Breathe, and They May Hear You - ElectroProg (Seismic Displacement)

[D.H. Miltz]

My new favorite of yours. Excellent. Thanks.

[seismic1]

a paucity of drum machines / decided to ditch the Compressor and Limiter for this one.

good decisions.

all seriousness aside, I'm enjoying this.

It has a rich, 'thick' sound that isn't overly thick or squashed sounding. The mix is right.

I rarely use compressors in my mixes (maybe occasionally on a guitar or bass). My regular mastering chain features a compressor and limiter, but I like to retain a decent dynamic range and try to avoid any clipping.

I think these "softer" pieces without drums/percussion "breathe" better without those tools.

Thanks for listening, Jan, and for the great comments. Glad you enjoyed it

[jancivil]

Don't get me wrong, I'm anything but averse to using compression (you'd be shocked I think, how much I rely on it) but there is a certain result say with electronic 'drums' that I run away from.
You have a wildly different mode of operation than I so going much into it would look kind of self-involved.

[seismic1]

I just have one more thing to say :
Tim, you have to make more ambient tracks.

+ infinity.

I was waiting for the spaceship to fly through my window, or the alien abduction.
Sublime texture from start to finish.

Bravo

Thanks very much for taking the time to listen and comment, Mushy Mushy. Glad you enjoyed it

I will be making some ambient-style tracks in the near future, but I'm currently messing about with some Tech House. It's gotta be done

[Aleatoriac]

Nice wailing and despair at the beginning, yes this is a deep good one, out in the zone! Love it!

[seismic1]

solemn , and inevitable ...

Thanks for listening and commenting. I hope you enjoyed it.

Guilty on both counts.

E.C was here

[seismic1]

I'm not going to start breaking this down into plugins/equipment/technique and destroy the magic. I will just simply say this is very, very good dark ambient my friend. Would happily rotate this my Thomas Koner, Deathprod and Lull cd's. Top work DO MORE!

Hey, Loz. Thanks very much for checking this out. Really glad you liked it

I always tend to feel a little guilty when posting these tracks with an ambient tag, as I feel that the melodic/harmonic structures don't necessarily sit within the typical "ambient" definition, but I don't lose a lot of sleep over it.

I've heard "Daikan" by Köner, and that is an impressive piece of music, I'll have to check out the other two artists.

Listening to this again after the dust has settled, I can hear a slight Phaedra influence on here and a stronger one from Vivian Kubrick aka Abigail Mead who wrote the soundtrack for "Full Metal Jacket", specifically the scene where 'Joker' kills the sniper. That movie really made an impression on me, and the music in that scene is one of the darkest pieces of scoring that I can recall.

Hopefully I will be attempting some more pieces in a similar style later this year.

[Frantz]

Powerful. Excellent composition with some gorgeous sounds. Somehow both minimal and epic. At times quite dark but there are moments when there are breaks in the storm clouds and sunlight briefly flickers through. Profound and yet emotionally ambivalent.

There is some intentional distortion on some sounds. It mostly works well but if I crank up the volume it occasionally sounds a bit harsh and unpleasant as if there could be clipping somewhere in the signal chain. For example, at 7:24. The whole mix sounds good if I listen at lower volume.

[seismic1]

You seem to be moving more and more into the realm of soundtracks.
Nice suspenseful vibe, I am waiting for something to jump out from around the corner.

In my office, I have these small monitors which are very good at judging dynamics.
I use them to master tracks for the web because they distort rather easily.

I find that if my mix sounds good on them, it will sound great on most systems.

At about 3/4 threw they are distorting on the lower mids.
Perhaps the dynamics in that range may need some tightening up.

Otherwise thumbs up on another great cut.

Thanks very much for the listen and the comments, PatchAdamz. Glad you liked it

I attended the Ambient Music Conference in Helsinki last year. That event has certainly had an influence upon much of the music I have been making and many of the sounds that I use to make it. I've definitely been giving reverb a more prominent role in my recent pieces.

I'll check this out again at the weekend on both systems when I can turn it up a little, but it may be that the lower mid distortion is part of the character of the Tassman patches that I'm using. The peak on the master channel in the mix is around -5dB on here and all 3 mixer channels feeding it are below that. I do have an EQ boost on the master which I'll check later in the week. I think I centred that somewhere between 200-250Hz at approx +1.5dB. Maybe that was a little too much.

[seismic1]

Sensational track Tim. It is breathing in a tense situation set as music. I can hear the breaths and the inherent tension through the music. This track is so 'visual' it conjures up images by it self. You have a perfect amount of instrumentation and space...

Wow. Thanks for the fantastic comments, John. Glad you liked it and glad you connected with it in the way I intended

I may tweak the mastering EQ on here slightly at the weekend, but it will be a relatively minor change.

[jopy]

Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed listening to this very much; an excellent piece of ambient music with a great blend of timbres and a compelling progression of ideas.

[seismic1]

This is very pure. I love the unforced approach to your theme. It works. The sounds are strong!

At a moment you feel it is pulling away, it comes back to you. Brilliant.

Thanks very much for taking the time to listen and comment, Jon. Glad you enjoyed it

The composition here was very simple, as I was aiming for an "ambient" vibe. The soundset is basic (4 synth parts) but I chose the sounds with the atmosphere in mind, and knowing that I was going to add a lot of reverb to "smooth out" any rough edges.

[seismic1]

My new favorite of yours. Excellent. Thanks.

Thanks very much for listening, DHM. Glad you enjoyed it

[seismic1]

I just remastered this with a 0.6dB cut at 290Hz, a 0.2dB at 100Hz and a 0.3dB cut at 20Hz. I found that the original master was tickling the 0dB indicator in T-Racks after putting together a new chain for this track. This master is a little more restrained

[Frantz]

This master is a little more restrained

Yes, the distortion is slightly smoother in this version. I think it could be reduced a little more but it is a step in the right direction.

The other potential issue is the heavy sub-bass can cause vibrations in my room when listening at high volume. Notice the extreme low frequencies in Spek. If you decide to touch this again, you could consider high passing the mix.