praise and I see where you're coming from on all your criticisms. When (or if, but I really need to) revisit Moving Out of Silence to fix that compression issue I really should take a look at the first lead sound, it has been kind of nagging me, it works nice behind the second one but not so well solo.

Regarding Laid To Rest, it IS a bit slow in progress as it is, doesn't change much until the ending... I do actually have some lyrics written for it (it's pretty nicely laid out for it with verse-chorus-verse structure), the question is if I'll ever get around to recording them. I can sing, but I can't seem to get around to setting up my gear for recording vocals etc. Some day, when I'm ready.

Austere: Did you mean you felt Laid To Rest suffered from overzealous compression as well, albeit to a smaller degree?

Did anyone else feel/hear this? I must listen carefully again I think.

Altough I've listened to it plenty, it's really nice being able to relax and just listen to your song on repeat after it's finished and not bother listening to details because it just feels right... Happens when you've done something nice and is part of why I do this, it's a nice mix of a kick and relief at the same time.

[Programentalist]

Updated! See edited first post...